Joan Smith
Let Down by Law
Eve Was Shamed: How British Justice is Failing Women
By Helena Kennedy
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It is a quarter of a century since Helena Kennedy’s book Eve Was Framed: Women and British Justice was published. A great deal has changed in that time, a circumstance reflected in the less equivocal title of this sequel, which leaves us in little doubt that Kennedy believes things have got worse since she first wrote about the way women are treated by the police, courts and judges.
There is a paradox here, because the number of women reporting rapes keeps going up. The figure has been rising for years, suggesting that some women have more confidence in the police and hope that they will be able to see their attackers convicted. But savage cuts to police and
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