Rapists Lie

[Content Note: Rape culture.]

You know how I keep banging on about how rapists are also liars? Yeah, well: "Rapists use social media to cover their tracks, police warned."

Rapists are increasingly exploiting social media to cover their tracks and mislead investigators, a joint conference by police and prosecutors on rape was told on Wednesday .

At the police and the Crown Prosecution Service’s first joint initiative on rape, prosecutors said they had established an emerging pattern of behaviour where rapists constructed "false narratives" after the crime. One technique described involved rapists contacting victims the next day, sometimes by text or social media, thanking them for a sexual encounter. Defendants can try to rely on such messages should there be a trial.

Alison Saunders, the director of public prosecutions, told the event of the potential for social media to be used to "set up the scene" and warned that false messages could be used to set up a defence.

Note that this, too, is evidence of the projection that underwrites narratives used to discredit survivors: We are all familiar with the trope of the woman who "changes her mind" or "feels guilty" after a consensual sexual encounter so (inexplicably) decides to accuse a man of rape.

The reality is that it is rapists who will try anything they can to rewrite what really happened.