Raped when drunk? You can soon be protected

Men who have sex with drunk women will be at risk of being convicted of rape under new laws to be considered by ministers. This legal shake-up would mean that a woman would be considered incapable of giving consent to sex if she had been heavily drunk. Screening process Police would soon carry out blood and urine tests on a woman who complained of rape to find out just how much alcohol her body contained. They would then use “back calculations” to work out how drunk she was at the time of the alleged attack. A “drink and sex limit” would sweep away the confusion and controversy in the courts surrounding the issue of when a man accused of rape can claim he believed a woman gave her consent for sex. The flipside of this new measure would be that it would open the way to prosecutions of husbands or regular boyfriends who have sex with drunken wives or partners as well as fierce arguments over medical evidence and real levels of intoxication of alleged victims. New laws A consultation document is to be published by the Home Office next year and this would lay down the basis for new laws and try to meet Labour’s aim of forcing up numbers of rape convictions. At present only one rape accusation in 20, ends in a conviction and ministers are convinced that means many more rapists are getting away with it. A rape law making it an offense to have sex with a woman who has reached a set level of drunkenness is to be proposed by the same Home Office committee that four years ago recommended the disastrous reclassification of cannabis – making the possession of the drug less of a crime. What’s been done? A study carried out last month for the Association of Chief Police Officers suggested that a women could be expected to show ‘marked intoxication levels’ after drinking the equivalent of two bottles of wine. It found that in 120 cases of sexual assault examined by researchers, in 119 cases the woman had been drink. But because of marked time delays between the collection of samples and the incident, alcohol could be detected by tests in only 62, just over half, of the cases. Blood tests can find alcohol in the body 24 hours after drinking and urine tests after 72 hours. The ACPO research found that in 31 cases alcohol levels at the time of the incident could be estimated by “back-calculating”. It said it was “significant” that 22 cases showed the woman had 200 milligrams of alcohol for every 100 milliliters of blood. This level is equivalent to eight 175 milliliter’s of pub “standard” glasses of wine, or two and a half times the drink driving limit. The law already suggests that a woman who is asleep or unconscious is less likely to have consented to sex. Since 2003, a man accused of rape has had to show he had “reasonable” grounds for believing a woman consented. Before then, he had only to demonstrate that he believed she had consented. Solicitor General Mike O’Brien is considering the drink and sex limit among proposals for new rules that could also include fresh guidance for juries on matters of consent and the right for defendants to call experts on rape who would explain to juries how damaging to a victim the offense is.