Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Alison Saunders, Britain's most senior prosecutor has said women need to be more vocal when not consenting to sex

Rape complainants have been warned by Britain's top prosecutor that if they stay silent during sex and don't verbally say no it could lead to their alleged attackers walking free.

Alison Saunders, the Director of Public Prosecutions and head of the Crown Prosecution Service, has urged women not to stay silent during sex as it may lead men to have a 'reasonable belief' that they had given consent.

Ms Saunders said that men may not be charged if 'other actions' by accusers lead them to think they had given the green light to have sex.

Her comments, made during an interview with the Evening Standard, follows the collapse of the rape case against Oxford student Oliver Mears, who became the fourth man in four weeks to have his case dropped by the CPS just days before trial.

She also insisted the job of the authorities was to ensure men are not wrongly put on trial and not to act as 'protection' for both sides.

Oliver Mears, 19, spent more than two years on bail before his case was thrown out after the CPS reviewed the evidence

Ms Saunders denied that prosecutors are overly keen to put men behind bars in an effort to bump up the number rape convictions, something they have been accused of following the spout of recent collapsed cases. She did not refer specifically to recent trials in which prosecutions for rape collapsed, but commented generally.

The prosecutor insisted that allegations can have a 'devastating' impact on innocent men.

In recent cases such as Liam Allan, Isaac Itiary and Samson Makele, the evidence which would exonerate the men was held back and meant they could have been cleared months earlier.

Ms Saunders added that two tests are applied in 'acquaintance rape' cases where both parties agree that sex had taken place.

Acquaintance rapes refers to cases in which both the perpetrator and victim previously know each other or have been on a date.

The first test is whether or not the victim was too drunk or otherwise incapacitated to consent. The second is whether or not the suspect had reasonable reasons to believe the alleged victim has consented.

Ms Saunders said judgment is often about context.

She added: 'In some of the cases you can see why even though the complainant may think they were raped, there was a reasonable belief that they had consented, either through silence or through other actions or whatever.

Last month the trial of 22-year-old criminology student Liam Allan (pictured), who was charged with six counts of rape, was halted by a judge after it emerged his accuser had sent hundreds of messages to friends which would have cleared him immediately

'We are there not just to be able to prosecute cases where there has been an offence, but also not to prosecute cases where there isn't sufficient evidence.

'The one thing we have to be careful of is that we don't sway with public opinion and media rhetoric because one week we will get accused of prosecuting too much, and then others accusing us of not prosecuting enough.'

The DPP also said there were 'high stakes' here and prosecutors 'want to get it right'.

How the collapse of four rape trials in the space of a month has put the CPS and police under the spotlight Last month the trial of 22-year-old criminology student Liam Allan, who was charged with six counts of rape, was halted by a judge after it emerged his accuser had sent hundreds of messages to friends which would have cleared him immediately. Father-of-two Isaac Itiary, 25, who was charged with 11 crimes including the rape of an underage girl, walked free after phone messages supporting his claim that the girl posed as a 19-year-old were finally disclosed while he was in the dock. Meanwhile, the rape trial of Samson Makele, 28, collapsed after his defence team unearthed key images from his mobile phone, missed by police and the CPS, which showed him and his alleged victim apparently cuddling in bed. Last week, the case against an Oxford student Oliver Mears accused of rape has been dropped days before he was due to stand trial. Mr Mears, 19, spent more than two years on bail before the case was abandoned. Scotland Yard will review hundreds of rape, child abuse and sexual assault cases after a second prosecution collapsed because police again sat on texts that proved a suspect's innocence. Justice Minister Dominic Raab said it was 'absolutely right' for the Met to carry out a review, adding: 'The basic principle of British justice is at stake.' He said: 'The proper disclosure obligations in these two cases [Itiary and Allen] have not been discharged, and that is deeply worrying.' 'What we need to know now is quite how widespread that is and why. 'This is not a new thing. It should be made easy by technology. It's a very basic thing why it's not happening. 'I don't want to prejudice a review which is going to be under way but I do think the CPS and the police do need to have a pretty hard long look in the mirror about this.' Advertisement



