A Body in the Lakes by Graham Smith (great books of all time .TXT) 📕

‘So what next?’

‘Next we talk about the charity. I’ve told you all I can, Mr Mayor.’

‘That’s fair enough. I appreciate that you’ve told me anything at all. Please though, call me Derek. If we’re going to be working together, we don’t need to be so formal, do we?’

‘No, we don’t.’ It was there again: asking her permission to be less formal was just another of his ways to inveigle himself into her good books. ‘I’m Beth.’

Beth spent the next twenty minutes listening to Forster’s vision for the charity. She knew nothing about how charities were set up or run, but he seemed to have a clear idea about the administration side of things. She liked the majority of his ideas and the desire to do good that was fuelling them, but there were some areas where she felt his thoughts were off base.

‘Can I just stop you there? What you’re saying about creating an environment where women can feel confident about reporting their sexual assaults is great in theory, in practice it’s not that simple. The police have trained officers for that as well as counsellors. Not only would you be duplicating what’s already in place and working as well as it can, you’d be asking the victims to go through everything with the charity as well as the police. I think that may be too much for a lot of women. I’m the first to admit I’m no expert on the subject, but I do know a lot of rape victims blame themselves, that they’re sure the defence lawyers will paint them as some kind of slut for wearing a short skirt or a low-cut top. Many rapes also happen in a domestic setting over a period of time. The women are afraid to escape because they have no money or because they love, or have loved, their rapist. Again, these women, wrongly, often blame themselves for not having a libido that matched their partner’s.’

‘Wow. I didn’t realise there were quite so many facets to it.’

‘That’s the problem. A handful of rapes, like the ones we are investigating, are horrific individuals attacking random victims, but the majority of rapes are committed by people the victims know. Rape is also part of the domestic-abuse spectrum. Many domestic abusers escalate to rape and because they have power over their partners; these situations can go on for years.’ Beth paused to sip at her wine. A crisp Chardonnay with undertones of citrus fruits. It was delicious, and while she wanted more than just one glass to wash the sour taste of their conversation’s subject matter from her mouth, she’d made a point of driving the two miles from her home to Stoneybrook Inn so she could only have one alcoholic drink. The last thing she wanted was to make it easy for Forster to ply her with wine. ‘Then you have the false accusations.’

‘The what?’ Forster’s puzzlement was spread across his face and layered in his tone.

‘False accusations. Some people cry rape to take revenge on someone for something the claimant believes the accused has done to them. Let’s face it, someone’s making false allegations against you. All the false allegations have to be dealt with in the same way as the genuine ones, which adds to the workload created by the genuine victims. Yes, the official statistics on false rapes are less than one per cent, but those figures only include the claimants who were prosecuted for wasting police time or perverting the course of justice, which means the real figure is probably higher as not every false allegation will end in prosecution for either party. I think your idea about encouraging people to report their rapes is fantastic, and if you hadn’t mentioned it, I would have. However, that may well create a deluge of claims if it proves to work. Have you taken into account the fact that once your charity is up and running with a few successes under its belt, it may well become the go-to place for all claimants and perhaps those reporting historical rapes? That would be fantastic, but we’ll have to make sure the police infrastructure is in place to deal with all the calls in the right way and to make sure each is investigated properly.’

‘Agreed. There is one thing that I’m wondering though. What do we do when victims come to us and refuse to report the rape to the police?’

‘We try gentle persuasion. We do everything we can to encourage them to report their sexual assault, but we always respect their decision. It is them who’ll have to stand in the dock and explain their actions and decisions to a court, not us. And that’s before you factor in the horror of having to tell a room full of strangers every detail of what might have been the worst experience of their life. If they can’t do it, then we have to respect that and offer them counselling instead.’

‘Is that all? Couldn’t you lock the guys up, or at least put a scare into them?’

‘You’re joking me, right?’ Beth was annoyed at herself for letting the scoff creep into her voice. ‘What do you think would happen once we released the guy? I’ll tell you what would happen in most cases, the woman would be taught a lesson. One of the biggest reasons women pull out of reporting the fact they’ve been raped is that they’re afraid of repercussions.’

Forster held up a hand in contrition. ‘Sorry, I didn’t think of that. You know best.’

Beth ignored the comment about her knowing best and reached into her folder to retrieve the pages of statistics she’d printed from the Rape Crisis website. ‘I don’t know how much research you’ve done yourself, but have a look at these figures and you’ll see the scale of what you’re dealing with. I got these from a national charity, which begs another question, do you plan to stay regional, or will you