The terrible one-word reason rape trials keep failing women

The fact that three boys avoided prison sentences for their part in the rape of two girls is another appalling case of ‘himpathy’, says lawyer Charlotte Proudman – there is something uniquely culturally ingrained about seeing boys as fundamentally salvageable, while girls are expected simply to absorb the damage

Two schoolgirls had their lives irrevocably altered by acts of extreme sexual violence. One was 15 when she was targeted on Snapchat, lured to an underpass and assaulted while the perpetrators laughed and recorded what they were doing. Two months later, a second schoolgirl was attacked at knifepoint by three boys, again while they filmed the abuse, encouraging one another to degrade her further. She said they threatened to kill her if she tried to run away. These were not impulsive acts. They involved planning, coercion, humiliation, recording, threats, and repeated violations.

“None of you need to go to prison,” judge Nicholas Rowland told the boys.

The judge also praised the boys for their conduct during the trial. These girls were forced through the ordeal of a five-week criminal trial in which the boys denied responsibility and sought to discredit them. One claimed the second victim had been “flirting” with him and lied to explain her absence to her parents. He denied using a knife.

For victims of sexual violence, being called a liar, having your trauma publicly dissected, and being forced to defend your own credibility can lead to further re-traumatisation. To then commend the perpetrators for their conduct, despite their lack of remorse, denials, and attempts to humiliate the girls in open court, sends a deeply troubling message about whose suffering the justice system sees. Were the girls equally praised for the extraordinary courage it took to endure that process?

I have spent years representing women and children in the family justice system, and one theme emerges with alarming consistency, the sheer extraordinary capacity of the law as an institution to centre male defendants’ futures, vulnerabilities and mitigation, while treating the lifelong devastation inflicted on girls and women as collateral damage.

This phenomenon has a name: himpathy.

Coined by philosopher Professor Kate Manne, himpathy describes the disproportionate sympathy extended to male perpetrators of violence, particularly where female victims are concerned. It is the instinct to ask what will happen to him, how prison might affect him, whether his life will be ruined, while the girl whose life has already been shattered is treated as an afterthought, or not considered at all.

Look at the language used by the judge in this case. The boys were described as “very young”. One had ADHD and anxiety. Another was said to fall in the bottom one per cent for IQ. A third was said to have a “limited understanding of consent”. Millions of boys face similar challenges and do not go on to sexually abuse girls. To suggest these factors somehow explain such deliberate acts is not only an abrogation of responsibility for the boys but stigmatising to neurodivergent young people. Sexual violence is not caused by ADHD, low IQ, or anxiety. It is rooted in power, entitlement, and the belief that girls can be violated with impunity.

There is something uniquely culturally ingrained about seeing boys, even those capable of profound cruelty, as fundamentally salvageable, while girls are expected simply to absorb the damage.

Because what of the girls?

One victim said when reading her powerful victim impact statement in court, “All I want to do is die.” One victim told the BBC that the decision to spare her attackers jail was “like a rock to my face”. Another described nightmares, shame, insecurity, grief for the person she once was. She said videos of the rape were circulated among peers. She was called a slag. The boys were not degraded or ostracised. Her trauma became social entertainment.

Women and girls understand something judges and the legal system often do not, that violence does not end when proceedings conclude. When rapists walk free, the whole world becomes a prison for survivors. They suffer a life sentence. The judge also imposed a 10-year restraining order – that’s it. As though trauma politely expires on schedule. As though fear has a statutory limitation period. This is what decriminalisation of rape looks like in practice.

This case should also force a reckoning for judicial accountability. In my book He Said, She Said: Truth, Trauma and the Struggle for Justice in Family Courts, I exposed troubling examples of judicial attitudes towards sexual violence, for example, a judge questioning a victim’s account based on her intelligence and education; another suggesting a woman had not been raped because she did not fight back; one even threatening to have a mother’s child adopted if she continued to pursue allegations of rape.

While the three boys’ sentences may be reviewed by the Court of Appeal for being unduly lenient, what scrutiny is applied to the judge? Judges wield immense power, yet there is little accountability when they cause harm. The complaints system run by the Judicial Complaints Information Office (which ironically sits in the same building as judges) is opaque, allegations of misogyny are rarely upheld, and the training judges receive on violence against women and girls is not transparent. Next month, Right to Equality, the not-for-profit organisation I founded, which campaigns for legal reform, will launch its report on judicial bias in parliament, containing shocking examples of blatant victim-blaming, prejudice towards women and girls, and judicial conduct that has caused profound harm.

Public confidence in the justice system is at an all-time low. Because when the justice system appears more disturbed by the prospect of boys losing their futures than by the reality that girls have already lost theirs, it does not look like justice at all.

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