Rape victim ‘didn’t look very upset on Facebook’

by Dave Keating | October 13, 2008 at 12:02 am
377 views | 10 Recommendations | 2 comments

A lawyer in the UK defending an alleged rapist has used the victim's Facebook profile as evidence in the trial. The barrister told the court that the victim couldn't have been traumatized by the rape because there are pictures of her on Facebook smiling.

A barrister told a judge that a teenage rape victim was not devastated by the attack because there were party photos of her on Facebook showing her looking happy.

Colin McCarraher admitted he did not know when pictures were taken but said they did not tally with someone struggling to rebuild their life.

'What we have is a person who has post traumatic stress but is quite capable of going out and having a good time at a fancy dress party,' the defence counsel said.

The victim was 19 when she was raped in Reading's Prospect Park and has since tried to kill herself.

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generaldecay
generaldecay
flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 08:49 on October 13th, 2008

Dave Keating, shocking. And a clear indication of how woeful our judicial system deals with rape cases and rape victims.

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Tina Kells

This is a disgusting story... what is wrong with that lawyer?  PTSD does not eliminate the ability to smile or find joy in current life events/moments.  In fact, many psychology professionals tell people with PTSD to make attempts to do the things that they enjoy and to not withdraw from life.  He should be totally ashamed of himself for using her FB pictures as "evidence" that she is not traumatized by her rape.  That is just bad lawyering especially when he admits he has no evidence of when the images were taken or of the events surrounding them.  Clearly he is not a social Internet user or he would know that people do not generally post "bad" images of themselves on their profiles.

This guy is a capital L loser.  He should lose his license to practice law.


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