Documents show ex-Stanford swimmer used drugs before college

FOLLOWING the conviction last week of American student Brock Turner on three counts of sexual assault against an an unconscious woman on the campus of Stanford University, California, a series of documents emerged.

But in a letter directed toward her assailant, the victim called it “a mockery of the seriousness of his assaults”.

Their attackers aren’t strangers lurking in the bushes or the dorm showers. Turner, however, is a wide-eyed freshman and all-American swimmer at a prestigious school. That was a effect of party culture. In a survey of victims who do not report rape or attempted rape to the police, the following was found as to why no report was made: “43 percent thought nothing could be done, 27 percent felt it was a private matter, 12 percent were afraid of police response, and 12 percent felt it was not important enough”. These are not rapists.

“I saw the same sort of verbiage being used: ‘What was she wearing?”

The woman, now 23, held nothing back about the January 2015 incident in which she was assaulted behind a trash bin outside a Stanford fraternity party.

However, the Loyola Law School professor believes “it was definitely a lawful sentence”. She should not have to relive that nightmare of a night because, even though you and your lawyer suggested this, it is not her fault. “It’s not just college students. You just don’t hear about it”. It was sent in the early morning hours the day of the assault. They face a public for whom the conversation about campus rape has been undermined by the anti-rape movement’s overzealousness and alarmism. Nearly none of them considered that to be rape. According to an excerpt from the police report, Brock Turner told police “his intentions were not to try to rape a girl without her consent”.

“I sleep with two bicycles that I drew taped above my bed”, she wrote in a searing letter to the judge, “to remind myself there are heroes in this story. Show men how to respect women, not how to drink less”.

“You can put a college student rapist on a lie detector test and they will pass”, Ms. Koss said – not describing an actual experiment but the depth of the students’ beliefs. “That she was naked from the waist down”, she says. It is unfair that women, on top of other stressors, have to factor protecting themselves against sexual assault into the mix. In fact, Turner never acknowledges that he’s done something wrong, only that “I would give anything to change what happened that night”.

“Coming from a small town in OH, I had never really experienced celebrating or partying that involved alcohol”.

Meanwhile, pressure continued to mount on JudgePersky, who sentenced Turner to six months in county jail, three years of probation and a requirement that he register as a sex offender. In addition, an advocacy group petitioned the agency that investigates and sanctions judges in California, and a protest is planned during one of Stanford’s commencement events.

A harrowing witness statement from the victim which was read in court, has caused a national outcry – with Vice President Joe Biden writing an open letter in support of her. The prosecutor asked for six years instead of the maximum time of 14 years – and Turner is appealing even the light sentence he did get!

At the sentencing, Persky said he considered Turner’s lack of criminal history in determining what critics say is a lenient sentence.

The officer also wrote that while the victim “was understandably traumatised by the experience, her focus and concern was treatment, rather than incarceration”. Social media can document the much longer-term, often lifelong impact of rape on a survivor’s life.

I want nothing more than for the victim to return to some sense of normalcy and to have her wounds, both physical and emotional, to be healed.

In a world where a Donald Trump can become the US Presidential hopeful by making mean, bitchy, distasteful comments against Muslims, Mexicans and other minorities, in a world where people’s representatives can proclaim a “Muslim-mukt Bharat” as a legitimate political goal, in a world where politicians can be seen seething with righteous indignation for a family going unpunished for possessing mutton that had mysteriously turned into beef, disrespect for women’s rights does seem par for the course.