Conor McGregor and partner Dee Devlin arriving at the High Court in Dublin in November (Picture: Brian Lawless/PA Wire)
‘My sons will be warned women like you exist in the world’.
I felt chilled when I read this statement.
It came from Dee Devlin, the long-term partner of UFC fighter Conor McGregor, who last week was ordered to pay €248,000 (£206,000) in damages to Nikita Hand, having been found guilty by the High Court jury of raping Hand in a Dublin hotel in December, 2018.
In a series of Instagram posts aimed at Hand, Devlin asks, ‘What sort of woman are you?’ and claims to know of proof that indicates Hand was the sexual aggressor.
Dee Devlin believes in her partner’s innocence. She alleges in her Instagram posts to have seen ‘video footage’ which supports McGregor’s case.
Yet Devlin’s ominous expression that she will ‘warn’ her sons of ‘women like you’ is not furthering her cause.
Instead, she is perpetuating the dangerous, harmful myth that men are at the mercy of conniving women, and that these women lurk around every corner.
Learn more about rape in the UK
According to Rape Crisis, 6.5million women in England and Wales have been raped or sexually assaulted, but 5 in 6 women don’t report rape
The number of sexual offences in England and Wales reached a record high of 193,566 in in the year ending March 2022
UCL research found that rape offences have the highest not guilty plea rate of any offence (85%) and this has been the case consistently for 15 years
ONS data reveals almost half of all rapes are perpetrated by a woman’s partner or ex-partner, and End Violence Against Women have said that the victim knows the perpetrator in 85% of cases
The ONS also found that more than 1 in 5 victims were unconscious or asleep when they were raped
Devlin’s ominous expression is not furthering her husband’s cause (Picture: Dee Devlin/@deedevlin1/Instagram)
There are few up-to-date statistics available but the CPS lists false allegations of rape as ‘serious but rare’. Analysis from the Ministry of Justice and Home Office suggest that roughly 3% of rape allegations made in 2008-2009 could be false.
A 2013 study carried out over 17 months by the CPS reported 5,651 prosecutions for rape and only 35 for making false allegations.
Moreover, the term ‘false allegations’ can be misleading as the definition of ‘false’ varies amongst police and prosecutors.
While a tiny minority of people do make a malicious complaint, a 2012 report from the Ministry of Justice states that a ‘false’ allegation was declared in instances where the victim was intoxicated, witnesses withdrew, or the person reporting was not visibly harmed.
Nikita Hand, who is also known as Nikita Ni Laimhin, speaking to the media outside the High Court in Dublin on November 22, 2024 (Picture: Brian Lawless/PA Wire)
Hand hugging a supporter (Picture: Brian Lawless/PA Wire)
By any metric, the stark reality is that false claims of rape and sexual assault are vanishingly rare compared to actual …read more
Source:: Metro