Screwed-up news of the day: it's emerged that a British woman was told by a lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Services (CPS) that he wouldn’t be taking her case of a rape allegation to court because she was wearing Spanx.
The woman - who can't be named for legal reasons - was raped in 2012 by a man she'd been planning to spend the night with and had previously slept with. But on the night in question the pair had an argument in his car, parked outside her house. She claimed he followed her into the house, raped her, and left. She reported it and it was referred to a lawyer by the police to see if charges could be brought.
What happened next is barely believable. Her lawyer said that her choice of control underwear was a factor in not taking the case to court. ‘I have taken into account all the surrounding circumstances, including the exchange of text messages between you before and after the incident,' he wrote in a letter to her. ‘I have also considered your account of the incident, particularly bearing in mind the type of underwear that you had on at the time.’
Which was what? ‘I was wearing Spanx control pants. I don’t know what he was thinking,’ the woman told The Independent.
It’s pretty bleak that we have to explain it, but, um, whatever underwear a woman chooses to wear - even if it is tough to get off, which we assume is the point here - should have no bearing on whether she consents to sex or not.
After complaining to the CPS and appealing the decision the woman says she got a letter of reply, admitting the lawyer had ‘made an unnecessary reference to the underwear that you were wearing which on my consideration of the evidence has absolutely no relevance to the issue in this investigation.’ But the case was not taken any further.
This example comes as news emerges that 900,000 crimes, including rapes, were reported to the police in 2013 but not followed up. The Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) also found that another police officer failed to record a case of rape because it involved too much work. The number of rape cases referred to prosecutors has also dropped by a third since 2011. Perhaps with storie like this around you can see why.
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Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.