Book Review: Rape on Trial
| Date | 01 June 1988 |
| Author | Jocelynne A Scutt |
| DOI | 10.1177/000486588802100206 |
| Published date | 01 June 1988 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
AUST &NZ
JOURNAL
OF CRIMINOLOGY (June 1988) 21 (121-128)
BOOK REVIEWS
121
Rape on Trial, Zsuzsanna Adler, Routledge &Kegan Paul, London and New York
(1987) 195 pp, $69.95 (hardback).
Rape on Trial begins with a foreword and two introductory chapters, titled
"The
Trouble with
Rape"
and "The Legal Origins" which place the crime of rape in its
social, political and legal context and indicate the basic rationale for this book: that
rape law in text and in action has something decidedly wrong with it, and both the
law and the action must be changed.
The argument for change arises both out of Zsuzsanna Adler's dissection of and
discussion about rape cases as reported in the media and debated generally within
the community, and the limitations of rape laws as existing in the United Kingdom;
and her analysis of a random 85% of rape trials heard at the Old Bailey (Greater
London's Central Criminal Court) during a one year period (which year was not
clear to this reader, but it will have been the late 1970s or early 1980s). The case
analysis is contained in five chapters -chapter 4, "The Limits of Anonymity";
chapter 5,
"As
His Lordship Pleases"; chapter 6,
"The
Importance of Being
Perfect"; chapter 7,
"The
Prime Suspect"; and chapter 8, "Verdict, Mitigation and
Sentence".Chapter 3, which precedes the case analysis and is titled
"Rape
Cases
at the Old Bailey", looks generally at the background to rape trials: there is an
"overwhelming male presence" in courts, and nowhere more so than in sexual
offence cases, concludes Adler. This presence arises out of the fact that judges are
mostly men (and in the trials under consideration were all male); 90% of barristers
appearing on either side in rape cases are men; and all offenders are male where the
crime is rape. (Rape on Trial notes one factor of interest regarding women
appearing as counsel in rape trials: "such women as do appear in rape trials tend
to prosecute rather than defend". This runs against the idea, depicted in films or
television programmes, that a man on trial for rape can often escape conviction
through representation by a woman as defence counsel, and all that this
representation means in the eyes of the jury and for the woman who is being
cross-examined as victim.)
The book concludes with chapters 9 and 10, "Lessons from Abroad" and
"An
Insoluble Problem?" In chapter 9 changes to laws in the United States (in
particular, Michigan), Canada, and Australia (particularly Western Australia,
South Australia, New South Wales and, marginally, Victoria) are compared and
contrasted with changes - and lack of changes - in the United Kingdom. Adler
concludes that those changes which have been introduced in the jurisdictions whose
laws are discussed in "Lessons from Abroad" should be implemented in England.
These include
aredefinition
of rape to include various forms of sexual assault;
abandonment of the corroboration rule; abandonment of the "prompt complaint"
rule; the introduction of clear guidelines to be followed by judges in disallowing
questioning as to sexual history of the rape victim; the abolition of the rule that a
boy under 14 cannot be charged or convicted of rape; and abandonment of the
"rape charter for husbands" - the idea that a man can never rape his wife (or, at
least, never be prosecuted for it).
For Australian readers, much of Rape on Trial will be all too familiar - the
blatant questioning about sexual activity; the innuendo directed at the woman
To continue reading
Request your trial