Detached from Sympathy, Unconscious of Trauma: The Impact of the Forensic Virtues of Impartiality and Detachment on Rape Examinations in Britain 1924-1978

Abstract

This article asks why British mainstream forensic literature and practice did not acknowledge the long-term mental consequences of rape for victims and their need for a sympathetic approach before the 1970s. I argue that this was not simply out of ignorance, considering that in the period 1924–1978 there already were some medical practitioners—women doctors, psychiatrists and gynaecologists—who expressed concern for these matters. However, the forensic expert witnesses, who were influential in the field, considered the virtue of sympathy and the practices of care that women doctors promoted to be incompatible with the judicial virtue of impartiality. To avoid any suggestion of partiality, which would damage their authority in the adversarial courtroom, these men instead employed the epistemic virtue of emotional detachment. This led them to adopt a sceptical attitude towards rape victims and drew their attention away from the psychological care women and children might require.