Another prove your innocence case
Discussion
Breadvan72 said:
94% of magistrates believe that having people in court without lawyers can have a negative impact on the effectiveness of the court process.
This is really important.A huge amount of money is wasted dealing with unrepresented defendants. A lot of them deny offences that they are plainly guilty of. Lots of time is wasted preparing cases for contested trials. Plenty of complainants and witnesses have to attend court unnecessarily and loads of defendants lose the valuable credit and costs savings that would follow a guilty plea.
There was a wonderful, albeit brief spell when there was no means testing for magistrates' court cases. Far more defendants were represented and the wheels of justice turned much more smoothly.
Bigends said:
Somebody would have signed the file off stating there was nothing known that would assist the defence or undermine the prosecution case - clearly not correct in this case.
The disc and its contents would surely have been listed within the file and reasons for non disclosure declared.
Earlier this year the HMIC expressed concerns in relation to Police disclosure of material. My force has recently rolled out a training programme to address this issue.
https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/ne...
“We found in this inspection that the police recording of both sensitive and non-sensitive material was lacking, which creates uncertainty and confusion for prosecutors. In turn, this poor practice was not being challenged by the CPS. This has resulted in a lack of confidence in the disclosure process on the part of the judiciary. We urge the police service to address these shortcomings in accordance with guidance and the code of practice. We have made recommendations to the police service and governing bodies to help improve these areas."
Disclosure and file skills are inadequate. No real surprise when there's a national shortage of detectives. The disc and its contents would surely have been listed within the file and reasons for non disclosure declared.
Earlier this year the HMIC expressed concerns in relation to Police disclosure of material. My force has recently rolled out a training programme to address this issue.
https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/ne...
“We found in this inspection that the police recording of both sensitive and non-sensitive material was lacking, which creates uncertainty and confusion for prosecutors. In turn, this poor practice was not being challenged by the CPS. This has resulted in a lack of confidence in the disclosure process on the part of the judiciary. We urge the police service to address these shortcomings in accordance with guidance and the code of practice. We have made recommendations to the police service and governing bodies to help improve these areas."
Both areas have massively suffered since the civilian infrastructure which used to check files has been dismantled or merely became a passive department.
There are cases of serious crime that would have previously had an experienced disclosure officer who was separate from the OIC. This has become less common both in terms of people undertaking the disclosure role separately and experienced disclosure officers.
There's no excuse in this case as it seems rather obvious and the disclosure officer had clearly seen the material to comment on it, but it's important to consider the wider points.
La Liga said:
There are cases of serious crime that would have previously had an experienced disclosure officer who was separate from the OIC. This has become less common both in terms of people undertaking the disclosure role separately and experienced disclosure officers.
And the problem is compounded by the fact that defence lawyers are paid in fixed fees by the Legal Aid Agency.They get paid the same (crap) fee for the case regardless of how much work they invest in it.
Breadvan72 said:
The end of civil legal aid for most cases has left the civil courts clogged with litigants in person, who waste time and cost money. Short sighted thinking.
They were easy areas to attack as the only information the public were / are fed about legal aid are things like a Human Rights-type case where an immigrant in a detention centre was using it etc. Cold said:
Was this incompetence or dishonesty? I'm not convinced it was just a lack of funds.
The chap who raised it thought it was the former: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-423655...One could discuss the impact of funding (less training, fewer specialists, fewer independent disclosure officers, no secondary structure to check etc), but with this specific case I can't see how any police officer could not judge the material to be relevant.
Again, and I haven't seen the material, but 1.6 is quite straight forward, and if in doubt, check / ask.
Disclosure manual said:
1.6. Relevant material is defined in the Code of Practice as anything that appears to an investigator, or the officer in charge of an investigation or the disclosure officer to have some bearing on any offence under investigation or any person being investigated or on the surrounding circumstances unless it is incapable of having any impact on the case.
1.7. Revelation refers to the police alerting the prosecutor to the existence of relevant material that has been retained in the investigation. Revelation to the prosecutor does not mean automatic disclosure to the defence.
1.7. Revelation refers to the police alerting the prosecutor to the existence of relevant material that has been retained in the investigation. Revelation to the prosecutor does not mean automatic disclosure to the defence.
Cold said:
Was this incompetence or dishonesty? I'm not convinced it was just a lack of funds.
The police and CPS are desperately short of resources these days. Criminal Legal Aid fixed fees are hopelessly low.
The two combine to make a system where the potential for miscarriage has, in my opinion, significantly increased over the last decade.
I certainly would not express an opinion on the competence or integrity of the CPS/police in this individual case, but the system as a whole leaves a lot to be desired compared to where we were ten or fifteen years ago.
Cold said:
Was this incompetence or dishonesty? I'm not convinced it was just a lack of funds.
Well someone has obviously been dishonest by either not scrutinising the phone and then saying there is no relevant evidence oni it, or by finding relevant evidence on the phone, and then denying that evidence existed, 
gooner1 said:
Cold said:
Was this incompetence or dishonesty? I'm not convinced it was just a lack of funds.
Well someone has obviously been dishonest by either not scrutinising the phone and then saying there is no relevant evidence oni it, or by finding relevant evidence on the phone, and then denying that evidence existed, wsurfa said:
Gameface said:
A criminology student who didn't tell his brief that she'd been texting him begging for sex and ask him to look into it?
A real loss to the justice system, he is.
Given that his lawyers had repeatedly been refused access to records from the woman’s telephone because police insisted that there was nothing of interest for the prosecution or defence, I'd guess he had told his lawyers exactly this. However for whatever reason the police kept refusing.A real loss to the justice system, he is.
Interesting though that they supplied it once the prosecution barrister required it. It will be enlightening to find out why they would supply the evidence to prosecution, but not defence.
Dr Jekyll said:
saaby93 said:
Depends - they may have just looked for texts between the pair of them rather than texts to her mates
The defence lawyer found the relevant messages in one night, the police had months.More like the police had two years, the length of time the accused was on bail.
Halb said:
The lawyer today on the beeb didn't seem very agitated by it. She was quite relaxed.
They may well be, but it was not them who had such matters hanging over them for 2 needless years for something they had not done.The releasing of defendents names before they have been found guilty is wrong, just plain wrong , peoples lives ruined because of poisonous unfounded scuttlebut , very, very , disturbing, frightening in fact. That indeed, is buggar all to do with money.
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