Ex-UK judge blasted for blaming drunk women for acquittal of rapists

A former UK judge has sparked outrage after she blamed drunk women for not providing enough evidence in rape cases, causing the rapists to walk free.

Judge Mary Mowat, who retired aged 66 after 18 years as a circuit judge, said that one in four rape suspects walks free because of a lack of corroborative evidence, often because the victim is drunk, the Daily Express reported.

She said that it is an inevitable fact of it being one person's word against another and the burden of proof being that you have to be sure before you convict and even claimed that the rape conviction statistics will not improve until women stop getting so drunk.

Anti-rape campaigners have slammed her comments as "outrageous" and Jill Saward, victim of the Ealing vicarage rape in 1986, said that it's quite outrageous of the judge to say this because she is actually defending the behaviour of men who set out to rape, which is not an appropriate thing to say.

Katie Russell, of Rape Crisis, said that Mowat makes clear that it is never 'allowable' to rape a 'drunken woman', her comments are potentially very harmful.