Opinion

Allison Morris: Judge Kavanaugh case is why victims remain silent

Supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018. (Saul Loeb/Pool Photo via AP).
Supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018. (Saul Loeb/Pool Photo via AP). Supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018. (Saul Loeb/Pool Photo via AP).

Even amid the turbulent politics playing out at home with RHI and Brexit, party conferences and rumours of leadership challenges creating headlines, the current American Supreme Court drama has had many of us gripped.

The saga of Brett Kavanaugh, the ‘frat boy’ turned American Supreme Court nominee, is the kind of event that perfectly sums up Trump’s America.

The marathon hearing in front of a Senate committee last Thursday, during which powerful evidence was heard from one of Kavanaugh's accusers, Dr Christine Blasey Ford, was bizarre, politically and personally disturbing by any standards.

The online comments that followed, some from women, mocking not just Dr Ford but any woman who dares to speak out about historic abuse, was shocking but really not surprising given the times we live in.

I’m sure there are women who have never been sexually harassed, abused, humiliated and in the worst cases raped. I don’t know any but I’m sure they exist.

As women we are taught to believe protection comes from asserting and empowering ourselves, both in society and in the workplace, powerful women, successful women, wealthy women, they are protected in a way that the vulnerable are not, right?

Well no, and what the case of Dr Ford has shown is that individual status is no protection.

A professor of psychology and research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, she a woman with status and yet that counts for nothing.

Predatory men in positions of power – well their reach, their ability to shape unfair laws, to set back years of equality campaigning and legislating - their power is all encompassing, all protecting, all powerful.

Judge Kavanaugh has issued blanket denials of alleged misconduct, but those declarations are in doubt with three women now having come forward to make allegations of sexual impropriety.

This is America though and under Trump anything can happen.

What the case does do is start conversations and very real debate about how to address the issue of sexual misconduct and exploitation of women, while at the same time not jumping so far to the other side that we dilute the words until such allegations become meaningless.

Back home and Sir John Gillen is currently reviewing the way sex assault cases are treated by the justice system in Northern Ireland.

While the review was sparked by the controversy over the Belfast rugby rape trial it has been a long time coming.

The current system is not victim centred, it is a brutal and blunt instrument.

Rape laws designed for a time when such attacks were thought to only be committed by a strange man in a dirty raincoat dragging his victim down an alleyway.

They are not designed for what the majority of sex assault cases come down to, and that’s the issue of consent.

I would argue that under current sexual assault laws it is impossible to prove consent beyond reasonable doubt.

Even in cases where there is physical evidence, blood, injuries, torn clothes, even witnesses reporting seeing complainants distressed - with a vigorous defence, consent will always come down to he said, she said and juries rarely believe what she said.

Rape myths account for much of this - why go with a man in the first place, why not scream, why not fight back, why wait days, weeks, months or years to report, why, why, why?

What were you wearing, how much did you drink, how many men have you been with in the past?

All designed to place doubt in the minds of a jury and doubt and the prosecution must prove its case beyond reasonable doubt, not the balance of probability but no doubt whatsoever.

I’ve yet to hear an explanation as to how that is possible in a consent rape case.

Earlier this year Iceland changed the law on consent for these very reasons.

Under the new law, consent must be clearly and voluntarily expressed, it places the consent burden on the accused – rather than the court focusing on whether the victim said 'no' or tried to fight back.

I’ve interviewed more abuse victims than I care to count, they are the days when I find it difficult to leave my job in the office, the days I struggle with the limitations of what I or anyone else can do to ease the pain and hurt of young women and men who have been physically and mentally violated.

The ill informed say we shouldn’t believe anyone who claims abuse until we’ve seen actual evidence.

Physical evidence in child abuse cases is rare, most people suffer in fear and silence until adulthood. Try telling a damaged adult that you want to see physical proof that they were raped as a child before you believe them.

The fear of not being believed is the reason the majority of victims will never go public.

And given events both at home and abroad over the last few years, that's entirely understandable.