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Human Rights Act Used By Teenage Rape Victim Who Police Didn't Believe - And Then Arrested For Lying

Human Rights Act Put To Excellent Use By Young Rape Victim The Police Ignored
Louise Ridley
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The Human Rights act has been used by a rape victim who police didn't believe - and then arrested for perverting the course of justice.

Hampshire Constabulary has now apologised to the victim, who was 17 at the time of the incident and later attempted suicide, and agreed to pay her a £20,000 out-of-court settlement.

Police reached an agreement with the woman, named only as Laura, after she began proceedings against the force under the Human Rights Act, which the Tory government is planning to scrap and replace with a 'British Bill of Rights'.

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Police didn't believe the girl and then arrested her [file photo]

The girl's rape complaint in 2012 was initially ignored. Documents seen by the Guardian claim that detectives decided the girl was lying within two days of the rape report. One detective inspector, who was supervising the inquiry, reportedly told a junior colleague to “Fucking nick her.”

Two months after making her rape complaint in 2012, the woman was arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice following forensic tests on her clothes not returning a result, the BBC reported.

The Crown Prosecution Service eventually ordered retests of the clothing and her attacker was eventually jailed for five years in 2013.

Speaking to the broadcaster, the woman's mother - given the pseudonym Jacqui - explained that Laura had attempted suicide twice after her arrest and that her mental health had deteriorated.

She said: "I was horrified. You expect them to do everything they can to put the rapist away."

The woman's mother continued: "She started self-harming again. She attempted twice on her life because she couldn't cope."

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It was not until six months after being arrested that Laura finally learned she was in the clear.

Chief Superintendent David Powell admitted the initial handling of the case had been "poor".

Addressing other sexual assault victims, he added: "We do believe you, we appreciate how hard it is to come forward to report these offences ... we are doing everything to ensure we never have an initial response like this again."

The force also confirmed that one officer had received a written warning for misconduct, while 10 had received management action.

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Hampshire Constabulary paid the girl in an out-of-court settlement

Jacqui believed the attitude of detectives had been affected by the fact her daughter had previously been in trouble with the police before the rape, according to the programme.

She said of the police officers: "I think it's disgusting. I think if you're in the middle of an investigation and you've been named they shouldn't let you resign or retire.

"They're all right, aren't they? They haven't had to go through solicitor's meetings and meetings with the police and, you know, they're all right, they're sat on their cushty pension in their nice big house."

These Are The People Human Rights Law Really Helps
Families Of Missing People (01 of07)
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The "right to family life" has become the villain of the HRA for how it complicates deporting those born abroad when convicted of crimes here.
But this part of became crucial in the ongoing hunt for Ben Needham, who disappeared in 1991 when he was just 21 months old.
Barrister Ian Brownhill, who has acted for the Needham family (Pictured left, Christine Needham, Ben's grandmother, and right, his mother Kerry Needham), the mother of Ben Needham for free, told HuffPost UK that this right granted by the act was "essential" in his advocacy.
He wrote to the Home Office asking why it had taken 10 months to reply to a funding request from South Yorkshire Police, after which it gave the force £700,000 to pay for English detectives to travel to Greece to continue the search.
Brownhill said: "'In over 20 years since Ben Needham went missing the family never had a lawyer. They had no idea what Ben's rights or theirs' were. Last year I volunteered to help fill that gap.
"The Needhams' right to a family life has been part of the successful campaign to persuade the government to fund a new investigation into Ben's disappearance. It's an honour and a pleasure as a lawyer to help the Needhams' understand and exercise their human rights." (credit:Amy Murphy/PA Wire)
Rape Victims Failed By The Police(02 of07)
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Two victims of cab driver rapist John Worboys (pictured) received damages after winning their claim that the Metropolitan Police breached their human rights when it botched an investigation that left him free to keep attacking.
The women argued, and The High Court agreed, that the forces' repeated failings to catch him breached their article 3 right to be spared inhuman or degrading treatment.
Mr Justice Green said one of the women would not have been raped but for "myriad failings in the investigative process".
Worboys, who was jailed in 2009, is believed to have attacked more than 100 women. (credit:Metropolitan Police/PA Archive)
Gay People Kicked Out Of The Military(03 of07)
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Four people brought a case that ended the military's ban on gay people serving that forced them to leave the armed forces.
(Pictured left to right) Duncan Lustig-Prean, Jeannette Smith, Graeme Grady and John Beckett said the ban breached their right to privacy - granted under the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Court on Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled in their favour in September 1999.
Three months after the judgment, the ban on gay people in the military was lifted. Then-defence secretary Geoff Hoon told the Commons sexuality was "essentially a private matter for the individual". (credit:WILLIAMS JUSTIN WILLIAMS/PA Archive)
Victims Of Human Trafficking(04 of07)
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A Tanzanian woman was "tricked" into coming to the UK in 2006 by the woman she worked for. She ended up being forced to work long hours for her parents as an unpaid domestic servant. She was fed only stale food, forced to sleep on a matress on the kitchen floor and only allowed out to attend church on Sundays.
She fled their home - only to be forced to work in another home and fell very ill, developing a major breathing problem that would require lung surgery and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
In 2010, the Home Office ordered she be sent back to Tanzania. Using the ECHR's ban on "forced labour", her lawyer successfully argued the British state owed her reparation - time to recover from the ordeal - for its failure to protect her from being trafficked into and then within the UK.
A tribunal held that, in light of this, demanding she leave the UK, where she was being treated, would be "unreasonable". (credit:Scott Barbour via Getty Images)
The Grieving Families Of Dead Soldiers(05 of07)
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A new inquest into the death of a soldier at Deepcut barracks was ordered after a threat of litigation under the Human Rights Act by civil rights campaigners Liberty.
Private Cheryl James was one of four soldiers to be found dead from gunshot wounds at the Surrey barracks. The original inquest in 1995 lasted only an hour and failed to speak to key witnesses or review important evidence, Liberty claimed.
Last year, a new inquest was ordered. Lawyers for the family had obtained 44 volumes of statements, documents, notes and photographs after threatening litigation under the Human Rights Act.
Her parents Doreen and Des James (pictured 1st and 2nd from the left) said: "Something went dreadfully wrong at Deepcut yet until now no one has bothered to look at how and why our daughter died. We can only hope that Cheryl's legacy helps change the current ineffective and discredited military justice system.”
The new inquest will look whether a third party was involved in her death and what happened on the evening before she died. (credit:Dominic Lipinski/PA Archive)
Disabled People(06 of07)
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The Supreme Court found that three people had been deprived of their liberty by virtue of the restrictions imposed upon them by authorities caring for them.
Two sisters, who both had learning difficulties, and a man born with cerebral palsy were living in a foster home, a residential home and a social services-arranged accommodation respectively - under close supervision to support them. One of the sisters was sometimes physically restrained when she was not co-operative.
Lower courts ruled the trio's treatment did not amount to a deprivation of liberty, which meant the living arrangements need not be subject to independent checks to ensure it was still in their best interests.
The Supreme Court noted that the European Court of Human Rights had made it clear it was "important not to confuse the question of the benevolent justification for the care arrangements with the concept of deprivation of liberty. Human rights have a universal character and physical liberty is the same foreveryone, regardless of their disabilities."
 (credit:Martin Barraud via Getty Images)
Children(07 of07)
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A nine-year-old boy (not pictured) was repeatedly beaten by his stepfather with a cane. The case went to trial with the man accused of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. A doctor had examined the boy and found him covered in bruises.
The judge told the jury: "This case is not about whether you should punish a very difficult boy. It is about whether what was done here was reasonable or not and you must judge that." They acquitted the stepfather.
The case reached the European Court on Human Rights in 1998 (again, this was before the HRA made going to British court an option). It found the law, which allowed parents to hit their children provided it was "reasonable chastisement", had failed to protect the child and breached his right to not suffer inhumane treatment.
In 2004, parliament changed the "reasonable chastisement" defence so that it did not apply in such serious assaults. (credit:Shutterstock / luxorphoto)

In a statement released by Hampshire police, Mr Powell said: "Our initial assessment and handling of this case in 2012 was very poor and we are not proud of our initial response.

"We have already personally apologised to the victim and her mother; and I repeat here now that we are sorry for how we let her down.

"Once I became aware of what had happened, I immediately ordered a new investigation working very closely with the victim. By quickly taking these steps, we were able to provide the right investigative response with supportive and compassionate officers to obtain the evidence required which secured the prosecution and conviction of this offender.

"We are grateful that this victim gave us a second chance to put this investigation right and ensure this individual was punished. He is now serving a five year sentence and is on the sexual offenders register.

"We accept the way we initially treated this victim fell well below the standard we would expect.

"The initial officers involved did not treat this victim in a way that she or any other victim would deserve to be treated.

We deeply regret this and we took action at the time by referring this case to our Professional Standards Department.

As a result of this referral, one officer received a written warning for misconduct and 10 officers have been given management action.

"We have already conducted a review of the failings of this case and one of the improvements we have made was implementing a specialist dedicated unit who received additional training in rape investigations and who work with vulnerable victims, providing support, advice and investigative expertise from the initial reporting right through to any criminal proceedings and beyond.

"We have changed our internal processes and any decision by an investigating officer to discontinue a rape investigation or release a suspect with no further action has to be agreed by an independent panel chaired by an assistant chief constable. This demonstrates how seriously we have responded to this case and how seriously we take sexual offence investigations.

"I would like to reassure all victims of sexual assault that we do take you seriously. We do believe you, we appreciate how hard it is to come forward to report these offences, we do not judge you and we are committed to ensuring a professional and supportive response. We are doing everything to ensure we never have an initial response like this again."

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