But while the law dictates that his accuser must remain anonymous, Mr Bacon’s good name has been dragged through the mud.

The rape law is in urgent need of overhaul.

If an accuser is to remain anonymous, then surely a defendant should be entitled to the same protection in cases that boil down to her word against his. At least until a jury has decided whose account it believes.
 
I think that the law on consent must also be put on a more equal footing between the genders. It is a nonsense that an inebriated woman should be absolved of all responsibility for her conduct as regards the giving or withholding consent, while an inebriated man is held responsible not only for his choices, but for hers as well.
 
Such infantilisation does women no favours, leading some to suppose they can drink themselves into a stupor without putting themselves at risk.

When two adults get drunk and then flirt, kiss and end up in bed together, both may end up regretting it in the morning. But where no force has been used and where consent appeared mutual, they are surely equally culpable for the events of the night before.

Currently the law appears to allow women to retrospectively withdraw consent the next day if they wake up with regrets at what they did when they had their beer goggles on. As Mr Bacon’s accuser discovered this week, juries will never accept such a one-sided view of interactions between the sexes. And nor should they.

For such cases to end up as rape trials is an insult to real rape victims ranging from women who get attacked by strangers in public places or by intruders in their own homes, to those who are sexually assaulted by violent partners or former partners.

If feminist lawyers wish to improve the pathetically low conviction rates in rape cases, one way forward is surely to stop bringing joke cases to trial.