Rape Trials and Sexual History Evidence: reforming the law on third party evidence

McGlynn, Clare

doi:10.1177/0022018317728824

Rape Trials and Sexual History Evidence: reforming the law on third party evidence

McGlynn, Clare

Authors

Professor Clare McGlynn clare.mcglynn@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

Despite repeated legislative attempts to restrict the use of sexual history evidence in rape trials, it continues to be admitted in many cases, causing considerable debate and leading to further attempts to reform the law. In this light, this article examines afresh the admissibility of sexual history evidence in rape trials. It focuses particularly on evidence relating to persons other than the accused (third-party evidence), following the recent controversial judgment of the Court of Appeal in R v Ched Evans where such evidence was introduced. The justifications for restricting sexual history evidence are considered, as well as research data on how often it is being used. Following an analysis of the current law, the article concludes that urgent reform is needed and a number of law reform options are examined.

Citation

McGlynn, C. (2017). Rape Trials and Sexual History Evidence: reforming the law on third party evidence. Journal of Criminal Law, 81(5), 367-392. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022018317728824

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jul 17, 2017
Online Publication Date	Sep 8, 2017
Publication Date	Oct 1, 2017
Deposit Date	Jul 18, 2017
Publicly Available Date	Jul 18, 2017
Journal	Journal of Criminal Law
Print ISSN	0022-0183
Electronic ISSN	1740-5580
Publisher	SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	81
Issue	5
Pages	367-392
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1177/0022018317728824

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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

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This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).