[trigger warning]
Hannah Mudge has searched through all reports of false accusations in the Daily Mail in the last couple of years. They're getting more commonplace.
It also gives a large sample of recorded false accusations, that can be checked through to see if any of the cases mentioned were previously reported in the press.
(As you'd expect, almost all of them were not)
Some of the articles don't say who was accused. I've tried to look for reporting of the cases in other papers, and if that didn't work, looked for reporting of cases matching what details are available. I've excluded the entries from Hannah's list where the Daily Mail claims that the claim was false on the basis of an acquittal (which I don't believe is always sufficient evidence that the claim is false, even if it is sufficient to prove that the defendant did not commit rape) - this does not remove many cases. I have included cases where the false allegation trial was ongoing even when I was unable to find confirmation that the defendant in the false allegation trial was convicted.
In only one of these cases - including some where the defendant was convicted and later released after an appeal - was the original rape case reported on in the press, so it doesn't significantly change the results to exclude them.
| Reported date (from Hannah's list) | Date of verdict different? | Rape case reported before? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 June 2010 | No | No | |
| 18 June 2010 | No | No | |
| 18 June 2010 | Yes - 1999/2006 | No | |
| 11 June 2010 | No | No | |
| 8 June 2010 | No | No suspects | |
| 2 June 2010 case 1 | No | No | |
| 2 June 2010 case 2 | Yes - 2006/8 | No | |
| 25 May 2010 | - | - | Duplicate of 2 June 2010 report |
| 10 May 2010 | No | No | |
| 5 March 2010 | No | No | Gail Sherwood |
| 16 February 2010 | No | No | |
| 19 January 2010 | No | No | |
| 5 December 2009 | No | No | |
| 7 November 2009 | No | No | |
| 6 November 2009 | No | No | |
| 1 November 2009 | No | Once in a newswire, but no suspects named | |
| 14 August 2009 | - | - | Duplicate of 16 February 2010 report |
| 22 July 2009 | No | No | |
| 3 July 2009 | No | No | |
| 2 July 2009 | No | Once, but before any suspects found | |
| 30 June 2009 | No | No | |
| 21 May 2009 | * | No | Conviction of accuser not reported previously |
| 23 December 2008 | No | No | |
| 17 September 2008 | No | No | |
| 29 August 2008 | No | No | |
| 25 August 2008 | No | No | |
| 18 August 2008 | No | No | |
| 29 July 2008 | No | No | |
| 8 April 2008 | No | Yes, post arrest, one "in brief" entry in local paper | |
| 7 March 2008 | No | No | |
| 12 February 2008 | No | No | |
| 13 November 2007 | No | No | |
| 14 June 2007 | No | No | |
| 12 May 2007 | No | No | |
| 23 April 2007 | No | No | |
| 24 March 2007 | No | No | |
| 16 March 2007 | No | No |
So of the 37 cases where someone was charged with making a false allegation, only 1 was reported in a way that named the suspected rapist, and that briefly in a local paper (which didn't get a mention when the suspect was later talking about the effect on his life). This is not that surprising - in most of the cases no-one was charged (though several were arrested), which significantly reduces the chances of cases reaching the attention of the media.
The estimate of slightly more than one a year, which I thought was using generous assumptions to begin with, now looks even less likely - I was assuming that only about 4% of rape cases would be reported, almost all post-arrest. It appears from this that of the sub-sample of false allegations, the figure may be even lower than that - around 2.5%, and almost all post-charge. That reduces the number of people likely to be helped after a false allegation by the government proposals to one every three or four years (and again, these stories all show that it's not the non-existent press attention that causes the harm to people who are falsely accused).
So, as expected, it's a proposal that helps no-one but could harm thousands.
Of course, when a rape defendant is granted anonymity, the Daily Mail takes a very different line.
