Nice people thread part 7 - a thread in its prime

chewmylegoff

Why do I keep watching this terrible drivel. Why hasn't Louis Walsh been euthanised? So many questions...

Cute puppy, but I want a choccy lab.

lostinrates

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Why do I keep watching this terrible drivel. Why hasn't Louis Walsh been euthanised? So many questions...

Cute puppy, but I want a choccy lab.

You do realise what a puppy would do to your passport if it got hold of it?

LydiaJ

vivatifosi wrote: »

Well, I didn't expect that to come out quite so quickly.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/jimmy-savile/9606494/Jimmy-Savile-was-investigated-by-police-at-least-six-times.html

The Sandusky case is an interesting parallel imo. I don't know if you've caught it, but he has been sentenced this week and has been blaming his victims. A very strange statement made to the college radio station and then again in court. It is every one else's fault apart from Sandusky's apparently. I think there are parallels between Penn State head coach Joe Paterno and those at the BBC who did nothing. I don't think Paterno was fundamentally a bad person, I just think he chose to bury his head in the sand and not believe what he was hearing about his friend. A similar scenario to many at the beeb, though when this grows to an institutional cover-up that's never good.

Well, we shall see. Some of it probably was institutional cover-up. But some of the times when the police said "not enough evidence" it was probably true that there really wasn't enough evidence.

It's easy to be wise after the event, when you hear that dozens of people have come forward with similar stories, but when you've only got one case to consider, it's a lot more difficult. Alleged sex offenders are legally innocent until proved guilty just as much as alleged offenders of any other kind, and when it's one person's word against another's, with no corroborating evidence, then that's not enough for the "beyond reasonable doubt" kind of proof that you (rightly) need for a conviction. Which is a terrible thing for victims who tell the truth and find that nothing's done about it, but we meddle with the standard of proof at our peril. Sexual assault is a terrible thing, but false accusations of sexual assault are terrible too

And there's no point putting the victim through the additional trauma of a trial if you don't have a decent chance of getting a conviction. That just makes it worse.

I was on the jury for a rape case once - the girl was 17, so not underage, and the defence was consent, so not a perfect parallel, but with some relevant points, nevertheless. I remember the judge telling us, "If you find him not guilty, that doesn't mean you don't believe her. It just means you don't think the evidence is sufficient for you to be sure that he's guilty." Which was not dissimilar to what the judges said in the other two cases I did - you only convict if the evidence is enough for you to be sure, otherwise you acquit.

I hope they root out any actual cover-up. I also hope there isn't a witch hunt for people who didn't take action because actually they didn't have enough to take action with.

lostinrates

LydiaJ wrote: »

I hope they root out any actual cover-up. I also hope there isn't a witch hunt for people who didn't take action because actually they didn't have enough to take action with.

This makes so much sense.

The alternative is extremely frightening and far reaching IMO.

vivatifosi

LydiaJ wrote: »

I hope they root out any actual cover-up. I also hope there isn't a witch hunt for people who didn't take action because actually they didn't have enough to take action with.

I don't think our views on this are dissimilar. It's a shame this didn't happen when Savile was alive as it would have been better all round, for both the alleged victims and for him. I am not in the UK at the moment, so apart from google news which I have set to the uk, I have no idea what is being reported there. However policing was different back then, and it is the more lax attitude that I have a problem with. It's good that times have changed.

Nikkster

vivatifosi wrote: »

I don't think our views on this are dissimilar. It's a shame this didn't happen when Savile was alive as it would have been better all round, for both the alleged victims and for him. I am not in the UK at the moment, so apart from google news which I have set to the uk, I have no idea what is being reported there. However policing was different back then, and it is the more lax attitude that I have a problem with. It's good that times have changed.

I think I have seen.suggetions that injunctions were taken out to stop newspapers reporting previous investigations, perhaps if they had made it further into public knowledge at the time more people would have come forward earlier?
I completely agree that its such a shame for everyone involved that this cannot now go to court.

chewmylegoff

LydiaJ wrote: »

Well, we shall see. Some of it probably was institutional cover-up. But some of the times when the police said "not enough evidence" it was probably true that there really wasn't enough evidence.

It's easy to be wise after the event, when you hear that dozens of people have come forward with similar stories, but when you've only got one case to consider, it's a lot more difficult. Alleged sex offenders are legally innocent until proved guilty just as much as alleged offenders of any other kind, and when it's one person's word against another's, with no corroborating evidence, then that's not enough for the "beyond reasonable doubt" kind of proof that you (rightly) need for a conviction. Which is a terrible thing for victims who tell the truth and find that nothing's done about it, but we meddle with the standard of proof at our peril. Sexual assault is a terrible thing, but false accusations of sexual assault are terrible too

And there's no point putting the victim through the additional trauma of a trial if you don't have a decent chance of getting a conviction. That just makes it worse.

I was on the jury for a rape case once - the girl was 17, so not underage, and the defence was consent, so not a perfect parallel, but with some relevant points, nevertheless. I remember the judge telling us, "If you find him not guilty, that doesn't mean you don't believe her. It just means you don't think the evidence is sufficient for you to be sure that he's guilty." Which was not dissimilar to what the judges said in the other two cases I did - you only convict if the evidence is enough for you to be sure, otherwise you acquit.

I hope they root out any actual cover-up. I also hope there isn't a witch hunt for people who didn't take action because actually they didn't have enough to take action with.

Having worked for a prosecutor for a number of years I found it very scary how the institutional view was that we should lobby the givt to make it easier to prosecute. A number of the senior people used to preach about how much better it would be if there was a presumption of guilt when sufficient evidence existed for there to be a "reasonable suspicion" and there was an even stronger view that juries should not be trusted with anything as important as deciding whether someone was guilty or not - everyone wanted juries replaced with a panel of three judges.

I think it was probably all borne out of frustration. I spent three years of my life building a wall of evidence against a sophisticated frausdster, the centre piece of which was his own confession which he had emailed to a colleague. The jury found him not guilty (he had stolen the life savings of hundreds of pensioners). I couldn't believe it - and they didn't even have to explain themselves. If you're constantly up against that I can see why you would want the system changed -- however, you would soon change your mind if you were on the receiving end!

vivatifosi

I remember the big discussion about fraud a couple of years back and could see the logic of having a specialised panel of judges instead of a jury, but only so long as the burden of proof remains the same. My issue isn't with burden of proof, which is right and proper, its with things not being investigated in the first place.

Has the whole panel investigation of fraud thing died a death chewy?

PasturesNew

I was skimming about those 7 soldiers held for murder ..... and they said it'll be dealt with by a military court - who are used to there being no witnesses and have to take a balance of probability and likelihood to come to a conclusion.

PasturesNew

Mathematically, reports go back to 1958. If you take a timespan of 1958-2008 and say he had 2 opportunities/week on average.... that's 5000 gropes.