#IBelieveHer

PannickAtTheDisco

Well-Known Member
Joined
13 Dec 2016
Messages
23,602
Location
not at CAS
This is escalating on Twitter after the Paddy Jackson rape trial, where all 4 defendants were found to be not guilty.

Jackson's lawyer criticised the investigation, claiming bias and the pursuit of a prosecution of a high-profile defendant and questioned its integrity.

Since the verdict, this hashtag has gathered stream with a multitude of tweets, varying from criticism of the verdict due to inconsistencies between the defendants accounts and the testimonies of the accuser and other witnesses.

In addition, there are a notable number of tweets which take a personal approach to criticising a wide range of things, including hoping the defendants still lose their jobs, attacking the "patriarchy" and other such attacks.

A few of the various tweets:

His solicitor, Joe McVeigh, hit out at the investigation into Mr Jackson.

"It's our belief that the investigation has been characterised by the turning of a blind eye to inadequacies in the evidence of the complainant combined with the very apparent investigative bias," he said.

He added: "The prosecution made much of a perceived privileged position provided by virtue of Paddy being an international rugby player.

"We say that it was this very status as a famous sportsman that drove the decision to prosecute in the first place."

Mr McVeigh also said "real concerns about the integrity of the trial process" had been raised by "vile commentary expressed on social media, going well beyond fair comment".

"Several days of this trial were lost due to problems thrown up by the intrusive infection of the process by social media," he said.

"All the lawyers have been distracted by having to man the barriers against a flood of misinformed, misconceived and malicious content on the internet, particularly during the last phase of this trial and, worryingly, even at the hands of public servants who should have known better."







It's clearly an extremely difficult and complicated subject, with a various number of issues including:

  • Naming, shaming and hounding of victims on social media despite risking arrest.
  • As seen in this case, the level of scrutiny and disparity of time having to provide evidence and face questioning for accusers compared to the defendants.
  • Case reviews after the withholding of evidence led to potentially unsafe convictions.
  • The level of male suicides being brought to public attention recently.
  • The right to anonymity for accusers but not for defendants.
There are so many other issues you may want to raise, but I think this outpouring is a sign we as a country and society really need to sit down and draw up a new framework for rape cases that is fair and objective for victims and defendants.

I think it's a troubling subject at the moment and this reaction is a prime example.
 
It's incredibly difficult to get a conviction in cases like this. I've been on jury in a rape trial and the defence lawyers are incredible at muddying the waters and, rightly, you have to be sure of a guilty verdict, anything other than 'sure' is a not-guilty. I think we also need an education campaign on how people react to sexual assault, despite it being in the guidance notes given to the jurors that people react in different ways and that 'freezing' is an incredibly common reaction many people dismissed the complainants case as they couldn't understand why she hadn't done this or that.

Without seeing all the evidence it's impossible to make a proper judgement but based on what I've seen of this case the defence lawyers have given the girl an incredibly hard time and made some fairly unpleasant comments, which are unhelpful in this case and to future ones.

I do agree that defendants should have anonymity.
 
Don’t know the facts of this case but there is almost an impunity in falsely accusing someone of rape to such an extent that you pretty much have to bring a private prosecution in most cases (which are cripplingly expensive). I know somebody falsely accused, with video evidence that proved the complainant was lying, mainly because she was a headcase and wanted more housing benefit essentially. The CPS did nothing despite having cast-iron proof that the girl lied, and the guy couldn’t afford a private prosecution so she got away with it. The sad irony is, by not prosecuting a lot of these liars and instead prosecuting many completely speculative ‘rape’ cases, a lot of genuine rapists will walk free as juries become more and more doubtful of accusations and more and more contemptuous of the CPS’s prosecuting policy.
 
From the reporting I heard on the radio of the past few weeks, the only thing the prosecution or defense had was a series of witness accounts. And they were inconsistent.

It sounded to me that she was raped but to convict with so little evidence would have been a crime. So therefore I have to accept that she wasn't.

I hope all parties put it all behind them and have have happy lives ahead of them. Easier said than done though.
 
I still don't understand why, in cases like this, both the accuser and defendant(s) can't be given anonymity.
Otherwise more & more cases are gonna get tried in 'public' across social media etc which could result in further numerous problems like unsafe verdicts, re-trials etc.

But even if this became standard practise i think it's gone beyond that. There seems to be this growing 'Listen and Believe' culture where a sample allegation (without supporting evidence or even a formal complaint made to Police) can ruin people's lives.
 
giphy.gif
 

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.