We're back in a Crown Court in Northern Ireland for the second part of Patrick's jury trial where he stands accused of a single count of rape.

This episode concentrates on the cross-examination of Caitlin, the complainant in the case, who was heavily intoxicated at the time.

**Listener discretion is advised**

The broader research underpinning this season of Criminal Justice in Action is reported in our book, Doak et al, Cross-examination on Trial: Advocacy and Vulnerability in Criminal Trials (BUP 2025).  The book examines cross-examination across the UK and Ireland drawing on trial observations, practitioner interviews, and a linguistic analysis of courtroom exchanges in light of recent reforms.

https://amzn.to/49oVqG2

This is an Amazon affiliate link, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. 

If you or someone you know has been affected by any of the issues raised in this episode, please visit our website https://criminaljusticeinaction.com for information about help and support.

Music: Hopeless Waltz by Alena Smirnova.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're back in Crown Court for another rape trial involving an intoxicated complainant. This time, however, we're in Northern Ireland.

Different jurisdiction, but the same issues: rape myths; credibility; and the need to be sure.

**Listener discretion is advised**

The broader research underpinning this season of Criminal Justice in Action is reported in our book, Doak et al, Cross-examination on Trial: Advocacy and Vulnerability in Criminal Trials (BUP 2025).  The book examines cross-examination across the UK and Ireland drawing on trial observations, practitioner interviews, and a linguistic analysis of courtroom exchanges in light of recent reforms.

https://amzn.to/49oVqG2

This is an Amazon affiliate link, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. 

If you or someone you know has been affected by any of the issues raised in this episode, please visit our website https://criminaljusticeinaction.com for information about help and support.

Music: Hopeless Waltz by Alena Smirnova.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's the final couple of days of Faruq's rape trial. We hear the prosecution and defence counsels' closing speeches followed by judge's directions before the jury retires to deliberate. It's a good day and a half before the jury returns with its unanimous verdict.

While we don't and can't know how they reached their decision, Dr Candida Saunders grapples with the presumption of innocence, the burden and standard of proof as she reflects on how and why she came to the same conclusion as the jury, given the evidence and arguments in the case.

The question isn't whether she's right or wrong. Whether she's got to the truth. It's whether she's sure.

**Listener discretion is advised**

The broader research underpinning this season of Criminal Justice in Action is reported in our book, Doak et al, Cross-examination on Trial: Advocacy and Vulnerability in Criminal Trials (BUP 2025).  The book examines cross-examination across the UK and Ireland drawing on trial observations, practitioner interviews, and a linguistic analysis of courtroom exchanges in light of recent reforms.

https://amzn.to/49oVqG2

This is an Amazon affiliate link, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. 

If you or someone you know has been affected by any of the issues raised in this episode, please visit our website https://criminaljusticeinaction.com for information about help and support.

Music: Hopeless Waltz by Alena Smirnova.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’re back in the public gallery of Crown Court for the third but not, it turns out, final instalment of Faruq’s rape trial. The prosecution concludes its case then it’s time for the jury to hear directly from the defendant himself: his account of that night, his shifting explanations, and the cracks that open up in prosecuting counsel’s cross-examination.

**Listener discretion is advised**

The broader research underpinning this season of Criminal Justice in Action is reported in our book, Doak et al, Cross-examination on Trial: Advocacy and Vulnerability in Criminal Trials (BUP 2025).  The book examines cross-examination across the UK and Ireland drawing on trial observations, practitioner interviews, and a linguistic analysis of courtroom exchanges in light of recent reforms.

https://amzn.to/49oVqG2

This is an Amazon affiliate link, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. 

If you or someone you know has been affected by any of the issues raised in this episode, please visit our website https://criminaljusticeinaction.com for information about help and support.

Music: Hopeless Waltz by Alena Smirnova.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The second day of this Crown Court rape trial plunges straight back into cross-examination. The defence sets out to problematise, not the complainant’s credibility, but her reliability—dealing with the evidential difficulties posed by her level of intoxication, memory fragmentation, confabulation and contamination.

We see how defence advocacy works in practice: how these issues are probed, how ‘false memories’ are argued, how evidence like CCTV footage and cell-site data does not speak for itself, and the inferences juries may be asked to draw in cases where a complainant can’t remember.

This episode examines the messy and emotive reality of rape trials and the sometimes uncomfortable tension between fairness to the accused and compassion for the complainant.

**Listener discretion is advised**

The broader research underpinning this season of Criminal Justice in Action is reported in our book, Doak et al, Cross-examination on Trial: Advocacy and Vulnerability in Criminal Trials (BUP 2025).  The book examines cross-examination across the UK and Ireland drawing on trial observations, practitioner interviews, and a linguistic analysis of courtroom exchanges in light of recent reforms.

https://amzn.to/49oVqG2

This is an Amazon affiliate link, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. 

If you or someone you know has been affected by any of the issues raised in this episode, please visit our website https://criminaljusticeinaction.com for information about help and support.

Music: Hopeless Waltz by Alena Smirnova.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As season one, Rape on Trial, continues its examination of the investigation and prosecution of rape and serious sexual offences in the UK criminal justice system, we are back in Crown Court for our fourth rape trial. Faruq, a taxi driver, is charged with raping Emily, a lone, intoxicated student he picked up in the street after she had been thrown out of a nightclub and separated from her friends: another rape prosecution the mainstream tells us is unlikely to succeed because of rape myths.

In this, the first of three episodes detailing criminal proceedings in Faruq's trial, the prosecution's case gets underway with opening speeches and the complainant's evidence in chief--her ABE video--and cross-examination.

**Listener discretion is advised**

The broader research underpinning this season of Criminal Justice in Action is reported in our book, Doak et al, Cross-examination on Trial: Advocacy and Vulnerability in Criminal Trials (BUP 2025).  The book examines cross-examination across the UK and Ireland drawing on trial observations, practitioner interviews, and a linguistic analysis of courtroom exchanges in light of recent reforms.

https://amzn.to/49oVqG2

This is an Amazon affiliate link, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. 

If you or someone you know has been affected by any of the issues raised in this episode, please visit our website https://criminaljusticeinaction.com for information about help and support.

Music: Hopeless Waltz by Alena Smirnova.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 7 of Criminal Justice in Action: Rape on Trial sees us back in Crown Court for the conclusion of Dean’s trial for rape and sexual assault. Another example what we’re told is the wrong kind of rape and the wrong kind of victim. The kind of case the mainstream says shouldn’t succeed: an intimate partner relationship rape; one person’s word against another’s; no corroborating evidence; no forensic evidence; no witnesses; and the toughest cross-examination of a rape complainant we have seen so far with Anya painted as the angry and vengeful ex-partner and accused of making false allegations both now and in the past.

As the trial now reaches its final stages, we hear defence counsel's closing speech and judge's directions and route to verdict before the jury deliberates on its verdict.

The conclusion of Dean's case marks a turning point in the season, raising questions about what the rape trials we have seen so far might reveal about rape myths, evidence and proof, courtroom advocacy, and attrition in the criminal justice process more broadly.

**Listener discretion is advised**

The broader research underpinning this season of Criminal Justice in Action is reported in our book, Doak et al, Cross-examination on Trial: Advocacy and Vulnerability in Criminal Trials (BUP 2025).  The book examines cross-examination across the UK and Ireland drawing on trial observations, practitioner interviews, and a linguistic analysis of courtroom exchanges in light of recent reforms.

https://amzn.to/49oVqG2

This is an Amazon affiliate link, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. 

If you or someone you know has been affected by any of the issues raised in this episode, please visit our website https://criminaljusticeinaction.com for information about help and support.

Music: Hopeless Waltz by Alena Smirnova.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 6 of Criminal Justice in Action: Rape on Trial sees us back in Court 2 as Dean's rape trial continues. Dean stands accused of rape and sexual assault against Anya, his girlfriend/partner at the time.

We pick up where we left off in episode 5, with Anya about to undergo cross-examination. In contrast to the cross-examination of rape complainants in Tariq and Jerome's trials, Anya's experience in the witness box more closely aligns with what we might expect to see, given mainstream accounts of rape trials and the conduct of the defence.

**Listener discretion is advised**

The broader research underpinning this season of Criminal Justice in Action is reported in our book, Doak et al, Cross-examination on Trial: Advocacy and Vulnerability in Criminal Trials (BUP 2025).  The book examines cross-examination across the UK and Ireland drawing on trial observations, practitioner interviews, and a linguistic analysis of courtroom exchanges in light of recent reforms.

https://amzn.to/49oVqG2

This is an Amazon affiliate link, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. 

If you or someone you know has been affected by any of the issues raised in this episode, please visit our website https://criminaljusticeinaction.com for information about help and support.

Music: Hopeless Waltz by Alena Smirnova.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As Rape on Trial continues, we're back in the public gallery of the Crown Court for Dean’s trial. He is charged with the rape and sexual assault of Anya, his partner at the time.

As in previous episodes, Dean’s trial involves another rape case the mainstream narrative tells us shouldn’t succeed: an allegation of intimate partner relationship rape with no forensic evidence, no CCTV, and no eyewitnesses — just one person’s word against another’s.

In this, the first of three episodes covering Dean's trial, we hear the prosecution’s opening of the case and the start of the complainant’s evidence.

Part of Criminal Justice in Action: Rape on Trial, this episode continues the season’s mission to cut through myths and misconceptions about rape in the criminal justice system, and to show how the criminal process really works in practice.

**Listener discretion is advised**

The broader research underpinning this season of Criminal Justice in Action is reported in our book, Doak et al, Cross-examination on Trial: Advocacy and Vulnerability in Criminal Trials (BUP 2025).  The book examines cross-examination across the UK and Ireland drawing on trial observations, practitioner interviews, and a linguistic analysis of courtroom exchanges in light of recent reforms.

https://amzn.to/49oVqG2

This is an Amazon affiliate link, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. 

If you or someone you know has been affected by any of the issues raised in this episode, please visit our website https://criminaljusticeinaction.com for information about help and support.

Music: Hopeless Waltz by Alena Smirnova.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 4 of Rape on Trial sees us back in court for the conclusion of Jerome’s trial for the robbery of five sex workers and rape of one; another case involving what the conventional wisdom tells us is the wrong kind of rape and the wrong kind of victim and shouldn't result in convictions.

As in Tariq's case, this trial, and the jury’s verdict, raise difficult questions for mainstream accounts of rape in the criminal process, the impact of rape myths and gender stereotypes on victim credibility, courtroom advocacy and the conduct of cross-examination, and how the criminal justice system actually works in these cases.

**Listener discretion is advised**

The broader research underpinning this season of Criminal Justice in Action is reported in our book, Doak et al, Cross-examination on Trial: Advocacy and Vulnerability in Criminal Trials (BUP 2025).  The book examines cross-examination across the UK and Ireland drawing on trial observations, practitioner interviews, and a linguistic analysis of courtroom exchanges in light of recent reforms.

https://amzn.to/49oVqG2

This is an Amazon affiliate link, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. 

If you or someone you know has been affected by any of the issues raised in this episode, please visit our website https://criminaljusticeinaction.com for information about help and support.

Music: Hopeless Waltz by Alena Smirnova.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.