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'I had to fight for her, she couldn't fight for herself'
The Guardian, April 26, 2001
Last year, a woman was raped in a nursing home. Last week,
thanks to her husband's refusal to give up the case, her attacker was
jailed. Diane Taylor reports.
Clara Parker (not her real name) is horribly traumatised
by a rape carried out last year by John Archibald at the Buckinghamshire
nursing home where she is looked after. She is in the advanced stages of
Huntington's disease, a condition that impairs mental and physical
ability. Her husband Michael (not his real name), a BBC presenter, had to
fight to persuade the crown prosecution service to take on the case but at
Reading crown court on Friday, when Archibald was jailed for three years
for the rape, Michael had little time to feel vindicated nor Clara to feel
safe. Moments after the sentence was passed, Archibald's brother Mark
turned to Michael, tried to hit him and said: "I'll get you for this.
I'll have you."
The next day, a minibus was burnt out in an arson attack outside the home.
There is no evidence that it's connected but police are investigating.
Bringing to court any sort of rape case is fraught with difficulties and
only around one in 10 of the rapes reported to police results in a
prosecution. When the victim is especially vulnerable because of a mental
or physical illness or a learning disability, the chances of getting a
case to court slump even further. The Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence
Act 1999 contains new provisions to help vulnerable adults give evidence
in court, such as judges removing wigs, the erection of screens between
witnesses and defendants and video recordings used as evidence. These
provisions were supposed to be in place by the end of last year but a Home
Office spokesman admits implementation of most could be another year away.
Progress has also been slow in the proposed reform of the Sex Offences Act
which recommends strengthening the law in cases where a person in a
position of trust or responsibility carries out abuse. The Department of
Health has guidelines for local authorities to protect vulnerable adults
who are abused, but there is no legal requirement to implement them.
Tamsin Cottis of Respond, which provides counselling for people with
learning difficulties who have been abused, says: "Decisions can be
taken very early on that women like Clara wouldn't make good witnesses.
People like her are more vulnerable than others to abuse, yet when they
are victims of sex crimes, it is much harder for them to get
justice."
The assumption that Clara would not be a good witness dogged Michael when
he tried to get her rape brought to court. Though the crime was witnessed
by a wheelchair-bound patient and there was DNA evidence, the CPS said
Clara's evidence might not be "reliable" because she is a
nursing home patient.
Michael and Clara met in the early 60s when both worked as journalists on
a local paper. They married in 1962 but problems began when Clara
developed severe mood swings and obsessional behaviour in her late 40s.
The couple separated in the late 80s and it wasn't until 1995 that Clara
was diagnosed with Huntington's disease. Michael returned, saying he felt
responsible for looking after her, and in January last year she moved into
the Buckinghamshire nursing home.
The rape took place when another resident invited Clara, a compulsive
smoker, into his room for a cigarette. John Archibald, who was visiting a
relative, and his brother Mark came too. Mark handed Clara two cannabis
cigarettes. She had never tried the drug before and did not know it was in
the cigarettes. After smoking them, she tried to return to her room but
John Archibald forced her on to the bed and raped her twice.
Clara says the attack is the worst thing that has ever happened to her.
"I felt so unclean and they hurt me so badly. My body took weeks to
recover."
The next morning staff told Michael what had happened and Clara was taken
to a local rape centre where she was examined by a police doctor and video
evidence was taken. However, the CPS decided not to prosecute and it took
Michael four months to persuade them to change their minds. "I
believe she was singled out because she was vulnerable. I had to fight for
her, she couldn't fight for herself. I kept insisting that it was their
duty to pursue the case, that they had DNA evidence, a witness and my
wife's testimony."
The case finally came to court last November and the jury convicted John
Archibald of the rape. Clara did not give evidence in court.
Often the only course open to a victim if the CPS decides not to pursue
the case is to take out a civil action, not against the perpetrator but,
in a case like Clara's, against the nursing home for allowing visitors to
be left alone with her without supervision. And victims are sometimes
unable to communicate what has happened to them or are too terrified to
talk.
Christiana Horrocks, director of Voice, which provides support for adults
and children with learning disabilities who have been abused, says:
"Sometimes the reasons given to victims to stop them talking are even
more evil than the abuse. One young woman was raped by a man who knew her
mother was in remission from cancer. He told her if she said anything
about the attack, her mother would die from the cancer."
Harriet Wistrich, a solicitor who advises women making complaints about
the way their rape investigations have been handled, says women need to be
"perfect victims" to avoid running into difficulties if the case
goes to court. "Saying a woman consented is often used by the defence,"
she points out. "Even if there is evidence of serious bruises and
other injuries, the defence may say: 'She just liked it rough.' There are
so many rapes in children's and residential homes, and psychiatric
institutions, because rapists know they can get away with it there."
Janine (not her real name), a 26-year-old who had been receiving treatment
for severe anorexia and a personality disorder, was at a low ebb when she
met a man who was kind to her. She had walked out of a hospital
psychiatric ward and had nowhere to go. He offered her a bed for the night
at the hostel he was staying at. Once there, he trapped her in his bedroom
and force-fed her cannabis and crack before raping her four times. The
drug cocktail paralysed her for several hours and it was only when her
attacker finally fell asleep that she managed to half walk, half fall out
of his bedroom, collapsing in the hostel office. Her heart stopped but she
was resuscitated and taken to hospital.
"I told the staff what had happened and they reported it to the
police. But the officer who came to see me was so hard. He tried to get me
to sign a form withdrawing the rape allegations but I refused. He said if
I didn't sign, I would put my family through hell and that I already had a
history of that because of my anorexia. He said if the CPS threw the case
out, they could get me for wasting police time."
Last December, two measures were introduced to protect alleged rape
victims in court: restriction of admissible evidence about their sexual
history and an end to cross-examination by the alleged rapist. But there
is still a long way to go before all women, and particularly those who are
most vulnerable, can get a fair hearing. As Janine says: "People are
hit at their lowest ebb and it's when you get to that point that you are
least likely to get support from the criminal justice system."
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