Things aren't always what they seem

It's no secret to many of you that once I get the bit between my teeth I'm not afraid to tell it like I see it but it seems to be a long time since something has really gotten me riled up.

Maybe it's because I've mellowed with age or that there's just less to get angry about or simply because I'm more jaded and there's little of human nature to surprise me anymore.

Whatever the reason, I was shoved kicking and screaming out of my complacency last week when I opened the newspaper to read that a female lawyer has claimed that her clients' crime of rape was 'just harmless fun'.

For a man to have made such a claim would have been an atrocity in itself but for it to come out of the mouth of a woman - who by the very nature of being a woman, should be fighting against a hideous crime that affects millions of us across the world on a daily basis - beggars belief.

The fact that women had to fight as long and as hard as they did to even have rape recognised as a crime punishable by law is undeniable and for a woman to simply sweep the courage and sacrifices made by many a brave woman before us under the carpet is a betrayal of Judas-like proportions.

In fact the betrayal is so impossibly big that I don't believe it.

Reading the articles involved and looking more closely at the matter, she is defending clients that have pleaded not guilty to rape. What she is in fact saying in my opinion is that what the boys were having was harmless fun. Nowhere does she claim that rape was involved. The rape kit results were positive for the defendants' DNA but a rape kit is named such because it consists of a test made once a person has claimed to have been raped. What it doesn't do is differentiate between rape and consensual sex and the fact that a person says they have been raped does not actually prove that they have been.

What this lawyer is actually stating is that the boys say they did not rape the woman, they were having harmless fun, which to my understanding would imply that she is claiming the sex was consensual and not rape.

Whatever the truth of the matter, something obviously went wrong for it to have ended up in a court of law but as much as rape is a horrific crime and way too many women fall prey to the evil of it, there is no denying that not all people who are accused of it are guilty. And the whole premise of the law is that a person is innocent until proven guilty, which in this case has yet to be determined.

There has been an outcry of anger and outrage over something that is basically a misunderstanding of what she actually said and if (hypothetically) this had happened in the UK - which thanks to strict laws prohibiting commenting on ongoing cases, it wouldn't have - the judge would have had no choice but to call a mistrial on the basis that the defendants would be unable to have a fair trial after all the publicity.

Lawyers in general get a very bad rap. Most people think of them as parasites who feed off the misery and misfortune of others and in some cases that can be true but in as many cases they can be a Godsend who help us right a wrong done to us.

There's no denying the very real need for them and most of us would just as quickly hire one when we see ourselves as being done wrong as we would condemn them when they defend someone we don't approve of.

It's very hard for most of us to understand why a lawyer would ever bring themselves to defend people who are guilty of hideous crimes. In fact it's so hard to believe that most of us would put it down to greed for money and fame and in some cases I'm sure that could be true.

But lawyers, like doctors, take an oath that says: "I will never reject, from any consideration personal to myself, the cause of the defenseless or oppressed, or delay any person's cause for lucre or malice." (This may vary from country to country but the premise is the same worldwide).

In doing so they are saying that everyone has a right to the best possible defence, regardless of the lawyers' personal views. It's that very right that allows people who are unjustly accused to be found innocent when many would wish to lock them up and throw away the key without knowing the real facts of the matter.

This lawyer is simply upholding the oath she has taken and is defending her clients to the best of her ability and, if the truth be told, if I should ever be unfortunate enough to find myself on the wrong side of the law here, she's the one I would want defending me.