Unit 3 Assignment 4 Current Affairs, Media and Support
P7
Name of the issue: Rape victims and phones
Author: Lizzie Dearden
Title of article: Rape victims to mount legal challenge over police demands for phones and personal data
News Source: Independent
Date published: 30 April 2019
About the news:
Rapists are escaping the sentence/prosecution because the victims don’t want to hand over their phones, and don’t offer full support the police during the
investigation. The police asked the victims to reveal the passwords of their phones, computers and tablets, but the victims refuse even if the police are
allowed by the lawyers to trawl through tests, email, photographs and social media posts. In these cases, the case might drop if they fail to agree. This has a
negative impact on the victims and on their family, because obviously no justice has been done. A long term consequence can be the fact that if the
offender is outside free it can commit the crime again, and this can happen with the same woman, or with other women, and it will appear that the only
person responsible for this will be the first woman because she refused to present evidence in from of the police when they needed support from her.
The police said that this idea of asking the victim’s mobile phone as an evidence wasn’t their idea, and they blame the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) of
“raising the bar” for evidence needed. And this is slowing down investigations and causing victims to drop out.
P7
Name of the issue: Rape victims and phones
Author: Lizzie Dearden
Title of article: Rape victims to mount legal challenge over police demands for phones and personal data
News Source: Independent
Date published: 30 April 2019
About the news:
Rapists are escaping the sentence/prosecution because the victims don’t want to hand over their phones, and don’t offer full support the police during the
investigation. The police asked the victims to reveal the passwords of their phones, computers and tablets, but the victims refuse even if the police are
allowed by the lawyers to trawl through tests, email, photographs and social media posts. In these cases, the case might drop if they fail to agree. This has a
negative impact on the victims and on their family, because obviously no justice has been done. A long term consequence can be the fact that if the
offender is outside free it can commit the crime again, and this can happen with the same woman, or with other women, and it will appear that the only
person responsible for this will be the first woman because she refused to present evidence in from of the police when they needed support from her.
The police said that this idea of asking the victim’s mobile phone as an evidence wasn’t their idea, and they blame the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) of
“raising the bar” for evidence needed. And this is slowing down investigations and causing victims to drop out.
