A judge today raised concerns over the ‘enormous emotional pressure’ exerted on women in Muslim communities after a rape case collapsed at the eleventh hour when the wife of an Asian man refused to give evidence against him.
The 35-year-old woman had accused her 34-year-old husband - a convicted sex offender - of raping her twice and was due to testify against him at a trial earlier this week.
But prosecutors were forced to offer no evidence and the case collapsed when the women suddenly decided to retract the allegations.
Judge Simon Newell said he was concerned ‘sections of the community’ were ‘exerting influences’ and ‘inhibiting the police’ from carrying out their duties. He implied justice was being interfered with by those close to the woman who wanted her to drop the charges.
The husband, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has two previous convictions - one for assault causing actual bodily harm against his wife and another for a sexual offence against another woman.
He has already been ordered to sign the sex offenders register until September 2014.
Despite expressing concern that the woman had been pressurised into withdrawing the rape claims, Judge Newell allowed the husband to walk free from court.
However, he warned him that the matter would ‘lie on his file’ and could be brought before the courts again should new evidence come to light.
‘It seems to me there are persons who have an interest in this case, who are minded to express opinions and exert influences which are possibly inhibiting the police, the prosecuting authorities and the courts in carrying out their proper functions,’ the judge said.
‘In these cases, because they involve families, it is the families and community that wants to solve them,’ he said. ‘That itself is a significant problem.
‘The law has been strengthened around these issues but there is much more that needs to be done between the courts, police and social services.’
Salim Mulla, chairman of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, agreed.
‘The Asian community sometimes has a different way of working, trying to resolve the problems itself rather than leaving it to the police,’ he said. ‘But that doesn’t make it the right thing to do.
‘The abuse of any child or woman is not permitted by Islam. We will continue to speak about this issue and try to raise it in the community to stop it happening.’
Councillor Mohammed Iqbal, Labour leader on Pendle Council, added: ‘There is a small section who may think their cultural identity is higher than the law of the land, but it isn’t.’
It is understood that no action will be taken against the woman for retracting the allegations.
Last month Keir Starmer, the chief prosecutor in England and Wales, admitted there had been failings in the treatment of women who withdraw rape claims.
His comments came after a 28-year-old woman, from Welshpool, North Wales, was jailed for retracting allegations of rape against her husband.
The young mother, who was bullied into withdrawing the charges by her controlling and manipulative husband, was sentenced to eight months imprisonment for perverting the course of justice by a crown court judge after the case against her husband collapsed.
But she was freed after spending 18 days in jail by the country’s most senior judge in November, who said a community punishment would have been more ‘compassionate’.
Mr Starmer publicly apologised to the woman and said that any moves to prosecute women who retract a rape allegation would now need his personal approval.
‘If the victim has decided to withdraw a rape allegation, we must explore the issues behind that, particularly if the victim is under pressure or frightened,’ he added.