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Judges reject cleared man's fight to sue 'rape victim' for £300,000
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent23.10.09
Three senior judges have rejected an attempt by an alleged rapist to win £300,000 damages from his victim.
In a landmark decision, Appeal Court judges said they had to protect the woman, known as AB, from the unprecedented legal attack. Solicitor General Vera Baird QC praised AB as "a courageous woman" and described the decision as "good news for the criminal justice system."
The alleged rapist, Anthony Hunt, had decided to sue her rather than the Crown Prosecution Service or the police who brought him to court. Legal experts say that if Mr Hunt had won it would have opened the floodgates for defendants - even if convicted - to win damages from their alleged victims.
Outside court AB's solicitor Anna Mills, of Lovells, said: "Before we agreed to assist AB with this case, she had personally spent in excess of £60,000 defending Mr Hunt's claim. She has suffered more than 14 years of severe psychological and emotional trauma. If the claim had succeeded, any victim of an unwitnessed crime, or any sole witness to a crime who agreed to support a prosecution, could have found themselves in a similar situation."
The court was told that Mr Hunt had been convicted of rape in November 2003 after an incident in July 1995. He was sentenced to four years' imprisonment but in 2005 the Appeal Court quashed the conviction after hearing new evidence and arguments that the trial judge had misdirected the jury.
But the judges did not order a retrial because Mr Hunt had by then served almost his full sentence. He subsequently sued the alleged victim AB for malicious prosecution but had his claim rejected by the High Court in October last year.
He appealed but Lord Justice Sedley said the police and CPS were responsible for the prosecution.
He added: "If she is to be regarded by the law as a prosecutor, so is every key witness whom an acquitted defendant considers to have lied, with incalculable consequences for both the civil and the criminal justice systems."
Ms Baird said: "This claim, deliberately or not, was an attack on the efforts that the Government, police, CPS and many voluntary agencies have been making to encourage women to come forward when they are raped to sustain complaints through the court process.
"I salute Ms AB and the lawyers who took on this work free of charge - a great public service."
Reader views (3)
This was probably the right decesion, but where there has been accus ation of rape that was malicious and false, then the fasly accused shouldbe able to sue.
- Very Very Angry At Paying Tax For Mp'S Expeses, Home Counties
If the facts of the case as stated above are correct, then this is the right decision.
However, where someone's life has been ruined by proven false accusations, the false accuser should not only be made to pay damages, but they should also serve the sentence that would have been handed down to their victim.
- Keith Lonsdale, Doncaster
4 years for rape. Hardly seems worth it.
- S-M Hearmon, London, UK
