Pedantry is a desirable characteristic in a lawyer, to my mind. Lawyers do, after all, spend much time arguing profitably about semantics. Journalists should be pedants too.
I wrestled with that thought when the government announced – to quote the BBC – that: ‘Rape victims will be given access to specialist legal advice throughout the criminal justice process.’ A new package of reforms ‘will ensure the trial focuses on the suspect’s behaviour rather than scrutinising victims’.
Almost all mainstream media reported this news thus. They were all wrong. If a suspect remains a suspect, a victim cannot necessarily be called a victim. Not in every case. Is this mere pedantry? Does it matter?
No and yes, defence lawyers tell me. Framing is important. The demise of the presumption of innocence is wholesale. Government and other justice communications routinely refer to ‘victims’ in the context of trials and delays, regardless of the (alleged) offence.
David Lammy did so himself in his setpiece speech on jury trial curbs a fortnight ago. ‘The average victim [of any crime] today waits over 250 days to see justice done,’ he said. ‘These are not abstract statistics. They mean lives on hold. They mean jobs postponed, relationships strained, trauma prolonged.’
Indeed they do. The same goes for the accused, for whom justice must also be seen to be done. Some turn out to be innocent. Andrew Malkinson did.
Of course, this is an acutely sensitive subject in the context of serious sexual offences. Victims’ groups even object to journalists using the term ‘alleged victim’. They claim it invites the reader to infer that the person in question may well be lying. When so many rape victims are not believed, that is a powerful argument.
One neutral formulation – used by the Gazette – is ‘rape complainant’, but this also feels inadequate. ‘Complainant’ seems too anodyne a noun given the gravity of such cases. Yet it is probably the best available, if we are to report accurately.
Some will argue that we should simply cleave to the new norm of ‘victim’ in all contexts. Our sophisticated readership will understand what is meant.
Were the Gazette not a legal journal I would probably agree with them, paradoxically. What do you think?
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