If a Rape Victim Was Drunk, Should the Defendant be Acquitted?

In a letter to a newspaper, Judge Philip Shorrock suggested rape prosecutions are harder to prove when the victim was either drunk or high, and has now been reprimanded by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office.

His comments were made after a number of trials in which men were acquitted after allegedly raping women that were too intoxicated to provide an accurate testimony of the rape.

He told the newspaper that men were ‘usually and unsurprisingly acquitted’ by juries and insinuated that some cases should re-trial.

The Lord Chief Justice and Lord Chancellor have justified the reprimand on grounds that Shorrock “had commented publicly on a politically sensitive issue without seeking guidance from the relevant leadership judge and that his behaviour amounted to misconduct.”

This mirrors the opinion expressed previously by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, who implied that Judge Shorrock’s comments led to perpetuating ‘the victim-blaming rape myths’ that ‘allowed sexual predators to offend with assumed impunity in days gone by.”

Shorrock told the Daily Telegraph: “The complainant and the defendant know one another. One or both has or have been drinking and or taking drugs. Each gives a plausible enough account as to what happened. There is no independent evidence which tends to suggest the complainant is telling the truth.

“In such circumstances the defendant is usually and unsurprisingly acquitted. Perhaps the CPS understands the words “realistic prospect of conviction” to mean something which is not obvious to the rest of us.”

Earlier in 2017, retiring judge Lindsey Kushner QC said males were likely to take advantage of intoxicated women, stating that “a girl who has been drunk is less likely to be believed than one who is sober.”