Here is the full text of the interesting submission made by the Prosecution team in the infamous Dominique Strauss-Kahn case asking that the case be dismissed.

The prosecution case for this complete change of tack in DSK’s favour is simple. The lies and contradictions in the hotel-maid’s testimony were so considerable as to leave the prosecution themselves in doubt as to what had happened. And under well established New York legal principle, if the prosecution were not sure beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime had been committed, it would not be right to put the issue to the jury.

Here is the predictable howl of feminist fury from Hadley Freeman (sic) in the Guardian:

A woman who gets intoxicated can be raped. Prostitutes can be raped. And a poor woman who has told lies can be raped. In fact, it is often the women who "don’t make good victims" who are most at risk because they are the most vulnerable, and it is these women who are least likely to be listened to…

Fair point. Although in this case the woman concerned was painstakingly listened to (and indeed believed). The problem was that she kept telling lies.

Diallo has been shown to have told lies in her life, certainly. None of these lies, though, had anything to do with her version of what happened in room 2806 in the Sofitel, a version that has been backed up by forensic evidence.

This is not true, as the Prosecution deposition makes clear. Her accounts of what happened kept changing:

… the complainant’s credibility can not withstand the most basic evaluation

Yes, it’s miserable for the (usually female) victim of an alleged crime like this to have to go through searching if not obnoxious cross-examination in court. But the (usually male) accused likewise has to explain himself convincingly.

Look at it another way. If Ms Freeman’s son were charged with such an offence, would she be happy for him to be convicted if the evidence did not point strongly to the fact that he had done the crime? In a case when a lot has to turn on the victim and accused alike explaining what happened, the ability of either of them to give a simple, credible and preferably honest account of what happened has to be central. That’s justice.

Here, the hotel maid may have been the victim of a vile assault by DSK. But why did she not manage to muster a sustained account of what happened which was consistent with the physical evidence (including electronic room-key data) after being given every opportunity to produce such an account?

For me the most baffling aspect of her story (and I hasten to say that I am no expert in such subtleties) is the fact that at the time of the alleged assault she was wearing two pairs of ‘panty-hose’ (ie tights for a UK readership): " a pair darker in shade and a pair lighter in shade" plus a pair of panties underneath that.

Can any female (or indeed male) readers cast any light on why that might be? Cold weather seems unlikely – the alleged assault was in May.

Baffling.