By VennerRoad, 23rd Sep 2017
Cathleen Webb in later life.
The main fear a woman who withdraws a rape allegation has is of ending up in court as an accused rather than as a victim, yet you would hardly credit this from the literature on this subject, which bows overwhelmingly to feminist narratives.
One example of this will suffice: Complaints Of Rape And The Criminal Justice System: Fresh Evidence On The Attrition Problem In England And Wales by two feminist academics. This 2015 article simply assumes that most rapes are not reported to the police, and parrots the usual mantra that the conviction rate is scandalously low – ie too many men are getting away with rape.
While conceding that most retractions are made shortly after the complaint, the authors give numerous and for the most part vacuous reasons for this: lack of trust in the police; fear they will not be believed...There are many more given by feminist airheads, but here the reader is told:
“Victim withdrawal is highest during the police investigation stage and becomes less likely the further the case progresses: during the police investigation stage 67% of allegations were withdrawn by the victim, compared to only 12% of those allegations awaiting trial.”
Of course, if there was no rape, there was no rape victim. As Lord Hale pointed out back in the Seventeenth Century, the allegation is easy to make, difficult to prove, and even more difficult to defend against. When the accuser claims to have been raped some time previously – days, months, even years previously – the accused is on a hiding to nothing. In recent years we have seen terrible miscarriages of justice involving alleged cases of historical sexual offences. In cases where the allegation is made reasonably promptly though, modern technology has been known to come to the aid of the accused, who in such instances is the real victim, and this is often the real reason accusers withdraw their allegations. Here are a few examples:
In November 2013, Katherine Bennett claimed to have been kidnapped from a parking lot at Windsor, Colorado, held overnight, and raped. This led to the arrest of Dustin Toth, a co-worker who had been dating her. Although Toth was behind bars awaiting trial, the police continued their investigation, and soon realised they’d been duped. This led to the arrest of the “victim”. Here is a short video in which Bennett says she is prepared to drop the charges. Too late. Unsurprisingly, she received a slap on the wrist, and equally unsurprisingly she tried to blame her errant behaviour on the medication she was taking. The usual euphemism used here is “mental health issues”, which implies the false accuser is still a victim, or at least deserving of sympathy rather than punishment.
Another false accuser who tried to blame medication (coupled with drink) for nearly trashing the life of an innocent man, was Denise Hynds. This case in Northern Ireland saw Hynds having consensual sex with a much younger man. She made her false allegation in January 2014, but probably because her victim was her lover, she realised she would be found out. Three days after accusing him, she withdrew her complaint. She received a 9 month sentence, probably because she had 77 (seventy-seven!) previous convictions, and was in breach of two suspended sentences!
Our third retraction dates to 1996, and resulted in tragedy. This case was actually raised in Parliament. In Scotland, Elidh Connell had sex with former lover Stephen McLaughlin, then accused him of rape. Shortly, she withdrew the allegation claiming she only made it to make her current boyfriend jealous.
Figure that one out if you can. In February the following year she was given 240 hours community service and a heavy fine. Eight months later, Stephen McLaughlin drove to a remote spot in the Galloway Forest and killed himself. He was 23 years old, and this was his sister’s birthday.
Although all the above cases involve retractions, they cannot be said properly to be recantations. A recantation is a retraction that is not made under any duress or out of fear of the consequences of continuing the charade – like exculpatory CCTV evidence – but happens when a woman has gotten clean away with it, and has a change of heart. The following four cases are all genuine recantations, and involved their victims serving serious prison time. All are from the United States, and all but Biurny Peguero were teenagers at the time. We begin with Cathleen Crowell Webb, who got religion.
In July 1977, Cathleen Crowell of Homewood, Illinois, had sex with her boyfriend. Fearing she might become pregnant, she ripped her clothing, cut herself, and inflicted vaginal bruising on herself before claiming she was kidnapped by three men in a car, one of whom raped her. The police found the non-existent man in that phantom car, and Gary Dotson was convicted, receiving a heavy sentence.
In 1981, Cathleen Crowell married David Webb, and got religion. Then she recanted, but the judge from the original trial was unimpressed. Fortunately for Dotson, she persisted, and not only was Dotson released but he was eventually proved innocent by DNA evidence. Sadly he did not readjust well to freedom, something that is not uncommon for the wrongly convicted. Cathleen Webb did not face any consequences for framing an innocent man, but she did meet him face to face. She died in 2008 at the relatively young age of 46.
Like Cathleen Crowell, Biurny Peguero recanted a rape allegation because she got religion after she married. In September 2005, she was enjoying a night out in New York City with her girlfriends when she claimed to have been raped by a stranger, who was identified as William McCaffrey. Like Cathleen Crowell, she faked physical evidence and was a perfect victim. A year after the non-rape, McCaffrey was given a heavy sentence, but fortunately for him, after marrying, Peguero got involved with the Catholic Church, confessed her sins to a priest, and then to the authorities. McCaffrey was released from prison, and in February 2010, Biurny Peguero Gonzalez received a sentence of one to three years for perjury.
In 2007, Elizabeth Paige Coast was fourteen years old, so her mother was not pleased when she caught her daughter viewing pornography on-line. This is something kids of that age have done since before there was a computer in any home; like all manner of other undesirable behaviour it is a rite of passage, but Elizabeth Coast came up with a bizarre excuse for being caught at it. When she was ten years old, she had been violated by a neighbour, she said. This led to the arrest of Johnathan Montgomery, who was only four years older than her. Improbable though this seemed, and with no corroborating evidence, Montgomery was sentenced to a whopping 45 years but with 37 years 6 months suspended.
Unlike Cathleen Webb and Biurny Peguero, Elizabeth Coast did not get religion, instead she got a job with the police, and in October 2012 she confessed to a colleague that she had “ruined a man’s life”. This led to Montgomery being cleared, and to her receiving an unusual sentence.
Brian Banks – living the dream.
Our final recantation is Wanetta Gibson, who showed not a gramme of remorse, indeed she is clearly a bit simple in view of what she did do. This case has received considerable publicity, and no doubt will at some point be made into a film.
In July 2002, Brian Banks was sixteen years old and looking forward to a career in football. He was also interested in a fellow student at his school in Long Beach, California, and was in his words “making out” with her, in reality canoodling, because no sex took place. However, when Gibson accused him of rape, his world came crashing down around his ears.
There was no forensic evidence, but in the United States, district attorneys have the power to threaten defendants with horrendous sentences if they go to trial. In the UK he would surely have taken his chances and ended up with five years or perhaps even three if convicted, but not there. Banks was told by his own attorney that if he went to trial, all the jury would see was a six foot four black thug who had violated a helpless girl – what Hillary Clinton might have called a super predator. After pleading no contest, he received a six year sentence, being paroled after five.
He might at that point have concluded his life was in ruins, but went home to live with his mother and tried to make the best of what he could. Then something remarkable happened, he signed up with Facebook and received a friend request from...Wanetta Gibson. Can we let “bygones be bygones” – seriously?
When he got over the shock, he took legal advice, and took up her offer. The rest as they say is history, and Banks is now not only playing football but is a minor celebrity, and has also been helping raise awarness of other wrongful convictions.
Two years later, Gibson recanted her recantation, probably because he didn’t want to take up where they had left off. What sane man would? Sadly, this is a young woman who has not spent a day in prison for the suffering she caused; she should certainly have received some meaningful punishment, even if as stated she is a bit simple.
Although the above cases might not be typical, one thing can be said for certain, for every Johnathan Montgomery and Brian Banks, men, usually young men, who are convicted of sexual crimes without some minimal corroboration and then cleared, there are a dozen, a hundred, perhaps a thousand, who are innocent but are not cleared. Sadly, that does not matter to some, including the Julie Bindels of this world who believe women just because, and the likes of Lisa Avalos for whom even CCTV and clearly fabricated text messages are trumped by the word of the most venal of female liars.
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