Helen Mirren: 'Jealous' female jurors think rape victims are ‘asking for it’
Ignorance masquerading as knowledgeability is harmful.
Helen Mirren photo courtesy The Times
Months after she declared that cases where women are raped after willingly going to bed with a man should not come to court, Dame Helen Mirren further pontificates on female jurors in rape prosecutions, saying 'they tend to think the victim was 'asking for it'.
In September Dame Helen told GQ magazine that if a woman voluntarily ended up in a man's bedroom, took her clothes off and engaged in sexual activity, she still had the right to say 'no' at the last second.
If the man ignored her, she said, that was rape. But she continued: 'I don't think she can have that man into court under those circumstances.'
She suggested that women jurors are less likely to convict a rapist since they tend to think the victim was 'asking for it'.
'Whether in a deep-seated animalistic way, going back billions of years, or from a sense of tribal jealousy or just antagonism, I don't know.
'But
other women on a rape case would say she was asking for it. The only
reason I can think of is that they're sexually jealous.'
'This is a vast generalisation based on nothing, but unfortunately it is likely to have a deterrent effect.
'It's such a shame that a person who has a high profile feels qualified and able to put forward this nonsense. It's capable of being quite dangerous because someone in that position saying that sort of thing, suggesting that she knows more than she actually does.
'It's hard enough for victims who often feel guilt and shame to come forward in the first place. But to put forward this false idea that some covert conspiracy exists in the criminal justice system is very ignorant and totally and utterly wrong.'
Polls suggest between a quarter and a third of Britons believe a rape victim is largely responsible for an attack if she is drunk or wearing revealing clothes.Read the entire Sunday Times Magazine article.
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