Such a grey area (literally grey and most involved now are pensioners).
Other than for serious things such as war crimes, murder etc with proven evidence, I find it very hard to justify seeing people and their families dragged through the psychologically destroying criminal charge and court process for alleged events that happened 50 years earlier.
There is also a degree of whether it is fair seeing someone tried for alleged offences in 1965 based on 2014 values. There is an incomparable difference in the moral and social acceptance level in those two periods.
It is taken into account. If anyone gets convicted of an offense which took place a long time ago they are sentenced as per the sentance of the crime at that time. If Dave LT gets convicted he wont get much time as most of his is groping which was a minor offence (but still and offence) back then.
However, interesting to note this does not work the other way around. If you got convicted of murder shortly after hanging was abolished, you wouldn't get hanged even if you could have had you been found at the time.
Such a grey area (literally grey and most involved now are pensioners).
Other than for serious things such as war crimes, murder etc with proven evidence, I find it very hard to justify seeing people and their families dragged through the psychologically destroying criminal charge and court process for alleged events that happened 50 years earlier.
There is also a degree of whether it is fair seeing someone tried for alleged offences in 1965 based on 2014 values. There is an incomparable difference in the moral and social acceptance level in those two periods.
So children abused in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s should just accept that the psychological and physical trauma they suffer into adulthood should be brushed under the carpet to save others feelings.
The values then might not have been exactly the same as now but sexual abuse was a crime then, physical abuse was a crime then and deciding not to prosecute because the perpetrator was a celebrity or upstanding member of the community was also an offence (corruption and/or perverting the course of justice).
Justice might be painful and the pursuit of it might sometimes lead to trials without enough evidence to convict but it can't be given up on.
Such a grey area (literally grey and most involved now are pensioners).
Other than for serious things such as war crimes, murder etc with proven evidence, I find it very hard to justify seeing people and their families dragged through the psychologically destroying criminal charge and court process for alleged events that happened 50 years earlier.
There is also a degree of whether it is fair seeing someone tried for alleged offences in 1965 based on 2014 values. There is an incomparable difference in the moral and social acceptance level in those two periods.
Here's my view:
1. There are few crimes that rank as serious as some of the allegations made in a number of YewTree cases. 2. There should be no time limit on bringing a prosecution in such cases - the defence of "well it was a long time ago" should always be treated with contempt 3. Morally and socially we might be living in different times, but legally we are not. If it was illegal then, it should be tested in the law courts.
*gets off high horse*
I agree, Chizz.
And I'm sorry AFKA as I'm pretty sure that it's not what you intended, but the inference from your remarks appears to be that rape and sexual assualt (which are what Roache was charged with) are not serious things. Apologies if I've misunderstood/misinterpreted.
Would also agree that it looks as if the CPS were spooked by the Yewtree furore, because from what I've read from the informed perspective of the reports in the papers(!), the credibility of some of the witnesses who got dates and actors confused should not have stood up to even the most cursory questioning and fact-checking from their own lawyers, yet alone an aggressive defence barrister in a high-profile case.
Just have to hope that victims aren't deterred from reporting crimes having seen what's happened in this instance.
Such a grey area (literally grey and most involved now are pensioners).
Other than for serious things such as war crimes, murder etc with proven evidence, I find it very hard to justify seeing people and their families dragged through the psychologically destroying criminal charge and court process for alleged events that happened 50 years earlier.
There is also a degree of whether it is fair seeing someone tried for alleged offences in 1965 based on 2014 values. There is an incomparable difference in the moral and social acceptance level in those two periods.
Here's my view:
1. There are few crimes that rank as serious as some of the allegations made in a number of YewTree cases. 2. There should be no time limit on bringing a prosecution in such cases - the defence of "well it was a long time ago" should always be treated with contempt 3. Morally and socially we might be living in different times, but legally we are not. If it was illegal then, it should be tested in the law courts.
*gets off high horse*
And I'm sorry AFKA as I'm pretty sure that it's not what you intended, but the inference from your remarks appears to be that rape and sexual assualt (which are what Roache was charged with) are not serious things. Apologies if I've misunderstood/misinterpreted.
Well I apologise as that wasn't what I intended. I was referring that aspect more to the DLT style charges of groping, and with no real evidence.
Such a grey area (literally grey and most involved now are pensioners).
Other than for serious things such as war crimes, murder etc with proven evidence, I find it very hard to justify seeing people and their families dragged through the psychologically destroying criminal charge and court process for alleged events that happened 50 years earlier.
There is also a degree of whether it is fair seeing someone tried for alleged offences in 1965 based on 2014 values. There is an incomparable difference in the moral and social acceptance level in those two periods.
Here's my view:
1. There are few crimes that rank as serious as some of the allegations made in a number of YewTree cases. 2. There should be no time limit on bringing a prosecution in such cases - the defence of "well it was a long time ago" should always be treated with contempt 3. Morally and socially we might be living in different times, but legally we are not. If it was illegal then, it should be tested in the law courts.
*gets off high horse*
And I'm sorry AFKA as I'm pretty sure that it's not what you intended, but the inference from your remarks appears to be that rape and sexual assualt (which are what Roache was charged with) are not serious things. Apologies if I've misunderstood/misinterpreted.
Well I apologise as that wasn't what I intended. I was referring that aspect more to the DLT style charges of groping, and with no real evidence.
The police are damned if they and damned if they don't.
The case was not taken on the evidence or say so of one person but five. Had the police ignored their complaints and the available evidence the very same people criticising them now would be criticising them for that instead.
Cases of sexual assault and rape are notoriously difficult to prove even now and an assessment was therefore made that there was a realistic chance of a conviction so the CPS, rightly IMO, pursued it.
A jury has heard all the evidence and decided that it is not proven beyond all reasonable doubt and has therefore acquitted him. That's how the system works and I don't see any room to criticise the police and the CPS for taking the complaints made seriously and ultimately putting it before a jury.
Not guilty is not guilty. But I believe there was no evidence, that I'm aware of & I don't see how he could be found guilty, beyond reasonable doubt.. Although, I still fail to understand why a number of women from seperate locations, would come forward.
I reckon he was guilty, but it can't be proven. Just my opinion.
Especially, after that interview he gave in New Zealand (I think), saying that victims brought it on themselves, because of something they had done in a previous life. (Or some such twaddle).
And this is exactly why men's names should remain anonymous until a conviction.
The police are damned if they and damned if they don't.
The case was not taken on the evidence or say so of one person but five. Had the police ignored their complaints and the available evidence the very same people criticising them now would be criticising them for that instead.
Cases of sexual assault and rape are notoriously difficult to prove even now and an assessment was therefore made that there was a realistic chance of a conviction so the CPS, rightly IMO, pursued it.
A jury has heard all the evidence and decided that it is not proven beyond all reasonable doubt and has therefore acquitted him. That's how the system works and I don't see any room to criticise the police and the CPS for taking the complaints made seriously and ultimately putting it before a jury.
I quite like the third option available under Scottish law - guilty, not guilty, and not proven - particularly in cases where there can be no corroborating witnesses and therefore proof 'beyond a reasonable doubt' is difficult to establish.
The police are damned if they and damned if they don't.
The case was not taken on the evidence or say so of one person but five. Had the police ignored their complaints and the available evidence the very same people criticising them now would be criticising them for that instead.
Cases of sexual assault and rape are notoriously difficult to prove even now and an assessment was therefore made that there was a realistic chance of a conviction so the CPS, rightly IMO, pursued it.
A jury has heard all the evidence and decided that it is not proven beyond all reasonable doubt and has therefore acquitted him. That's how the system works and I don't see any room to criticise the police and the CPS for taking the complaints made seriously and ultimately putting it before a jury.
I quite like the third option available under Scottish law - guilty, not guilty, and not proven - particularly in cases where there can be no corroborating witnesses and therefore proof 'beyond a reasonable doubt' is difficult to establish.
I agree that maybe there should be a third option for the jury too i.e we don't think you proven the case to the required standard and can't convict on this occasion but there was enough evidence to support putting the case forward and should further evidence come to light then a retrial would be appropriate.
My concern would be juries using it only as a means to avoid making the yes/no decisions they currently do.
I'm not sure what if any conclusions can be drawn from that but one hopes that their presence would enhance the probability of a "correct" verdict.
Unless, as I said above, lapse of time simply made proving "beyond reasonable doubt" impossible.
Do you know how many were dismissed to get to this?
Much of the case came down to which person was telling the truth. The police and CPS are not allowed to make this call. That is why the jury had to be there.
I'm not sure what if any conclusions can be drawn from that but one hopes that their presence would enhance the probability of a "correct" verdict.
Unless, as I said above, lapse of time simply made proving "beyond reasonable doubt" impossible.
Do you know how many were dismissed to get to this?
Much of the case came down to which person was telling the truth. The police and CPS are not allowed to make this call. That is why the jury had to be there.
No idea how many were dismissed to get to this. Do you know?
Such a grey area (literally grey and most involved now are pensioners).
Other than for serious things such as war crimes, murder etc with proven evidence, I find it very hard to justify seeing people and their families dragged through the psychologically destroying criminal charge and court process for alleged events that happened 50 years earlier.
There is also a degree of whether it is fair seeing someone tried for alleged offences in 1965 based on 2014 values. There is an incomparable difference in the moral and social acceptance level in those two periods.
Here's my view:
1. There are few crimes that rank as serious as some of the allegations made in a number of YewTree cases. 2. There should be no time limit on bringing a prosecution in such cases - the defence of "well it was a long time ago" should always be treated with contempt 3. Morally and socially we might be living in different times, but legally we are not. If it was illegal then, it should be tested in the law courts.
*gets off high horse*
And I'm sorry AFKA as I'm pretty sure that it's not what you intended, but the inference from your remarks appears to be that rape and sexual assualt (which are what Roache was charged with) are not serious things. Apologies if I've misunderstood/misinterpreted.
Well I apologise as that wasn't what I intended. I was referring that aspect more to the DLT style charges of groping, and with no real evidence.
I'd let a court decide whether there was real evidence. Personally don't want to give a pederast a free pass because it happened a while ago and people were too intimidated by them to come forward. Also, he's not just accused of a bit of groping.
The CPS do have to make a decision as to whether there is a reasonable prospect of securing a conviction. Otherwise the courts would be even more clogged up than they are now.
This (quoted from the Telegraph) is an example of very bad judgement by the prosecutors:
"During the trial the prosecution offered no evidence on one of two counts of indecent assault, relating to one complainant, as she had "no actual memory of the episode"."
If you are unable to offer evidence you should withdraw the charge.
Find it hard to believe that it is impossible to show whether Roach met with his accusers at some point. Diaries, visitor books at the studio, signed autographs,
"During the trial the prosecution offered no evidence on one of two counts of indecent assault, relating to one complainant, as she had "no actual memory of the episode"." /blockquote>
Really? I seem to recall that at the age of 14 or thereabouts I was seriously sexually assaulted by a lady called Valerie Leon (Hai Karate advert for you Young un's) possibly accompanied by another woman who may or may not have been Sophia Loren or Ursula Andress or even Raquel Welch.
As it happens I have no actual memory of the episode but I'm sure it took place as I woke up with the sheets in a hell of a state and had to tell my mum I had a cold and no tissues to wipe my nose on.
These women could have been serial offenders too as many of my mates seemed to have also suffered.
"During the trial the prosecution offered no evidence on one of two counts of indecent assault, relating to one complainant, as she had "no actual memory of the episode"." /blockquote>
Really? I seem to recall that at the age of 14 or thereabouts I was seriously sexually assaulted by a lady called Valerie Leon (Hai Karate advert for you Young un's) possibly accompanied by another woman who may or may not have been Sophia Loren or Ursula Andress or even Raquel Welch.
As it happens I have no actual memory of the episode but I'm sure it took place as I woke up with the sheets in a hell of a state and had to tell my mum I had a cold and no tissues to wipe my nose on.
These women could have been serial offenders too as many of my mates seemed to have also suffered.
Have I got a case?
Just using the compensation figures quoted earlier in the thread that'll be £4.50, enough for 4 boxes of good quaity triple ply tissues...
Really? I seem to recall that at the age of 14 or thereabouts I was seriously sexually assaulted by a lady called Valerie Leon (Hai Karate advert for you Young un's) possibly accompanied by another woman who may or may not have been Sophia Loren or Ursula Andress or even Raquel Welch.
As it happens I have no actual memory of the episode but I'm sure it took place as I woke up with the sheets in a hell of a state and had to tell my mum I had a cold and no tissues to wipe my nose on.
These women could have been serial offenders too as many of my mates seemed to have also suffered.
If there is no evidence, why was he ever brought to trial? Why was this the CPS decision?
And why can the women not be named?
Because if he was released with no charge citing lack of evidence, the media would be all over them accusing them of cover-ups and ignoring female victims.
The CPS do have to make a decision as to whether there is a reasonable prospect of securing a conviction. Otherwise the courts would be even more clogged up than they are now.
This (quoted from the Telegraph) is an example of very bad judgement by the prosecutors:
"During the trial the prosecution offered no evidence on one of two counts of indecent assault, relating to one complainant, as she had "no actual memory of the episode"."
If you are unable to offer evidence you should withdraw the charge.
Find it hard to believe that it is impossible to show whether Roach met with his accusers at some point. Diaries, visitor books at the studio, signed autographs,
The CPS in this country are little short of a joke.
There was clearly no 'evidence' here other than witness testimony. In one instance there wasn't even that. Yet the CPS brought this case allegedly because they felt there was a fair chance of conviction. Riiiight...
To draw a parallel between this case and something my firm experienced a few years back:
We use a datacentre for most of our IT infrastructure. We discovered that we had some servers stolen (actually stolen) out of one of our racks in the datacentre.
After some brief investigations, the (naturally mortified) datacentre found CCTV of the thief (who was a customer in the same datacentre suite as us) going through our racks and removing the servers. They had logs - and CCTV - of him leaving site with one of the servers under his arm. When the racks he operated in were searched, the remaining two servers were found in those racks - with a poor attempt made at partially removing our asset tags (along with some marker pen with the server names on them that had been similarly poorly scratched out). When the serial numbers of those servers were traced back to the mnufacturer, they were proven to belong to us through purchase orders and maintenance/support renewals. The disks on the servers had been erased, but when the servers were forensically examined by the local constabulary's 'Hi-tech' Crime Unit, low level disk analysis pulled data fragments back that could only have come from our servers (domain names, email addresses, user account details etc).
All of this was reported to the police - who could not have been more helpful.
The CPS took three months to decide that there wasn't a realistic chance of a conviction, and declined to pursue the case...
The CPS recently lost a case at a Crown Court because, due to budget cuts, they had decided they could not afford to photocopy papers for the defence. The CPS is so under resourced that they cannot function properly.
The CPS recently lost a case at a Crown Court because, due to budget cuts, they had decided they could not afford to photocopy papers for the defence. The CPS is so under resourced that they cannot function properly.
Yet they choose to bring a case like this that literally has almost zero chance of getting a prosecution. Nothing to do with the CPS lawyer wanting to make a name for themselves...
OK. I'll put my head above the parapet and explain the process of investigation and decision-making. The police will have taken statements from the complainants. Upon those statements (and any other evidence) the CPS lawyer will decide if they feel there is a realistic prospect of conviction (is a jury more likely than not to convict) on each charge. Now it is not unknown for witnesses to be less certain when subject to cross-examination or for defendants to come across well. A jury must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt before they can convict so it is hardly surprising that some defendants are acquitted. That doesn't mean to say the original decision to prosecute was wrong. And before anyone asks, these are general comments and not reflective of the decisions in any of these cases and I have had no involvement in any of them nor do I know any of those involved (thankfully).
Fire away... (ps I do love these anecdotes about CPS or police errors often taken from the Metro or Evening Boris Law Reports)
Comments
However, interesting to note this does not work the other way around. If you got convicted of murder shortly after hanging was abolished, you wouldn't get hanged even if you could have had you been found at the time.
The values then might not have been exactly the same as now but sexual abuse was a crime then, physical abuse was a crime then and deciding not to prosecute because the perpetrator was a celebrity or upstanding member of the community was also an offence (corruption and/or perverting the course of justice).
Justice might be painful and the pursuit of it might sometimes lead to trials without enough evidence to convict but it can't be given up on.
And I'm sorry AFKA as I'm pretty sure that it's not what you intended, but the inference from your remarks appears to be that rape and sexual assualt (which are what Roache was charged with) are not serious things. Apologies if I've misunderstood/misinterpreted.
Would also agree that it looks as if the CPS were spooked by the Yewtree furore, because from what I've read from the informed perspective of the reports in the papers(!), the credibility of some of the witnesses who got dates and actors confused should not have stood up to even the most cursory questioning and fact-checking from their own lawyers, yet alone an aggressive defence barrister in a high-profile case.
Just have to hope that victims aren't deterred from reporting crimes having seen what's happened in this instance.
*give me a hand to get down too please, Chizz...*
The case was not taken on the evidence or say so of one person but five. Had the police ignored their complaints and the available evidence the very same people criticising them now would be criticising them for that instead.
Cases of sexual assault and rape are notoriously difficult to prove even now and an assessment was therefore made that there was a realistic chance of a conviction so the CPS, rightly IMO, pursued it.
A jury has heard all the evidence and decided that it is not proven beyond all reasonable doubt and has therefore acquitted him. That's how the system works and I don't see any room to criticise the police and the CPS for taking the complaints made seriously and ultimately putting it before a jury.
My concern would be juries using it only as a means to avoid making the yes/no decisions they currently do.
I'm not sure what if any conclusions can be drawn from that but one hopes that their presence would enhance the probability of a "correct" verdict.
Unless, as I said above, lapse of time simply made proving "beyond reasonable doubt" impossible.
Much of the case came down to which person was telling the truth. The police and CPS are not allowed to make this call. That is why the jury had to be there.
This (quoted from the Telegraph) is an example of very bad judgement by the prosecutors:
"During the trial the prosecution offered no evidence on one of two counts of indecent assault, relating to one complainant, as she had "no actual memory of the episode"."
If you are unable to offer evidence you should withdraw the charge.
Find it hard to believe that it is impossible to show whether Roach met with his accusers at some point. Diaries, visitor books at the studio, signed autographs,
No! Both Derek and Clive have already made complaints about that F*****g Jayne Mansfield.:)
And why can the women not be named?
There was clearly no 'evidence' here other than witness testimony. In one instance there wasn't even that. Yet the CPS brought this case allegedly because they felt there was a fair chance of conviction. Riiiight...
To draw a parallel between this case and something my firm experienced a few years back:
We use a datacentre for most of our IT infrastructure. We discovered that we had some servers stolen (actually stolen) out of one of our racks in the datacentre.
After some brief investigations, the (naturally mortified) datacentre found CCTV of the thief (who was a customer in the same datacentre suite as us) going through our racks and removing the servers.
They had logs - and CCTV - of him leaving site with one of the servers under his arm.
When the racks he operated in were searched, the remaining two servers were found in those racks - with a poor attempt made at partially removing our asset tags (along with some marker pen with the server names on them that had been similarly poorly scratched out).
When the serial numbers of those servers were traced back to the mnufacturer, they were proven to belong to us through purchase orders and maintenance/support renewals.
The disks on the servers had been erased, but when the servers were forensically examined by the local constabulary's 'Hi-tech' Crime Unit, low level disk analysis pulled data fragments back that could only have come from our servers (domain names, email addresses, user account details etc).
All of this was reported to the police - who could not have been more helpful.
The CPS took three months to decide that there wasn't a realistic chance of a conviction, and declined to pursue the case...
Fire away... (ps I do love these anecdotes about CPS or police errors often taken from the Metro or Evening Boris Law Reports)