A girl cries rape – but is she lying?

A girl cries rape – but is she lying?
A girl cries rape – but is she lying? (Image credit: Steven Peskett)

DC Jo Masters tackles a particularly sensitive case… Sixteen-year-old Janine Clark claims she has been gang-raped. The trouble is, it's her word against the statements of her alleged rapists – and the four lads all say she agreed to group sex. Janine is first found by DC Terry Perkins at a rape clinic. At Sun Hill, she tells him that what started out as a date with her boyfriend, Mark, turned into sexual assault at the hands of his friends, Greg, Paul and Leo, with Mark’s help. Mark’s a cocky specimen, who insists that there was no rape; Janine was just being very nice to him and his mates: they wanted group sex and she gave it to them. Jo is interviewing Greg, who has his mum Susan at his side. He tells her that Janine kissed him in front of Mark a couple of weeks earlier. Case closed then. As far as Susan is concerned Janine was asking for it. And DI Neil Manson tells Jo that Janine's behaviour will make it difficult to convict the boys of rape. Furious, Jo refuses to give up. She's convinced that Janine is telling the truth but she only has two hours left to prove it. After then, Mark and his horrible little friends will walk free. So she targets Greg, the group's weak link, determined to get him to confess...

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.