New Petitions

Good morning. We in the UK Men's Movement do not agree with or espouse the claim that all women fantasise about rape and would enjoy it. However, it is a tenet of faith of Glasgow rape crisis centre—formerly Strathclyde rape crisis centre—that all men are potential rapists. I have that here, in the centre's paperwork. The centre is funded and feted by Government and drives through legislation, whereas we in the UK Men's Movement are called extremists.Some of us have crossed swords before and there is no personal or ideological love lost between us. I lack the diplomacy and persuasive charm of the professional advocate, eschew euphemism and bare my fangs, which makes my task today far easier than the committee's. Members, not I, are the legislators. They must put aside personal dislike and ideology to debate an area of legislation that has enormous consequences for individuals whose fate depends on their integrity. I am talking about real people, not about statistics.Scottish National Party members will know Jim Fairley and his wife—they cannot come to today's meeting, because Jim is having a hip operation, but they have asked me to say that they support our petition absolutely. Quack therapists made their daughter mentally ill by constantly implanting the notion that she had been abused by Jim Fairley, but eventually—very belatedly—an investigation proved that to have been impossible. There are even worse casualties than the Fairleys, such as the McLaughlins and the Beatties, whose sons committed suicide, broken by the stress of having their character and reputation publicly destroyed, regardless of the fact that the court convicted the false accuser. Those young lads are the only ones of which we know—there may be more. However, they are male and therefore disposable. No one in authority is counting—is the committee?The Parliament and the Executive make much noise about their commitment to equality. I have seen little evidence of that when men ask for equality. We ask that the accused, who may be innocent, be given the same anonymity as complainers, who may be malicious. We do not ask for continued anonymity for the guilty or for the naming or punishment of the genuine victim.When members deliberate, they should take a moment to think of two young lads on the cusp of manhood who should be brimming with the zest, boundless optimism and joie de vivre of youth. They should think of the awful desolation to which those lads were reduced—so despairing that they put a rope around their necks and choked to death. Members should think of the parents who found them and those parents' months of despair and endless years of grieving. I have children whom I love, as members may have. I want my children to outlive me, as members wish their children to outlive them, but that will not happen for the Beatties and the McLaughlins. That is a tragedy that only members can prevent from happening to some other mother's son.

I am afraid not. The sentence that was imposed on Eilidh Connell, who made a false accusation of rape against Stuart McLaughlin, was for four months' community service. That is risible when compared to the penalty that would have befallen Mr McLaughlin had he been convicted.I can give many examples—I believe that there are some in our supporting evidence—of police not acting on a patently false accusation of rape. For example, there was a case in France in which no action was taken against a 14-year-old girl who made a false accusation, despite the fact that a girl had been raped and murdered a year earlier in France. A persistent culture in society insists that women should not be held to account. There are many examples of police or prosecuting authorities failing to take action when there is clear evidence of a criminal intent to malign people and to pervert the course of justice.A political energy exists that encourages rape complainers to come forward. It is wrongly perceived that deterring false accusers would discourage genuine victims from coming forward. It would not. We make no request for genuine victims who fail to secure a conviction to be charged. The standards of evidence that apply to any crime should apply to cases or charges of false accusation. In many cases, an accused may be found not guilty although he may be guilty, or he may be found not guilty because of a grey area in law. Furthermore, a woman might not have an accurate recollection of events because she had been drunk or for some other reason, so it would be improper to prosecute in such circumstances.

There is a whole gamut of issues, but what drives my petition is simple. I do not know what you are trying to imply, Mr McMahon, but a quest for simple justice is what drives my petition. I want the crime of rape and the dreadful crime of sexual abuse to be taken out of the arena of political zealotry, which has driven prosecutions.

I am sorry, but what you are saying is unclear. What are you asking?

In a left-handed way, I believe that that could happen. The low conviction rate is due to the weak link in the feminist attempt to use rape as a tool to vilify all men. The low conviction rate results from the decisions of juries, which are composed of men and women. Defence lawyers like to pack juries with women, because women jurors are not as gullible as male jurors are. As I said, jurors are responsible for the low conviction rates in rape trials. At the moment, there is a lack of credibility about those who cry rape. If that credibility were to be restored, that would encourage more genuine victims to come forward. I do not want to discourage genuine victims from coming forward to seek justice. A genuine victim has nothing to fear. I want to avoid the dreadful situation in which allegations of rape are being used as a tool of persecution against men, which affects not only men, but women and their extended families. The consequences are huge. Two young boys have died on the end of a rope and their mothers, fathers and siblings have to live with that for the rest of their lives. The matter should be addressed.

I have not got a clue, which is why I have asked for the research. I am quite willing to abide by the results of objective and politically untainted research.

Yes, but a lot of that research is tainted. I am sure that everyone around the table knows how research can be manipulated. I am willing to see neutral, quality, objective research into the subject acted on. I do not care whether that is to the detriment of my position. I am before the committee to try to seek justice. Equally, I want justice for genuine victims.

Yes, I know that it is a convention.

It would be a good idea to enshrine both in law. We considered posting on our website the name of a patently false accuser who had not been prosecuted, but we decided not to do that. We would rather let the civil process arrive at a just conclusion.

In the region of 400.

Absolutely, yes. Compared with female activism, male activism is small. Is our size in some way detrimental to us?

If I had a ha'penny for every time someone approached me in the street and said that they sympathised with me, we would be a rich and big organisation. As I said, compared with female activism, male activism is slight.

Absolutely. The long arm of political correctness reaches everywhere, as you well know. There is a factual inaccuracy in what you say. The prosecuting authorities prosecute with zeal. The Lord Advocate is a political appointee. He can be urged to act and to send out instructions to fiscals and others to act with zeal in the prosecution of accusers who have made patently false allegations of rape. Thanks to Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary's report on these issues, and thanks to the political thrust when charges are made, rape complaints are pursued to the point of idiocy. However, even the most ridiculous of complaints count towards the crime figures. That helps to explain the 7 per cent conviction rate. As I said, I have no doubt that guilty men go free. I abhor that as much as anyone else.

I am not here to increase the rate of reporting. There is a price to pay for justice. If I were the victim of a heinous crime, I would have to report it and face my attacker in open court. That is as it should be. A special provision of anonymity, and special treatment, are offered to those who have complained of rape. That is to be sensitive to the special nature of the trauma that they have undergone. I think that that is concession enough. Victims of other heinous crimes have no such provision made for them.

Yes, things are done by convention. However, I do not doubt for one moment that, if we broke the convention, Parliament would immediately legislate to make it law.

It would be, yes.

Might I have a drink of water, please? I am somewhat dry. Does your hospitality extend to a glass of water?

Preferably with no poison.

My definition is the same as the legal definition: it is the penetration of the vagina, forcibly and against the will of the woman. It is as simple as that. That is rape. I am aware that, at a certain stage of drunkenness, a woman is incapable of giving consent.

Yes—if the woman does not give her consent, that would constitute rape.

The convention of not reporting, which is codified in law in England, could equally open up the floodgates, with the result that no accuser, in any kind of crime, would be named. That will not happen.I want to bring in the gender issue. To put it plainly and simply, the majority of the accused—although not all—are men. I think that the situation is inspired by feminist venom—if they cannot get them through the courts, whether they are right or wrong, they will get them by destroying their reputation.

We are entitled to opinions, I believe.

I am in no way surprised.

I take your point seriously. I agonised about it and considered abandoning the anonymity part of the petition because of it. The issue troubled me greatly. What happened with the Soham murders was largely a failure of police intelligence, which will be addressed. The same system does not apply in Scotland. The police have considerable intelligence on people within and outwith their areas whom they perceive as a risk. They cannot take those people to court, because they lack evidence, but that intelligence is good enough in my opinion—I had a Scottish Criminal Record Office check just to go on my son's school trip. SCRO checks do not just investigate criminal records, which militates against the possibility of the situation that we are talking about arising.In addition, two young boys of whom we know have died as a result of the lack of anonymity. The situation balances out. The thought is horrendous: if I was responsible for a situation that gave rise to anything like the Soham killings, I would take that to the grave with me and have to meet my maker to answer for it. The issue has exercised me greatly, but in Scotland we now have the mechanisms in place to ensure that the situation does not arise.

Because for some reason society seems to regard rape and child abuse as more damning than murder. There are many murderers who have been acquitted wrongly and there are no mobs outside their homes. They do not have to relocate—

I mean actual murderers who have been wrongly acquitted. The courts have failed to deliver justice on some occasions. There are no mobs outside those people's homes. For some bizarre reason, the taking of a life is not as damaging to a person's reputation as a conviction for sexual offences is.

Absolutely. They are mentioned in the petition, if you read the evidence.

Yes, it was. What happened to the chap in Inverness was mob justice. They fired his house. They mobbed his house. They scrawled "Beast" and "Rapist" on the walls of his house.

Yes, but if he had not been named it would not have happened.

In the case of an attempted murder that leaves someone grievously wounded for the rest of their life, the accuser would not be granted anonymity; they would have to go and give evidence against the individual who tried to murder them. However, because rape happens only to women, a special case is made for women. Someone could be terrorised by gangsters—

I have no statistics on that.

I imagine that it occurs.

It is not relevant to what the petition is asking for.

Do not try to imply that I am unconcerned about the deaths—

Our agenda is to put forward men's issues, mainly family issues.

We are underfunded and undermanned and we cannot do everything.

It dealt with only one.

I am in no way surprised. I thank Brian Monteith.