Newsletter for November, 2019

News Summary

 

Most on my mind this month are two trials: the Cyprus Ayia Napa Rape Trial and the Grace Millane trial in New Zealand. In the Cyprus trial it appears the victim has been raked over the coals of local police incompetence. In the Millane trial, a murder trial, the defense alleges that the victim’s death occurred due to “rough sex gone wrong.”

Two international events have been recognized, one in Bangladesh and another in Afghanistan.

Betsy DeVos has been active this month and it looks like she is ready to issue more proclamations protecting young men against vengeful females. It seems as if she just can’t do enough.

Lastly but importantly, the Rich and Famous have been very much in the news this month. You can have your pick of Roman Polanski, Jeffrey Epstein, Michael Jackson, Bishop Pell and the ever popular Donald Trump. 

 

Cyprus Ayia Napa Rape

 

There has been some news in in the Cyprus Ayia Napa case but what I hope to be the final trial won’t happen until mid-December. A British teen reported to the police that 12 Israeli teenagers gang raped her on July 19, 2019. Lawyers for the Israeli boys arrived in force and shortly afterward the Cypriot police browbeat the girl until she recanted. All 12 of the Israeli teens were sent home to a hero’s welcome at the airport. Even though there were videos and photos of the alleged rape admittedly on the boy’s cell phones all their phones were returned to them and no recordings were made. There was also no video made of the girl’s recanting. The British girl was jailed awaiting trial on a charge of malicious mischief. Her passport and personal documents were confiscated. A British lawyer appeared along with her parents. After a month in jail, they were able to secure her release but she had to report daily and they kept her passport. There was a trial on Thanksgiving Day attempting to prove that the confession was bogus because the girl had PTSD when she wrote it, and that it was not the language of an educated Brit but sort of a pigeon English. Her lawyer claimed that the girl was bullied while in an emotional state. The Judge found the confession legal despite testimony by experts questioning it’s authenticity. A trial will be held sometime in mid-December to decide her guilt or innocence on the malicious mischief charge. Something is very wrong with this case.  

 

Grace Millane Trial

 

This is a murder trial not a rape trial but if it were not for the type of sex involved, there would not have been a murder trial at all. British backpacker, Grace Millane, aged 22, was strangled by her Tinder date, aged 27. What is at play here is an increased interest, especially in New Zealand, in the use of EA or erotic asphyxiation to increase orgasm. Grace was young and apparently an experimenter. I can remember myself at her age. I was invincible and it didn’t cross my mind that I could be raped or even killed while I ad-ventured out into the world. Grace was on an around the world backpacking trip. That’s a girl wanting to see the world, ready for any adventure that might come her way. Then she met her killer on the date app, Tinder. The two had drinks and went up to his room. Grace never left alive. Her date, whose name cannot be released, didn’t panic. He “calmly and cooly” stuffed her in a suitcase. The next day he left the suitcase and body in his room and went on a second Tinder date. Afterward, he took the suitcase to the “mountainous Waitākere Ranges outside Auckland.”

 

That’s where he left her. EA takes the question of consent to an entirely new level. Is it even possible to consent to death? Is it possible when you are drunk? The defense attempted to prove that it was a case of “choking during sex gone wrong.” 

The case is also about the the way in which the three women who had previously had sex with the defendant were treated when they testified at the trial.  The Guardian’s Samantha Keene wrote “The same issues of blame, shame and harrowing cross-examinations were present in Millane’s murder trial. They should not have been. The defence’s cross-examination of a brave young woman who had previously had sex with Millane’s murderer was shocking. She was accused of being “melodramatic” and it was suggested she was making up her disclosure of his sexually violent behaviour. All of this was to discredit her evidence and to help shape a version of Millane’s murderer as a good guy who just ‘panicked’.”

The defendant, he whose name cannot be exposed to the public, was eventually found guilty of murder.

 

Bangladesh’s Rape Camps

 

August 15, 1947 was the date that East Bengal became a nation. It ended British occupation but Bangladesh didn’t become a sovereign nation until the 1971 when it was liberated from Pakistan in the war for independence. 

During this war almost 200,000 Bangladeshi women were abducted and taken to serve in rape camps by Pakistani soldiers. The men carried the women with them using them sometimes as human shields. War is harsh to say the least.

A new documentary, Rising Silence, is giving a voice to these women and the atrocities they suffered. I hope I have an opportunity to see it.

 

 

Afghanistan Paedophile Ring

 

A paedophile ring has been abusing young boys, over 500 of them, videotaping the abuse, and posting the videos to a facebook page.  School teachers, headteachers and other authority figures are members of

the ring. Some boys have been murdered to cover it up and 5 families killed their own children when their faces appeared on Facebook. 25 families relocated. 

The shame radiating out from sexual abuse affect not only the boy but his immediate and extended family, his province and the country as well. Afghanistan has been at war or something vaguely resembling war for 20 years. That’s reality for the Afghan people. How will they ever recover? 

Shame lingers in the minds and hearts of everyone it touches. It crushes anger into a tiny hole in the heart where it festers like a weeping sore. Sexual shame can only be overcome by bringing everything into the light of day. It needs an airing like a musty blanket or an closed up house. Male on male sexual abuse creates a special kind of shame. Even a hero finds it hard to go on.

 

Betsy DeVos

 

A new plan will allow schools to choose between which standard of proof they will require – either “preponderance of the evidence” or “clear and convincing evidence.”  I’m happy “beyond a reasonable doubt” will not be required. I know it is beloved of lawyers because it is a standard of proof that is almost impossible to prove in most rape cases.

The other important change is not so acceptable. It will allow cross-examination by lawyers for the rapist. Schools and universities had been one way around the biased legal landscape of our unfair justice system. Women will be less willing to come forward if they have to go through the shaming cross-examination of an experienced criminal lawyer. 

Josh Richards, an attorney with Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr in Philadelphia, who has experience in such cases says, “The addition of direct confrontation is both unnecessary, potentially traumatic and without any meaningful addition in a truth-seeking function.” He further suggests that a neutral investigator be allowed to ask questions of both parties. I agree. Our traditional adversarial legal system is unnecessarily traumatic. Adjudicating rape is not a debate or a battle to be won or loss. It is finding the best solution for everyone.  

 

The Rich And Powerful

 

As promised this will be a full section this month. I have Roman Polanski, Jeffrey Epstein, Michael Jackson, Bishop Pell and Donald Trump to get through so let’s get started.

 

Roman Polanski  

 

I’ve been wondering about Mr. Polanski for a long time, not because he was accused of sexual abuse by a 13-year-old but because I felt he sexually abused Maria Schneider, the young actress who played opposite Marlon Brando in the 1973 film, Last Tango in Paris. I wrote out my frustration and anger in a blog post in 2014. It seems a century ago. Polanski moved to France, a country renowned for its liberal views.

Post #MeToo movement, he is being ousted by the A.R.P., La Société civile des Auteurs Réalisateurs et Producteurs, an association of film directors whose members include Gérard Depardieu and Claire Denis. If it goes through as planned Roman Polanski will no longer be a celebrated person in France. This is cause for a tiny celebration. If it hadn’t been for the #MeToo movement, this never would have happened.  

He is facing a new allegation of the rape of an 18-year-old in Switzerland in 1975.  

 

Jeffrey Epstein

 

He’s dead but still causing problems. His girlfriend and sex facilitator, Ghislaine Maxwell, is in deep hiding and cannot be found. Virginia Giuffre attests that she had a sexual encounter with Prince Andrew at Maxwell’s house.

A new suit against Epstein’s estate was filed by Teala Davies who was a self-described “perfect victim” for Epstein. She had a difficult childhood which included being homeless at age 11, according to her lawyer, Gloria Allred. “According to the lawsuit, Davies was raped and sexually abused by Epstein at his residences in New York, Paris, Florida, New Mexico and the US Virgin Islands.” She is one of about a dozen women who have sued the Epstein Estate. 

The fallout from Jeffrey Epstein’s sex activities are likely to remain in the headlines for at least a decade to come. We can count Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell in on that as well.

 

Michael Jackson

 

James Safechuck and Wade Robson allege that Michael Jackson repeatedly molested them when they were boys. A California appeals court appears inclined to reopen the lawsuits that were dismissed in 2017. 

A California appeals court appeared strongly inclined on Monday to give new life to lawsuits filed by the two men who accuse Michael Jackson of repeatedly molesting them when they were boys.

In a tentative ruling, three judges said that lawsuits from James Safechuck and Wade Robson against two corporate entities that Jackson owned should be reconsidered by the trial court that dismissed them in 2017.

Should there be a time limit on how long it is possible to bring a lawsuit against a paedophile? That’s one of the questions being considered. Should there be a limit on murder? Should there be a limit on rape? These questions are a good sign. Our society is beginning to rethink some of it’s old outdated mores. 

 

Cardinal George Pell 

 

Chrissie Foster, whose daughters were abused by a paedophile priest, complained that “George has had the best of everything, the best defence money can buy, the best county court judge, and three top minds in the appellate court judges who heard the first appeal. And it feels now it’s all back to square one. It really is upsetting. What do we have to do to have this conviction stick?”

It looks like this will be the final appeal. Although a date has yet to be set, the trial is planned for early 2020 with a full bench of seven judges. I hope this is final. I echo Chrissie Foster’s comment. He is both a proven paedofile and a protector of paedofiles. Why waste so much time trying to get him off. 

 

Donald Trump

 

E Jean Carroll, who accused Donald Trump of raping her in the mid-1990s is suing Trump for defamation of character. She detailed the rape in her new book, What do We Need Men For?

Trump, of course, came out fighting. He said he never met her but that was disproven. There’s a photograph. Trump also said that she was “totally lying” and that she wasn’t his type. He also said there should be grave consequences for her accusations which sounds like a threat to me. He said, “Shame on those who make up false stories of assault to try to get publicity for themselves, or sell a book or carry out a political agenda. It’s a disgrace and people should pay dearly for such false accusations.”

Why is this so great? It’s because men usually get away with slut shaming a woman who accuses them of rape. This is the kind of lawsuit women need to bring against men who tell whoppers about them. You go girl. We need many more like you.