This article references rape and sexual assault.
Let me tell you a bit about rape. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), one in four women has been raped or sexually assaulted as an adult. Out of those, the majority won’t report what happened to the police, mostly out of embarrassment and humiliation. A large number (38%) won’t bother because they believe the police can’t help them. Statistically speaking, they’re likely to be proven correct: fewer than 3 in 100 rapes recorded by police in 2024 resulted in someone being charged that same year.
For all these reasons and more, it’s astonishingly difficult to charge someone with rape, let alone convict them. And yet, a documentary that just landed on Netflix would have us believe it’s so easy that women are making false reports just for the sake of it. Released in 2020, I Am Not A Rapist is a BBC Three documentary that is currently the 5th most popular film on Netflix in the UK. It follows the story of three young men falsely accused of rape and the devastating aftermath.
There’s Liam Allan, whose case made headlines in 2017 after his ex-girlfriend alleged he’d repeatedly raped her throughout their relationship. Then there’s Ashley, whose accuser was a friend who asked him to collect her after a row with her boyfriend. He claims they had consensual sex in the back of his car. The next day, she told the police he’d raped her. And then there’s Jay Cheshire, a teenager who tragically took his own life following a complaint made against him that was ultimately dropped.
Undoubtedly, these are important stories. But in an age when so few sexual predators face justice for their actions – former victims commissioner, Dame Vera Baird, once warned we were witnessing the “decriminalisation of rape” – I’m not sure we needed a documentary on Netflix about them, particularly not one like this. Firstly, false rape allegations are incredibly rare; separate studies by the Home Office and Ministry of Justice suggest around 3-4% of reported rapes may be false.
The documentary paints a different picture. Aside from Allan (whose case was cleared in court), its presentation of innocence relies on testimonies from Ashley, his family, and Cheshire’s family. We don’t hear from the women who accused these men, nor do we hear from anyone who knows them. What we do hear, through sets of white text flashing up on a black screen set to dramatic music, is that up to 80 false reports of rape are made each week, a statistic based on a 20-year-old Home Office report, and that before 2014, the number of reported rapes was under 20,000 a year and that according to the ONS, by 2018, that number had tripled. There is no mention of the global #MeToo movement that occurred between these two timeframes, which would’ve been the most likely reason for this uptick.
Launched by Tarana Burke and later made viral thanks to Alyssa Milano, #MeToo emboldened thousands of women around the world to speak up about sexual assault and harassment. In many cases, these were stories that people had not previously felt safe enough to divulge. It was – and still is – a reckoning for sexual violence and a lifeline for survivors. And yet, this film somehow manages to not just neglect that watershed moment but weaponise it, presenting it as if it’s somehow evidence of a surge in false rape reports – the statistic is presented to viewers immediately after Ashley tells the camera, “Being arrested for something you didn’t do is horrible.”
“I never felt unsafe around the migrants. It felt like people were using my gender to justify their own opinions or actions.”
There are other jarring moments, too. Like when Ashley says, “It takes a real lowlife scumbag to rape someone.” Or when Allan’s mother tells the camera, “I know my son, no one would be able to carry those colours and then suddenly be something else.” This way of speaking about sexual assault is profoundly ignorant in light of the facts. Think about how many women you know who’ve been raped or sexually assaulted (one in four, remember). According to the ONS, 91% of their perpetrators will be male. Now think about how many men you know who’d say they’d raped or sexually assaulted someone. I imagine there’s a vast discrepancy in those two answers.
And yet, given the scale of sexual violence at the hands of men, it’s likely all of us will know, or at least have met, men who’ve raped women. Those men won’t be monsters who’ve emerged from alleyways or cupboards. Nor will they necessarily be “lowlife scumbags.” In all likelihood, they will be sons, brothers, fathers, friends, and colleagues. These might be men who hold car doors open for women, or make their wives cups of tea in the morning. None of that negates the possibility that they might also be capable of sexually assaulting someone.
These are the mindsets I want to see being challenged in thought-provoking documentaries. Films that take into account the crucial context within which rape allegations happen, false or otherwise, and recognise some brutal but important truths, like how many of us have been violated by men we trusted. How long has it taken to come to terms with a type of trauma we’ve been conditioned to blame on ourselves? And the number of societal and legislative barriers we’ll face in order to be believed.
At one point in I Am Not A Rapist, one of Allan’s friends describes a false rape allegation as “every young man’s worst nightmare”. It’s a moment that may remind some viewers of a similar line in Emerald Fennell’s film, Promising Young Woman, to which the protagonist, Cassie (played by Carey Mulligan) responds: “Can you guess what every woman's worst nightmare is?”
Sean Combs, or ‘Diddy’, has been found not guilty of the most serious charges in his trial.
