Post by SvennePost by Norman WellsPost by SvennePost by Norman WellsPost by SvenneRelying solely on ancient recollections for a conviction is insane
and a legal system which allows it monstrously perverted.
That's why the Court of Appeal, which is part of 'the legal system'
quashed it.
No it isn't. The Court of Appeal did not quash the conviction because
the man was convicted on an ancient memory someone had dredged up from
the misty depths of their consciousness many decades after the supposed
event. That part of the proceedings was legally sound.
The Court of Appeal quashed the conviction. 'The system' worked.
It didn't work for the person who spent three years of his life in jail
because someone waltzed into a police station and said he remembered
something he claimed happened 40 years ago.
He hasn't been found innocent. He's merely had his conviction quashed
because it was unsafe. Further, new evidence not available at the
original trial convinced the Court of Appeal that sufficient doubt
existed that the original verdict should not stand.
It's how the system works. Sometimes it takes time for new evidence to
come to light. Can't blame the system for that.
Post by SvennePost by Norman WellsPost by SvenneThe conviction was quashed because through the hard work and dedication
of the convicted man's wife and against all odds it was finally proved
that the accuser was a fantasist and a liar. If she had not been able
to bring that monumental task about he would still be in jail on the
strength of that ancient recollection of supposed events long ago.
Just because someone is a fantasist and a liar doesn't mean he's always
a fantasist and a liar and that everything he says is false all of the time.
It just makes the conviction 'unsafe'. It does not make the accused
innocent.
Until someone is found guilty they are innocent.
No, that's a trite legal fiction for those of little brain. A person is
entitled to be treated as innocent until he's proved guilty but, if he
is, he's of course been guilty all along.
Post by SvennePost by Norman WellsPost by SvenneFor others it is impossible to prove that something someone said
happened many decades in the past actually didn't happen.
And it is this that is the poison at the heart of the law. Someone's
word is not enough, however convincing they may sound. If someone says
something happened long ago they should prove it.
That's the purpose of what we call 'a trial'.
Deciding who said what about whom many decades ago based purely on human
recollections of the alleged event should not be the business of a court
of law. Without corroborating materiel evidence these cases should not go
to trial.
You don't know what evidence was produced at trial. You weren't there.
Besides, the jury would have been instructed that they should only
convict if they were 'sure' that he did what he was accused of doing.
Yet they did. All twelve of them. Unanimously.
Post by SvennePost by Norman WellsYou may think from your position of ignorance that the evidence was not
sufficient, but you weren't there to hear it. The twelve members of the
jury who were there, and did hear it, unanimously thought otherwise.
And they were wrong. So much for juries having to decide who's memories
of ancient events should be believed.
They may have been wrong, they may have been right. We don't know, and
never will. All the Court of Appeal has decided is that their verdict
is unsafe because of the now established tendency of the accuser to lie
and fantasise. They didn't decide he was necessarily lying or
fantasising in this particular accusation.
Post by SvennePost by Norman WellsPost by SvenneThe accused should not have to prove it didn't happen and a jury should
not be put in the position of having to guess which of them might be
the more accurate interpreter of the past.
There is no onus of proof on the defendant to prove anything. The
prosecution in any trial has to prove its case 'beyond reasonable
doubt', and the jury is always charged with only convicting if they are
'sure' that the defendant did what he is accused of. And they obviously
were.
Anybody who believes a verbal account of decades old events is accurate
enough to send someone to jail and has the power to do so is a dangerous
lunatic.
It may be or it may not. Why we have 'trials' is to establish the facts
and to convict those who, beyond reasonable doubt, are guilty.
The dangerous lunatic here may in fact be the person who believes just
some brief summary he has read in some agenda-driven newspaper, has not
heard any of the evidence, discounts the view of the police, discounts
the opinion of the lawyers at the Crown Prosecution Service, and
discounts the decision of twelve independent people all of whom did hear
the evidence and were sure that he was guilty beyond reasonable doubt.