Mishandling of a case by Police

bujin

Hi All.
Sorry it's a long post. I'm not looking for definitive answers here , I know that my daughter will have to through the ipcc to get anywhere and she's going to be doing that, but I just wanted to see if anyone had any experience at all in matters relating to mishandling of a case by the Police.
Basically without going into detail,my daughter was bringing a case against someone which included 4 allegations which the Police investigated. After handing the case to the CPS,we were told by them that; Two of the allegations are summary offences and the time limitation had been passed at the time the Police handed the file over to the CPS, one allegation can't be proved and we have to accept that even though we know the defendent is guilty and the fourth allegation seems to have disappeared from the file and was not discussed when the cps sent my daughter a letter explaining their decision not to take the case to Court.

From the start we haven't been happy with the way the Officer dealt with our daughter, we raised concerns early on and we have been supported and to the greater degree, agreed with by seniour officers that my daughter was not dealt with appropriately, they haven't said too much about the actual investigation. So this isn't a case of getting annoyed after the event.

Now the question is this, the Police were in possession of the summary offences well within the time frame, but failed to act. I don't believe it's up to the victim to make sure Police are sticking to the rules, we had no idea that there was a time limit, but eitherway she had given the Police all details within a month of the summary offences taking place.
The fourth allegation which seems to have disappeared and wasn't present in the summation of the CPS we're not even sure what Offence it would come under and the Police didn't seem to know either, this could be why it has been dropped from the file before the CPS were given it, but she was never informed of that, in fact quite the opposite she was told it was in the file. If anyone knows what hacking into Facebook would come under it would be really helpful. We have evidence for this crime.

I suppose our question is, now that the defendent has been released, and we now find that because the Police didn't act quickly enough etc, he is free and is not answerable to any of the allegations, if it's found that the Police didn't investigate and did mishandle the case, where does the defendent stand. What recourse do we have, can an investigation be reopened. I understand that defendents have some protection under the law, but where does the victim stand. Thanks.

TonyMMM

bujin wrote: »

Hi All.
If anyone knows what hacking into Facebook would come under it would be really helpful. We have evidence for this crime.

Depends on the exact circumstances, but probably the Computer Misuse Act 1990 , either section 1,2, or 3 depending on what was done on the account and what the intent was.

However, knowing someone did something and being able to prove it beyond reasonable doubt in court are two very different things - and can be especially difficult in some IT related scenarios.

pmlindyloo

All the contact details of who to complain to are in this link:

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/law_e/law_legal_system_e/law_police_e/police_powers.htm

Scroll down to 'Complaints'.

bujin

TonyMMM wrote: »

However, knowing someone did something and being able to prove it beyond reasonable doubt in court are two very different things - and can be especially difficult in some IT related scenarios.

Thanks for this. Yes we know this,this is why the first and more serious crime had to be dropped because whilst there was evidence, proving it beyond reasonable doubt was where the problem lay.
However, in this instance of the hacking, the defendent actually admitted the offence, in fact he celebrated his ingenuity, to my daughter and this was taken from the defendant's phone records.

Morglin

Not sure, but perhaps a fixed fee appointment, with a solicitor, may answer what offence is what, and how to proceed, effectively, with your complaint?

Lin

Errata

What's your daughters solicitor's view on this?

Oli.s

Couldn't they have cautioned him for an admitted offence, if it's hacking into her facebook it's probably minor in the grand scheme of things, though I appreciate it may have been upsetting for her.

Or do you mean he admitted it to your daughter in a phone call and his phone records simply proved he called her and not the actual content of the conversation.

What did he do when logged into her facebook, sound like a co outer misuse type offence if he didn't use her account to commit other offences, with maybe some form of harassment.

They would most likely be low priority for the police realistically given they struggle to even see people in person when their cars get broken into or stolen and there are people being assaulted, robbed or killed daily.

Upsetting for your daughter I'm sure but it's been all over the news that the police have to make massive budget cuts which ultimately will mean less cops to deal with stuff and prioritisation of what are seen to be more serious offences. Sad but true.

Tiddlywinks

All you're going to get from posting this here is random opinion... and nothing based on any facts as we don't know them.

Mis-information s worse than no information at all.

Let the IPCC do their job and take legal advice from a solicitor (who will have access to all the facts).

bujin

Oli.s wrote: »

Couldn't they have cautioned him for an admitted offence, if it's hacking into her facebook it's probably minor in the grand scheme of things, though I appreciate it may have been upsetting for her.

Or do you mean he admitted it to your daughter in a phone call and his phone records simply proved he called her and not the actual content of the conversation.

What did he do when logged into her facebook, sound like a co outer misuse type offence if he didn't use her account to commit other offences, with maybe some form of harassment.

They would most likely be low priority for the police realistically given they struggle to even see people in person when their cars get broken into or stolen and there are people being assaulted, robbed or killed daily.

Upsetting for your daughter I'm sure but it's been all over the news that the police have to make massive budget cuts which ultimately will mean less cops to deal with stuff and prioritisation of what are seen to be more serious offences. Sad but true.

I get where you're coming from, in the great scheme of things not the most serious of crimes however, I've not gone into the details here and suffice it to say my daughter's in counselling after what's happened. The Police were the ones who stated there was enough to take the case forward, it was after they allocated an officer to it that things went wrong. So this wasn't a case of budget cuts, it was down to poor policing and a virtually non existent investigation into additional evidence.

The Police found the messages he'd sent admitting two of the offences, but then it appears they didn't submit them as evidence. It's difficult to know how much my daughter's allowed to know or see when it comes to what was in the file and what was entered as evidence when it was passed to the CPS, so we can only surmise what was included from the answers the CPS gave in their summing up letter. As to the hacking he used his access to her Facebook to harrass her, this was done almost constantly and he was able to bypass the security measures set up by Facebook.

It was a very complicated case with many additional problems arising from seemingly singular offences, thanks for your input.

bujin

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

All you're going to get from posting this here is random opinion... and nothing based on any facts as we don't know them.

Mis-information s worse than no information at all.

Let the IPCC do their job and take legal advice from a solicitor (who will have access to all the facts).

I'm sure you mean well, but to be fair you don't have any more idea than I do, what opinions I'll get and whether they're based in fact or not. Whilst you're right the facts are not detailed here, the main questions asked can be answered as they are generalised questions, e.g "what is a certain offence called" and "what happens when an investigation isn't dealt with properly" I said I wasn't looking for anything definitive. I'm simply seeing if anyone has anything to offer, I'm sure people will have experienced similar and more and may indeed have something to share, but I won't find out if I don't ask.
I'm not stupid enough to only take the opinions of others as my source of information and as you say and as I stated the IPCC will deal with this eventually as I said, but I don't see any harm in asking.

bujin

Errata wrote: »

What's your daughters solicitor's view on this?

At no time has my daughter had a solicitor. The defendant was allotted a solicitor on the day he was arrested, but at no time was she advised or given any legal support or direction whatsoever. We were told that until the case went to the CPS there wasn't any need for legal advice because the Police, we were told would investigate the case and question any witnesses etc.

It looks now in hindsight that we should have sought legal advice but to be fair we didn't know we'd need it and it's easy to believe what you're told by the Police when you think they are there to help and at least advise you.

Unfortunately my daughter's so disillusioned by the whole thing and the way the Police handled things. She did the right thing and was incredibly brave by going to the Police and she did it in part because we found he'd done things like this before in other relationships and she decided that she didn't want any other woman to go through anything like this again. So all we have left is to complain to the IPCC, as it seems the offences and all the evidence that went with it and the harrowing 5 hour video statement my daughter underwent were all for nothing and have been a waste of time.