Rape

Rape is the act of inserting a penis into a vagina, anus or mouth without the consent of the other party. The victim can be male or female but the main offence will usually only be committed by men, although a woman can be convicted of rape as a secondary party, e.g. if she acts with a man as part of a joint enterprise or if she aids and abets the rape.

Conviction for rape will almost certainly result in a substantial prison of many years term being imposed upon the offender and in very serious cases can result in a life sentence.

As awareness of rape has increased throughout society so has the pressure on police to prosecute those accused of rape, which in turn appears to have led to far less robust police investigations than you might have expected to take place. This has led to the wrong men being charged and even situations where wholly fictitious allegations have been brought to court against completely innocent men. For this reason, it is more important than ever before that you are properly represented by skilled solicitors who have experience of defending really serious sexual offences.

In R v DG, we acted for a man accused of imprisoning and raping a woman who was known to him. DG denied the accusations saying that he had only ever had consensual sex with the woman who he knew as a prostitute and whom he had paid for the sex. We were able to show the jury that the woman had made a previous allegation of assault against DG that she had refused to prosecute immediately before she accused him of the rape, which she said took place before the assault allegation was made. DG was acquitted at trial.

We represented DV when he was accused of possessing tens of thousands of indecent images of children as well as of raping and indecently assaulting a 15 year old schoolgirl and her 11 year old sister both of whom lived next door. DV accepted possession of the indecent images but denied the rapes and sexual assaults. We were able to show the jury reasons why the girls might have made false allegations against DV and he was acquitted of all the rapes and sexual assaults.

In another case, we represented RW who was accused of raping and sexually assaulting his daughter throughout her teenage years. He denied the allegations. With the aid of our expert Counsel we fought RW’s trial and convinced the jury that he was not guilty of all six of the rape charges he faced and five of the six sexual assaults – he was convicted of the least serious sexual assault allegation.