there is everything you can do about it.
You were raped. You can report it now and still press charges.
I can remember everything - down to what I was wearing and the food I'd had for lunch. I know you don't want to but I bet you can too. It's obviously still affecting you.
(Poppet some assembly required., Mon 18 May 2009, 14:52, 2 replies)

The conviction rate
for rape is something like 8% in the UK.

It's going to come down to one person's word against another as it's been described in this post.

The law only works if a case - regardless of the charge brought - can be proven "beyond reasonable doubt".

My advice about not acting on this in a legal sense is based on this understanding of the law. Obviously, consult a lawyer rather than some spod off the internet - but I don't think - EVEN THOUGH IT WAS RAPE - that the CPS would prosecute.
( I_Was_Mordred, Mon 18 May 2009, 15:02, closed)

"EVEN THOUGH IT WAS RAPE"
Yes, it was rape. But in the absence of evidence, what can you expect them to do, rape or not?

The conviction rate is 8% not because the legal system is soft on rapists- it's just that the other 92% is made up of cases with incomplete (or a complete lack of) evidence as well as outright fabrications or what have you.

No, it's not a pleasent crime and no, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But nor would I prefer that 92 innocent (or not proveably guilty) people get locked up for every 8 "genuine" convictions.
And anyone who says differently should have a wholly unfounded rape allegation raised against them, and ideally should be hauled through the Press and the court of public opinion before getting to a proper evidence-based trial and having people call you a liar, scum and a rapist even as you're found utterly not guilty (and get added to a register anyway, just in case).
( uberdeity Wondered why Owen Lars knew of the term "hell" on, Mon 18 May 2009, 16:23, closed)

I knew
my response wouldn't go down well.

I'm not expecting "them" (i.e. the legal profession) to do anything about it. Primarily because of the lack of evidence and the fact that the law does presume innocence unless there is absolute proof.

Which is a good thing.

And BTW I was accused of abusing my eldest child by my ex (one of the many people I don't hate who I should do) and was arrested for it, with the CPS subsequently not prosecuting. Still, that meant 8 years of my daughter's life that I lost, so the damage was done anyway.

I'm neither touting the line than all men are rapists or that the law should function differently from the way it does now.
( I_Was_Mordred, Mon 18 May 2009, 17:18, closed)

As a fellow Victorian...
I had a long and painful experience trying to get the guy who assaulted me convicted (friend of a housemate at the time).

The cop running the case questioned his friends, giving him advance warning, and then went on leave for a month.

They eventually threw it out without holding him or anything as I'd been drinking (they were plying me, I was 16 at the time and asleep!), and had showed him 'sexually explicit material' (he saw some photos in my room of some friends and I in bathing suits on a recent uni camp). Oh, and I'd fought him off before he'd been able to rape me so there was no physical evidence.
(Angie the Redneck Wonder, Tue 19 May 2009, 10:19, closed)