England: Retired judge defends colleague over rape comments

Judge Mary Jane Mowat told The Times that the comments directed at Judge Lindsey Kushner last week made her “furious” and criticised Dame Vera Baird QC, Northumbria’s police and crime commissioner, for her assertion that Judge Kushner was blaming victims.

Judge Mowat said: “It is absolute nonsense. We are just pointing out the obvious and speaking from professional experience of witnessing the ordeal that women go through at trial.

“Rape is a vile crime and one of the lowest of the low and these comments are not to belittle it. Of course the assailant is responsible for any such attack, but if women become drunk they are putting themselves in danger.”

At Manchester Crown Court last week, Judge Kushner, sitting in her final case, said that there was “absolutely no excuse” for sex attacks but added that men seek out vulnerable women.

Dame Vera called the comments “victim-blaming”.

However, Judge Mowat described this response as “predictable”.

She said: “What Judge Kushner and I said was borne of our very unhappy forensic experience, where we have seen time after time a sexual assault case involving a witness intoxicated, and seen the ordeal they have had to go through, not just because of the event but because of going to court and all that that entails.

“They have to suffer as a result of laying themselves open and the extensive cross-examination, but conviction is difficult as so often the allegation relies on one word against another, and if a woman was intoxicated and did not realise the impression her behaviour was having, or not realising sometimes what occurred, either clearly or not at all, a jury faces an impossible task in conviction.”

Judge Mowat came under fire herself three years ago for linking the low rape conviction rate to women’s drunkenness.