Hi all...
Absolutely. Any false accusation of a crime, puportedly committed 'against the person', is ALWAYS injurious to 'the good fame and character' of an individual so wronged. I personally, have witnessed the profound effect that such a scurrilous charge has had. In one instance, ending in a suicide.

The old legal maxim...'he who accuses, must prove'... sometimes flies out the window. Often the person so wronged continues to suffer the 'flow on' effect, years after the matter has been dealt with.
Conversely, a victim of, say sexual assault, will often decline to report the offence for fear that she/he will not be believed! This whole area of criminal law is pretty messy really?

Yet again, in the 'House of Lords', one of the erudite Law Lords (his name escapes me) exclaimed that..."it is far better that a hundred guilty men/women go free, than one innocent person be punished for a crime he did not commit"...A very fine and laudable statement, to be sure.

In respect to my opinion on this question... A person who has been falsely accused, of a crime 'against the person', has certainly been wronged. But a dreadful physical crime 'against the person' is far worse and the effects prolonged, when acompanied by violence. They are as bad as each other, I reckon.
Cheers...sungwu.
PS Sorry for the convoluted mess above, I'm not travelin' too well at the moment.

spendocrat, sorry I missed your post yesterday. I agree that you can't effectively compare them on a badness scale other than to say the harm is on a case by case basis.

My orignal intent was to follow on from a comment on the Newsworthy Rape thread that seether made http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5484#70061

"What disappoints me about these discussion threads is that there seem to be a heap of people out there who seem to take the position that a false accusation is as bad as or worse than a violent rape. I think if you asked most people what they'd rather experience, the choice would be pretty clear. "

In my view that discussion is off topic to the original article but important. I suspect that seether is correct in the view that many don't see a false allegation as being as bad as a violent rape (leaving aside the degree of violence).

I'm hoping that others join in to discuss/debate the issue.

o sung wu, thanks for your input. Sorry to hear that you are not travelling well.

R0bert

The threads asks the wrong question surely it should be is a false claim as much a crime as rape?
And surely it is!
a false claim is just as much a crime and both should see long prison terms.

Belly, the problem is the difficulty in differentiating between lack of evidence and a false claim.

Where it can be clearly proven that a false claim has been made then I'd favour a prison sentence but would hate to see an actual victim of crime go to jail because there was not sufficient evidence to back their accusation. Bring on reliable lie detection.

I'm also concerned that implemented wrongly prison terms might lead to the small percentage who eventually "fess up" staying quiet. I don't like it much but maybe some provision where people who do admit to making a false accusation (of their own initiative rather than when faced with evidence) avoided penalty - freeing wrongly accused/convicted individuals seems more important than jailing those who have changed their ways.

R0bert

I agree wholeheartedly that any deliberate and malicious false accusation is wrong and the emotional distress is terrible. I would of thought that goes without saying. However, the idea of this comparison is absurd and down right offensive. It shows your complete lack of understanding.

Once more. The police on behalf of the victim of rape have to gather enough evidence to proceed; they present this evidence to the brief manager and, if the brief manager is pretty well certain of a conviction, the prosecution then has to prove beyond doubt that the complainant actually suffered the sexual assault? Failure doesn’t mean the accusation is false.

The genuine complainant not only has to cope with the physical and emotional effects of rape but has doubt cast on her reputation just as the falsely accused has his reputation degraded. What about the emotional trauma of a genuine rape victim when the rapist claims her accusations are false and has to endure the usual male prejudices? In other words, RObert surely you can see that a woman who is raped and doesn’t get justice suffers the same emotional distress (as well as the direct trauma of rape) as a falsely accused male (I am talking specifically about male on female rape which is the norm as women seldom rape men).

The idea that if a person acquitted of rape charges (sexual assault, aggravated assault) can turn around and demand she be jailed or charged is creating a very dangerous situation for women. Genuine complainants willing to proceed to court will be even fewer and further between. Imagine how unbearable it would be to be a genuine rape victim jailed for making a complaint that failed in court.

Here, it is real dilemma because if you charge someone for making a false accusation after an acquittal then it is a very effective way of excluding women from the legal system. At the same time, for any person to be jailed when innocent - well we are stating the obvious now – that would be unbearable. Cont.

Cont.Even if you agree with the stats that these men’s groups drag up re: false accusations. Most of them don’t get published. It is unclear whether they even get by the police officer in charge of the investigations. Moreover, good editors are careful to consider the consequences of unfair publication. Unfortunately, accusations against high profile people are more likely to be publicised. But this is nearly always after the police have charged the person. I guess you have to weigh up the right of the public to know with the reputation of the defendant. If police charged a woman with making false allegations the editor would probably publicise that if he thought it newsworthy.

Re: falsely-accused who suicide. How many rape victims have opted out RObert? Doesn’t further your argument to chase up that side? And you’re objective? I attack your lack of objectivity and callousness for joining in the hijacking of another thread and you set about to prove me right - on one aspect anyway?

One more thing RObert. I may have read you wrong, but somewhere on OLO you made sure posters understood that you were not a victim of sexual assault. Probably to let us know that it was outside your experience or perhaps because you did not want to be seen as a victim – another no, no for you. Well I know it is becoming orthodox these days to regard victims as weak or whatever but it is the criminals who are weak and some haven’t the courage to take responsibility for their own failures. It is time to see things as they are rather than the way we are told they are or want them to be.

I wish I had more time to discuss this but let me assure if I say your ideas are not reasonable that is an attack on your ideas on your objectivity in that particular case. It is not an attack on you. Take it how you will though.