You can bin a cat, but please, don't get raped.

When a 28 year old Welsh woman dialed 999 to report a rape, it took courage. For she was not reporting a single rape, but a series of six rapes  on three occasions, and the perpetrator was not a stranger in a dark alley, he was her husband.

There is a strange belief held by some that a "date rape" or marital rape is less harrowing, less serious than when a woman is raped and beaten by an unknown man in a park or a field. It is not rape-rape, to quote Whoopi Goldberg.

This is the biggest piece of bullshit. Rape is rape. There are no graduations, there is no Rape Lite. It is a horrifying act of violence against a woman, no matter where it takes place.

Women raped by their partners have to face an added horror, in addition to the actual rape itself. They must come to terms with the incredible betrayal of trust and love by the person who should be closest to them, the person who should love, honour and protect them from harm.  It is not unusual for them to stay with their partners, to justify their behaviour, "I was being annoying, I shouldn't nag, he doesn't mean it, he is a good father..."

These women need added support to come to terms with the crime against them.

What they don't need is prosecution when they have been persuaded by their abuser and his family to withdraw the allegations.

As crazy as it sounds, this actually happened. Yesterday the Telegraph reported the story.

Here the basic facts:

November 2009 - Welsh woman phones 999 to report 6 rapes on 3 occasions by her husband

January 2010 - Woman contacts the Police to say she wants to drop the charges. Police and prosecutors decide to press on with the case. It emerged during this time that the husband had visited his wife and children over Christmas and that they had had consensual sexual relations.

February 2010 - Woman goes to the police to tell them that she lied. There were no rapes. She was arrested and charged with perverting the course of justice.

Summer 2010 - Woman tells police that she wishes to make a new statement, declaring that the retraction had been a lie and that the rapes did indeed happen. She had been persuaded by her husband and his sister to drop the charges and pretend that she lied.

Friday, 5th November - Woman is jailed for 8 months for perverting the course of justice by making a false retraction. Judge John Rogers told her she had caused “a substantial amount of wastage for the Crown Prosecution Service and police”. She was told:

"You now have to be dealt with for making a false retraction. If you had to be dealt with for making a false allegation of rape you would be looking at a sentence of two years."
It is an absolute disgrace. In jailing her for the false retraction, we must assume that the Judge believes that the rapes took place but the husband has not been convicted of the rapes - he pleaded not guilty to the charges. I would be interested to hear the legal side of that argument.

Of course it must have been frustrating for the police and the prosecutors when the woman changed her story several times but this is a woman who has been abused by her husband for years - according to her solicitors. At what point did human decency fall by the wayside, at what point did they decide that it would be a good idea to prosecute this woman?

She intends to appeal against the decision and her solicitors hope that she will be freed on bail until the court case can be heard. Campaigners from the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said: "Imprisoning a woman for a 'false retraction' of a rape allegation sends out a chilling message that the criminal justice system is still in the dark ages in relation to sexual violence and does not understand the pressure women come under from perpetrators during the legal process."
 Until now there have been a few newspaper articles about this, one or two blog posts but I am missing the unbridled fury of the British public, the likes of which the Cat Bin Lady, Mary Bale was subjected to. I have linked to her story in the very unlikely event that there is anyone out there who did not hear about her dumping a cat in a wheelie bin. Mary escaped a jail term, but was vilified by the public, receiving abuse calls and death threats.

In contrast, it seems that very few care that a young woman, who has escaped an unhappy and abusive marriage, is separated from her children because she was pressured into making a false retraction of rape - to spare her husband a longer jail sentence.

If you know of any way that we can support this unnamed woman, please let me know.