Editor’s Note:
This article contains discussion of rape and sexual assault that some readers may find distressing
When Sinead found out that her rape report was one of the 2% that would lead to a prosecution that year, she felt “triumphant”.
“I felt like I was doing it for other women,” she told the latest episode of the Media Storm podcast. “I felt like I was one of the lucky ones.”
But she said the “abuse” she faced in and after court was worse than the abuse that put her there, not least because the legal professionals involved “were paid to do it”.
The worst part? Beyond her cross-examination, she doesn’t know what happened. He was found not guilty, and she doesn’t know why.
Sinead is not alone.
Many of the “lucky ones” never see the trial they’ve fought so hard to make happen, because they are advised by police and prosecutors not to sit in, and then charged tens of thousands of pounds for the transcripts. That’s like a postman pocketing your parcel to ‘prevent damage-in-transit’ and then charging you for his written review of your product.
Behind this enterprise of court transcripts is a government contract worth £17 million, given to six companies revealed to Media Storm via Freedom of Information, some of whose accounts show profit margins five times worth the cost of goods.
So, is this a situation of private firms getting rich off rape victims’ desperation? Or is it a question of judicial transparency? Given we all know how rape victims get spoken about in court, is it in somebody’s interest to keep things off-the-record?
To find out, you’ll have to listen to the latest Media Storm podcast. This column is about the media’s role in contributing to a culture in which most victims are humiliated by ‘justice’ and most sexual offenders walk free.
Let’s start with terms like ‘underaged women’.
Within five days of Jeffrey Epstein being arrested on sex trafficking charges, media outlet Jezabel counted more than 90 radio and TV mentions of ‘underaged women’ alongside Epstein’s name. Are we crazy or do we already have a word for ‘underaged women’… grill, girdle… gull? The BBC and ITV share a recent headline about a “police trainee sacked for non-consensual sex”. Again, do we not – are we crazy – have a word for “non-consensual sex”?
“Call it for what it is,” said Dr Leyla Hussein, “it’s rape.” The Somali-born British social activist spoke in Media Storm’s first episode about rape justice and the media (there have been many since, it’s a topic that keeps on giving).
Such language affords grace to perpetrators and instils misogynistic bias in would-be jurors in the public. Media outlets habitually use the term ‘sex’ to describe rape.
“Swindon man jailed for sex with teen girl”, “Tamworth man pleads guilty to having sex with teenager in car”, “Youth worker from Northumberland jailed after having sex with teen”. Reporters of regional Britain: one need not plead guilty of sex; one need only plead guilty of rape.
One of the most common mainstream media myths is that rape is about sex, rather than power or control or misogyny or violence. This has legal ramifications: defendants are acquitted by juries who can be persuaded they didn’t even fancy the victim.
One survivor who spoke to the podcast, Alison Turkos – a bisexual American woman who was rocking a close crop when, she said, she was gang-raped by her Lyft driver and accomplices – was advised by police to grow her hair long for the trial, because juries “don’t think men want to rape queer women”.
Another rattrap of the press: our media disproportionately reports on ‘fake’ rape accusations (see what 50 Cent’s up to). The UK’s Crown Prosecution Service puts the likelihood of these at about 0.6% – below rates for most other crimes (men are more likely to be raped than to be falsely accused of rape). Yet, we rarely read about false mugging allegations. Indeed, the Post Office got to falsely accuse