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Cue outrage! Judge lets man off rape charge. Now we all know that there are judges that can and do make dud decisions. So its good to see when a judge makes the right call, especially when its one that’s not “politically correct”. A newspaper reports.
A well-known Bay of Plenty man accused of raping a teenager in Wellington has been acquitted – with the judge saying “intoxicated consent is nonetheless consent.”
The complainant, now aged in her 30s, was in college at the time and told the court she and the defendant began drinking together after meeting at a Wellington bar.
She alleged she had sexual intercourse with the defendant that night but did not recall how she got to the defendant’s room.
[…]Judge Paul Mabey QC, who presided over the judge-alone trial, read his verdict to the court today.
[…]Judge Mabey said the Crown relied on a “circumstantial case” that the complainant was so drunk she was incapable of freely giving her consent, nor had the defendant had reasonable grounds to believe she was consenting.
“The defence position is that the evidence does not go that far and I cannot be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the Crown has … consent.”
Judge Mabey said while the complainant’s memory of events was sporadic and in the form of “snapshots” she was able to inform a friend she was going off with the defendant.
“She was sufficiently in control of her mind at that point to be able to not only make a decision to call her friend but to tell her what her plans were,” he said.
“I do not consider the complainant’s evidence to be sufficiently reliable for me to conclude that matters were as she says. Her reconstruction of past events is infected with unreliability as demonstrated by the evidence of other witnesses,” he said.
Judge Mabey said the complainant’s actions in going to the motel and the detail she was able to give her friends was consistent with consent.
“I accept that she was intoxicated but an intoxicated consent is nonetheless consent.”
Great call. Note how in these sorts of cases that the woman is never charged with rape even if the guy was just as a drunk as she was, as if women are incapable of taking responsibility for their own actions.
I find it incredible how a heinous crime like rape has become so watered down that it is no longer about violence but has become “he should have known having sex wasn’t the right thing to do, therefore I was raped”. Couple that with the idea that consent can be withdrawn retroactively and you have the situation where men start wondering if approaching women is worth the risk.
Good on the judge. The guy charged obviously did the wrong thing but it wasn’t rape. Drunken consent is still consent. Regret is not rape.
