Letter From the UK (About Show Trials)

Paedophilia and "Date-Rape"

It was Stalin who perfected the "art" of show trials.  Those identified as enemies of the Soviet Union had to be put through a public trial to confirm their guilt before they were executed.  In most cases, the "guilt" consisted of confessions extracted under relentless torture and accusatory statements of former acquaintances who feared a similar fate if they did not comply.  The general public in the Soviet Union loved it.

In the West we have gotten pretty close to show trials, sans the torture.  Peter Hitchens describes one such disturbing manifestation of the "art".  What is one of the last remaining sins which both public and officials condemn and excoriate alike?  Paedophilia.  And this in a context where virtually any sexual deviance or evil is now regarded, even lionized, as a human right, to be celebrated and defended at all costs.

The disapproval that used to be aimed at sexual deviation of all kinds has now been focused on paedophilia, the one sexual perversion of which liberals disapprove as much as the rest of the population.  Red light districts and blatant prostitution now flourish on the verge of legalization.  The laws against under-age intercourse are rarely reinforced.  In a recent case, police refused to prosecute a man in his twenties for alleged sexual relations with a thirteen-year-old girl because the girl herself had not complained and would not complain, despite the powerful evidence that an offence had been committed and the grief and distress of the girl's parents.  [Peter Hitchens, The Abolition of Liberty: the Decline of Order and Justice in England (London: Atlantic Books, 2003),   p. 45f.]

The public loathing and demand for vengeance against acts of paedophilia stands in strong contrast to the insouciant libertinism extended virtually to every other sexual sin.  It's almost as if by overreacting with  expressions of extreme disgust and moral outrage against pederasty the national conscience would attempt to make up for all other forms of sexual licentiousness.  

Perhaps this is why this offence, quite bad enough to start with, has become the focus for angry street demonstration and for special police and court procedures not applied to any other crime.  People accused of this offence--and it is important to remember that they are accused until convicted--are subject to trials that are often breathtakingly unfair.  Police are allowed to trawl for witnesses, childish denunciations are given the same weight as adult statements, under-age witnesses are protected from the normal rigours of cross-examination and guilt is effectively presumed from the start.  Dawn swoops, computer searches and similar tactics, often well publicised by press leaks, seem designed to show the police are doing at least one thing that is popular. . . . [Ibid.]

There will doubtless be some readers who are thinking, why does Hitchens protest so much?  Has he an axe to grind?  Ah, yes.  Snap.  Hitchens goes on:

One effect of this development is that perfectly reasonable doubts about such prosecutions are liable to be viewed as sympathy for child-molesters, by even well-educated and intelligent people who are unaware of the manipulation being practised upon them.  Some readers may even find themselves thinking that this passage is some sort of attempt to excuse or minimize paedophilia. No such statement is expressed or intended by the author, who views sexual assaults on children as serious offences deserving harsh punishment and who loathes pornography of all descriptions.  It is a sign that something is wrong with our laws and our society when such a disclaimer is necessary.  [Ibid.]

Hitchens goes on to take up the case of rape, and in particular "date-rape".  In this case, the public seem to have fitted date-rape into the dominant narrative of tolerable licentiousness, rather than a manifestation of exploitation by power.  But the state has diverged from the public's sensibilities about the matter.  To the state, "date-rape" violates feminist ideology and therefore approaches a capital crime.  "Date-rape" trials are  approaching the precincts of a show-trial.  To date, thankfully, the public is not buying it. 

Rape is now viewed as a crime against feminism rather than merely an offence against decency, kindness and trust.  Thanks to its new ideological importance this offence is treated with politicised horror and subject to special rules, notable the anonymity of the victim and restrictions on the right of the accused to defend himself.  The presumption of innocence is damaged beyond repair by the treatment of defendants and accusers in such cases.  Most such cases involve "date-rape" where both parties know each other and the alleged assailant claims that consent was given.  the name of the accused is made public, in a case there it is generally one person's word against another's and there are no independent witnesses.  Even if acquitted, he is subject to the exposure of his private life and behaviour which can never be expunged or forgotten.  The accuser, however, retains her anonymity even if the charge is dismissed.  This appallingly one-sided procedure cannot fail to impress jurors with the idea that the Crown's mind is already half made up before the trial has begun.  It also often fails in its objective.  A large number of rape cases end in acquittals, very probably because the law makes little distinction between "date-rape" and violent assaults by strangers, and juries are reluctant to convict on the basis of an uncorroborated accusation. [Ibid., p. 47]

The way successive governments have attempted to cope with this licentiousness-by-juries has been to move to raise the bar of evidence of consent.  Probably within a few short years, the male will have to produce a signed and witnessed affidavit of consent, notarised by the female's solicitor.