this guy whose wife had to clear him
Discussion
I'm not aware of any quotas or numerical targets for rape convictions. I think the idea the CPS are looking to secure convictions for numerical purposes over and above the fundamental principles of justice is a little fanciful. It'd also have to include all the specialist QCs / their chambers they hire for Crown Court trials.
Statistically, most rape allegations are discontinued so it's not as if it comes as a surprise to anyone whom works with sexual offending. Over a three year average (I think from 2010-2013), the police recorded 15,000 rapes. Just under 3,000 made it to court and just over 1,000 resulted in a conviction.
The point the DPP is essentially making is that within that 14,000 that don't result in a conviction, there are opportunities through better support, better investigations / processes etc to gather sufficient evidence to prosecute and convict people who have committed the offence.
Naturally, that has to include the same standards of finding evidence that would show someone to be innocent to do our best to avoid situations like the Fire Chief who has been mentioned and the officer whom this topic is about.
Statistically, most rape allegations are discontinued so it's not as if it comes as a surprise to anyone whom works with sexual offending. Over a three year average (I think from 2010-2013), the police recorded 15,000 rapes. Just under 3,000 made it to court and just over 1,000 resulted in a conviction.
The point the DPP is essentially making is that within that 14,000 that don't result in a conviction, there are opportunities through better support, better investigations / processes etc to gather sufficient evidence to prosecute and convict people who have committed the offence.
Naturally, that has to include the same standards of finding evidence that would show someone to be innocent to do our best to avoid situations like the Fire Chief who has been mentioned and the officer whom this topic is about.
StottyEvo said:
Us simple folk, naively we think that the Police/CPS are looking for the truth, not just what can be proven in court.
The police are looking for the truth, the CPS are looking what can and cannot be proven in a court as that is their role. La Liga said:
Over a three year average (I think from 2010-2013), the police recorded 15,000 rapes. Just under 3,000 made it to court and just over 1,000 resulted in a conviction.
So to your average aggrieved MRA type that's 14,000 lying SWT types and to your average pinko liberal feminist lefty that's 14,000 women who've suffered horrific abuse at the hands of evil man who got away with it. Never mind the rapes that go unreported.Picking the truth, never mind the justice, out of such a high rate of error and/or failure in the system would be impossible with out some form of technological breakthrough.
It's a sad truth. Sad that this chap was seemingly the victim, sad when real rapists go unpunished... It's just sad all round.
La Liga said:
It comes down to proving the matter beyond reasonable doubt. It's hard to do, especially as many allegations are one person's word against another's.
Regarding under reported the estimate from the same data set is 60k to 90k per year in total.
Do those figures include under reporting of male rape or just female rape? Regarding under reported the estimate from the same data set is 60k to 90k per year in total.
It's both and the flow diagram I am working from is here:
The full document is here and contains breakdowns by gender etc: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploa...
The full document is here and contains breakdowns by gender etc: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploa...
saaby93 said:
dandarez said:
And what utter incompetence by those (Dorset police and CPS) involved which lead to an totally innocent man being accused of raping a schoolboy and jailed for eight and a half years at the age of 63 in 2013 - his conviction quashed last week by the Court of Appeal, but he's spent 3 years inside.
Why are you blaming the police and the CPS?Their job is to try to grab evidence and proceed.
The question is why did the court believe there was enough evidence there to convict?
If it was wrong the evidence shouldnt stack up.
You shouldnt need to go and find evidence to prove your innocence otherwise there would be lots of people in jail who couldnt provide any.
Right, why am I blaming police and CPS?
Username Bigend answered the police one (and for me it is all linked), but it is in the Telegraph report:
Dorset police obviously didn't carry out a detailed and thorough investigation - if they had - they have seen the pool table - the scene of the (alleged) rape - didn't actually exist until several years after the date of the alleged rape!!
You couldn't make it up.
But they did ...or as I said, what utter incompetence. No?
La Liga said:
Naturally, that has to include the same standards of finding evidence that would show someone to be innocent
Of course they dont need to try to find evidence to show someone is innocent - there may well be no evidence of such. The accused could have been sat at home minding their own business or could have been in the place the incident occurred and so could many others.What they have to do is find evidence that someone actually is guilty. If it doesn't stack up naturally the accused should be presumed innocent.
These cases shouldnt make it through the courts to a conviction.
Where is the test of the evidence?
No, the police have to gather evidence that supports both the prosecution and the defence. Often for prosecution evidence 'not to stack up' it requires evidence that undermines it which has been gathered by the police.
dandarez said:
Dorset police obviously didn't carry out a detailed and thorough investigation - if they had - they have seen the pool table - the scene of the (alleged) rape - didn't actually exist until several years after the date of the alleged rape!!
It's not obvious, at all. Do you think historical building layouts are are speculatively and routinely examined? If there's some information that leads an investigator to reasonably discover it, then yes, that would raise questions, but given we have nothing but superficial information about the matter we cannot know. La Liga said:
No, the police have to gather evidence that supports both the prosecution and the defence. Often for prosecution evidence 'not to stack up' it requires evidence that undermines it which has been gathered by the police.
If the Police are dealing with Hostorical allegations then it is incompetent of them not to look at the History of the venue. In this case Not only did the Pool table not exist until several years after the offence. The layout of the building had changed!!dandarez said:
Dorset police obviously didn't carry out a detailed and thorough investigation - if they had - they have seen the pool table - the scene of the (alleged) rape - didn't actually exist until several years after the date of the alleged rape!!
It's not obvious, at all. Do you think historical building layouts are are speculatively and routinely examined? If there's some information that leads an investigator to reasonably discover it, then yes, that would raise questions, but given we have nothing but superficial information about the matter we cannot know. telecat said:
If the Police are dealing with Hostorical allegations then it is incompetent of them not to look at the History of the venue. In this case Not only did the Pool table not exist until several years after the offence. The layout of the building had changed!!
It doesn't work that wayEven if the pool table had still been there the conviction would still have been wrong.
You don't have to prove your innocence. The pool table is irrelevant
What were the facts that led to the conviction?
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