Lucky me, this week was all about rape and sex - two diametrically opposed, but highly related bodily acts.
It all started with the court dismissing a woman's gang rape claim and this paper being first to publish it. As soon as the verdict went online, I started getting questions from my readers asking me if I was just going to sit there like a bump on a tree.
Most were women who felt outraged with the decision, and after reading the headlines I too got hot under the collar. So true to my nature I scanned all the press reports about the case, and also downloaded the 50 page final judgement.
If you're a glutton for punishment like me, then here's the full report for you to enjoy in all its juicy details – http://www.alisonbezzina.com/final-judgement-gang-rape alternatively, here's the gist of what happened:
Six years ago, three young men who are now in their late twenties, were accused of raping a girl who also happened to be the cousin of one of them. The event happened in an uninhabited house in Senglea when the girl was only eighteen years old. All three men, including the cousin, claimed that it was consensual sex, and that the woman had invited them to a sex fest. The girl, on the other hand, claimed that it was rape. Last week, the court, presided by Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera, found the three men not guilty.
Popular belief is that female Magistrates and Judges tend to be harsher when it comes to cases where rape or sexual abuse is concerned, so biased as I was I too was shocked to find out that the Magistrate took the word of three young men over the word of a young woman.
But, whilst I'm usually first to scream bloody murder against our justice system, upon reading the whole sentence, I have to say that I would have done exactly the same thing.
Granted, I might not have dragged the case for six long years, but as the Magistrate stated in her closing statement, when faced with two opposing versions of the truth, and enough reasonable doubt is shed on what actually happened, a court is obliged to presume the accused innocent.
Unlike what was insinuated in various parts of the press, it does not appear, that the fact that the woman had slept with her boyfriend that same morning, influenced the judgement at all.
On the contrary, the following were the salient points of the case which I believe led to the innocent verdict:
The three men were consistent in their version of the facts.The woman had a history of mental health problems. It took her almost twenty four hours to file a report with the police. Her cousin (another woman) testified that the alleged victim appeared normal after the alleged rape. The medical expert found absolutely no signs of violence, neither on the woman and neither on any of the three men.There were no signs of 'forced entry'. The four of them walked quite a long way from where they first met to where the dirty bits happened, and it appears that on the way the woman had ample time and opportunity to abandon the men or call out for help, but she didn't.
So, whilst the three men might not be the gentlemen you'd want your daughter to bring home for dinner, if they're truly innocent, they've been to hell and back in the past six years.
Silly them I say – all they had to do to avoid all this hassle was to move up North, because apparently, whilst it's illegal to rape someone in Senglea, it is perfectly all right to rape, even a minor, in Mtarfa.
I'm referring of course to the case of Godwin Scerri, the 75 year old former priest who was accused of raping a boy in St.Venera in 1992 and who got away with his crime, not because the court didn't believe that the rape took place, but because the paperwork mistakenly recorded that the rape took place in Mtarfa and not St. Venera.
As agnostic as I am, I just have to believe that there's a special place in hell for people who make these things possible!