UK: Study says 9% of rape claims ‘false’

Article here. Excerpt:

'Some 9 per cent of all rape allegations made to the gardai are false, according to research conducted for the state prosecutor’s office.

However, Director of Public Prosecutions James Hamilton said that, despite the research, his own experience of dealing with rape cases did not bear the findings out. ‘‘One of our studies suggested that it was as high as 9 per cent, but in my experience, it wouldn’t be anywhere near that high," Hamilton told The Sunday Business Post.

Hamilton, who retires next month after 12 years as the DPP, defended the handling by his office of rape complaints, including cases of historical clerical abuse. ‘‘One of the interesting statistics is that our overall conviction rate, comparing the number of convictions with the number of complaints made, is pretty well the same as in theUK,’’Hamilton said.

‘‘In the UK, they actually charge a lot more [people], but there’s a lower conviction rate. We charge fewer people than in the UK [as a percentage of alleged rapes based on reports to police], but the overall conviction rate is pretty much the same,which leads me to think that, if we charged more people, we would just get a lot more failed cases.'