Another prove your innocence case

[Cliftonite]

Bigends said:

Girls can consent to sex down to age 13. There is still the offence of sexual activity with a child committed but wouldnt be rape if consensual.

Below that age they cant consent and any intercourse would be recorded and investigated as rape


The old offence of unlawful sexual intercourse (under 16) has long gone.

Age of consent is 16, surely!

[Dr Jekyll]

saaby93 said:

There's still something not quite right with all of this
In theory the defence could sit there saying nothing throughout a trial and the prosecution has to put forward evidence to prove your guilt
If it does then youre banged to rights

All this business about having to disclose to the defence shouldnt matter, there could be cases where they find nothing to disclose, it seems to be only luck something is found on a mobile phone somewhere.
Whether its found or not if youre innocent the prosecution evidence shouldnt be strong enough to convict

So whats going wrong on the prosecution side that everyone believes there is enough evidence to convict in these cases?

But realistically there can be evidence which on the face of it may be regarded as proof beyond reasonable doubt but which additional evidence puts into context.

EG another sexual assault case when the prosecution produced DNA evidence showing the suspect had been in contact with the complainant. The defence showed that the suspect worked in the hospital she had been taken to and was on duty at the time, they also threatened to call the victim as a defence witness because she was adamant her assailant was white and the suspect was black.

[saaby93]

Dr Jekyll said:

EG another sexual assault case when the prosecution produced DNA evidence showing the suspect had been in contact with the complainant. .

DNA gets transferred by all sorts of means, there are also false positives. It has its place but its not a 'it was him/her' finger pointer
Besided in may of these cases isnt there acknowledged contact between the complainant and the alleged victim/defendant

[anonymous-user]

An insider's view of the do it yesterday rush of the CJS -


https://thesecretbarrister.com/2017/12/20/guest-po...

[anonymous-user]

Cliftonite said:

Bigends said:

Girls can consent to sex down to age 13. There is still the offence of sexual activity with a child committed but wouldnt be rape if consensual.

Below that age they cant consent and any intercourse would be recorded and investigated as rape

The old offence of unlawful sexual intercourse (under 16) has long gone.

Age of consent is 16, surely!

16 is still a relevant age when it comes to defences for a potential offender, but in terms of consent, consent can be given from 13.

Check out the wording: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/conte...

[Moonhawk]

Cliftonite said:

Age of consent is 16, surely!

"Age of consent" appears to be a layman term. As far as I can tell - the sexual offences act 2003 makes no reference to something called "age of consent".

The specific wording under section 9 of the sexual offences act is as follows:

A person aged 18 or over (A) commits an offence if—

(a)he intentionally touches another person (B),
(b)the touching is sexual, and
(c)either—

(i)B is under 16 and A does not reasonably believe that B is 16 or over, or
(ii)B is under 13.

[coanda]

XCP said:

That is the crux of the matter. But to suggest that the police should not be selective in disclosure is not right either. Consider the Grenfell fire for example. How much unused material will there be for cases relating to that? A warehouse full I should imagine.

This is the cost of a fair trial. If it takes a warehouse, it takes a warehouse.

I can sort a database of 40 000 messages in to recipients by date and time, and then do statistical analysis on that data to lead the thrust of any investigation of that data in less than an hour. This comes down to a lack of knowledge and tools. It's inexcusable in todays data driven world.

[Dr Jekyll]

coanda said:

This is the cost of a fair trial. If it takes a warehouse, it takes a warehouse.

I can sort a database of 40 000 messages in to recipients by date and time, and then do statistical analysis on that data to lead the thrust of any investigation of that data in less than an hour. This comes down to a lack of knowledge and tools. It's inexcusable in todays data driven world.

And of course in the case under discussion it was a single disk that had been specifically asked for.

[Fastpedeller]

Nobody's asked the question yet so here goes......... Is 40,000 an accurate figure or has it been exaggerated? That's a huge amount of texts for one person! If it takes (a conservative estimate?) 5 seconds per text, then that's a full 56 hours of texts! Not impossible, but surely unlikely?
By another measure it's 109 texts per day for a year.

[irocfan]

Fastpedeller said:

Nobody's asked the question yet so here goes......... Is 40,000 an accurate figure or has it been exaggerated? That's a huge amount of texts for one person! If it takes (a conservative estimate?) 5 seconds per text, then that's a full 56 hours of texts! Not impossible, but surely unlikely?
By another measure it's 109 texts per day for a year.

I don't send an awful lot of texts so I just thought it sounded like a lot of messages... put in the above terms it would appear that it doesn't just sound like a lot it IS a lot.


And while we're at it another case is re-opened and quashed (after 4 fking years in prison!!)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-42...

[saaby93]

irocfan said:

And while we're at it another case is re-opened and quashed (after 4 fking years in prison!!)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-42...

Again it's not a defence issue. You shouldnt need to miraculously find

beeb said:

Danny Kay's sentence was quashed by the Court of Appeal after deleted messages were found in an archived folder backing his version of events.

What was there about the prosecution evidence that it could falsely convict?

There may be other people that arent in the position of having an archived facebook page they can call upon

Why arent these on the BBC front page?

Edited by saaby93 on Friday 22 December 13:50

[anonymous-user]

coanda said:

This is the cost of a fair trial. If it takes a warehouse, it takes a warehouse.

Not if it's irrelevant material / material which has collateral intrusion e.g. private information about other people not relevant to the case.

Filtering out relevant and not relevant is essential. If not then the system wouldn't function due to the volumes.

They key aspect from these cases is making sure filtering / disclosure is done correctly.

[Brave Fart]

La Liga said:

ot if it's irrelevant material / material which has collateral intrusion e.g. private information about other people not relevant to the case.

Filtering out relevant and not relevant is essential. If not then the system wouldn't function due to the volumes.

They key aspect from these cases is making sure filtering / disclosure is done correctly.

Just thinking "out loud".......would it work to have an independent body tasked with evidence review, after the police work but before a CPS charging decision? Surely any cost would be recouped by not pursuing flawed prosecutions, and it would leave the police free to gather evidence and chase villains. After all, it isn't working to have Officer Dibble managing disclosure, is it? Wouldn't disclosure be better handled by a fresh, independent (of both the defence and the prosecution) and expert pair of eyes?

[saaby93]

Youre still worrying too much about the lack of disclosure
In these few cases it was lucky there was something to disclose
That isnt the problem - other cases may not have such luxury
The problem is that the evidence from prosecution is being treated too strongly
Why was it seen to be sufficent when it was plainly wrong

[anonymous-user]

Brave Fart said:

Just thinking "out loud".......would it work to have an independent body tasked with evidence review, after the police work but before a CPS charging decision? Surely any cost would be recouped by not pursuing flawed prosecutions, and it would leave the police free to gather evidence and chase villains. After all, it isn't working to have Officer Dibble managing disclosure, is it? Wouldn't disclosure be better handled by a fresh, independent (of both the defence and the prosecution) and expert pair of eyes?

OK, cost that?

If you have enough properly skilled and paid Crown Prosecutors subject to professional regulation (and BTW, contrary to public opinion, most lawyers are ethical), then the job can get done properly.

Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 22 December 14:56

[saaby93]

Breadvan72 said:

OK, cost that?

If you have enough properly skilled and paid Crown Prosecutors subject to professional regulation (and BTW, contrary to public opinion, most lawyers are ethical), then the job can get done properly.

French system?

[Thorodin]

Brave Fart said:

Just thinking "out loud".......would it work to have an independent body tasked with evidence review, after the police work but before a CPS charging decision? Surely any cost would be recouped by not pursuing flawed prosecutions, and it would leave the police free to gather evidence and chase villains. After all, it isn't working to have Officer Dibble managing disclosure, is it? Wouldn't disclosure be better handled by a fresh, independent (of both the defence and the prosecution) and expert pair of eyes?

That's the ideal, but it will be unlikely to happen. It would be seen by the legal establishment as the first step on the slippery slope to a non-adversarial system - anathema. It would destroy centuries of established hierarchy (especially for judges) and prestige and bring about some levelling of egos as well as exposing deficiencies. It has its faults just like any system but there are considerable advantages too.

[anonymous-user]

saaby93 said:

Breadvan72 said:

OK, cost that?

If you have enough properly skilled and paid Crown Prosecutors subject to professional regulation (and BTW, contrary to public opinion, most lawyers are ethical), then the job can get done properly.

French system?

Juge d'Instruction - very pro State, pro prosecution - not an upgrade!

[anonymous-user]

The Civil Law inquisitorial system is much less pro Defendant that the UK adversarial system. If you want a big State, Bonapartist system, go for it, but is that really what you want?

[Thorodin]

You again miss the point. I was not advocating any kind of 'pro' this that or the other. Just fair and joint examination of all available evidence. The clue is in the title 'Inquisitorial'. But whatever you say.