Yup. Sadly true.
Should future employers be warned you were found not guilty in a rape trial??
- Thread starter Hades
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Yup. Sadly true.
Soldato
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Feels like the only crime where everyone seems to be innocent is rape.
Erm, yes it does. It makes exactly that statement with the presumption of innocence, AKA "innocent until proven guilty"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence
And the UN Declaration of human rights.
http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
Unless you are proven guilty, you are innocent. A not guilty decision means they are not guilty, ergo innocent, not "they may or may not be innocent" or "they may have been guilty but there wasn't enough evidence". In the eyes of the law if the result is "not guilty" you are legally innocent.
It's pretty clear.
Pretty much this, except in certain cases where there is clear evidence to argue that the accused was likely to have affected the lives of others for the same reasons (i.e. there's significant evidence the person is a serial rapist).
Soldato
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my answer to that would be convict them of the known crimes first, then release the name to garner evidence if necessary to pursue further convictions.
if there's not enough evidence to get the first conviction then they remain free and innocent and the police can gather further evidence in their own time (as is the case with all trials, i'm not advocating double jeopardy or anything here)
Yeah because locals on Facebook ALWAYS obey "legal reasons" and dont post about Dave's suspected rape history
Claire's law already does that.
A woman or random friend of a woman can ask the police about her boyfriend's criminal history and they will disclose everything sexual/domestic including stuff like a report thst wasnt taken further that he doesn t even know about
Annoyed with your ex bf? Ring up the police and say he abused you but you don't want to pursue it in future any gf that checks will be told that and the gossip will get round everywhete
The duty of care wouldn't really change.
Plus the headline "suspected rapist hired by university" is always one a university wants these days
Caporegime
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Well that's not accurate at all:
Depending on what you’ve mentioned in your initial chat, the police may invite you in for a face-to-face meeting to put in the application for a disclosure. You will need to bring two forms of ID to this meeting, which should be with a specialist domestic violence officer. They will also speak to other agencies, such as social services, to see what information they hold on the person involved.
Once the police have gathered all the details available, they will do a risk assessment to determine if anyone is likely to be harmed, based on their information.
If the police don’t think abuse is likely - even if the person they’ve been considering has a history of such behaviour - they will not make a disclosure. The information the police and other agencies hold on individuals is private. There has to be a pressing reason for them to share it, or they are not allowed to do so. So not getting a disclosure doesn’t mean there is no violent past: it just means the police either don’t have any information, or they don’t feel the risk is high enough at that time.
Isn't that part of the problem here, they perhaps shouldn't be deciding that. The lack of guidance has been mentioned:
BBC said:
You don't know that, you don't know his name in relation to this case, his identity could well be plastered all over the internet in relation to the original trial though.
BBC said:
his original trial could have been well reported
the issue here is more about the fact that someone choses to include it in an enhanced check and some employers potentially make inferences about it when there is little guidance re: what they're supposed to do here
if the police and the justice system truly believed that people were innocent until they are proven guilty then there wouldn't be no need at all to share details of an acquittal as it provides no useful information, the person acquitted is as innocent as anyone else who never went on trial in the first place... however if they're not so confident then there perhaps is good reason to highlight some dodgy past behaviour they couldn't quite prove and really you're not presumed to actually be all that innocent... "where there is smoke there is fire" etc..
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On the assumption that this relates to the case of a teacher who was working as a taxi driver at the time the allegation of rape was made, were any of the Daily Mail fans expressing an opinion actually in court when he was tried for rape or perhaps they have studied the Supreme Court Judgement in detail?
If you are found not guilty then in the eyes of the law you are innocent. Innocent UNTIL PROVEN guilty. Yes there will be cases where rapists are let off the hook with no record but it's far more preferable to innocent men being treated as guilty through recording unproven allegations.
edit: what a jury believes is irrelevant, if social media is anything to go by any jury today will believe that a man accused of rape is guilty before even seeing the evidence.
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[daily mail]Yeah he deffo did it mate, all taxi drivers are wronguns. He's probably an immigrant or a musliamic or summat like that. [/daily mail]
Soldato
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Isnt it strange how such a simple legal premise, that isnt even written in legalese, seems to be getting so misunderstood that it needs to be repeated several times.
The problem here is it only seems to protect people from legal consequences rather than social ones, and we're such a vindictive species when we feel like it.
I suppose it's because it's not a consistent law.
Scotland have a "not proven" trail outcome.
Anyone who sees "not proven" guilty at trial is definitly going to think it was some legal tecnicality that got them off and they are guilty
Pedantically you are not innocent until proven guilty, you are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Article 6 of the ECHR (which is enshrined in law by the Human Rights Act) says:
So pedantically not guilty doesn't mean your innocent, it means you're still presumed innocent. Ergo if new evidence comes to light you can be retried and later found guilty.
To be more relevant to the OP, I think this particular case isn't one that should necessarily get reported on a CRB check, but there's definitely a balance to be struck.
As an earlier poster pointed out, Ian Huntley had a clear CRB check even though he'd been reported to the police 6 times by children and investigated 4 times by social services. One event, probably shouldn't appear, multiple events which follow a similar theme should really be reported. A bit distasteful to report, but better to stop someone like Huntley getting away with working with kids again.
As an earlier poster pointed out, Ian Huntley had a clear CRB check even though he'd been reported to the police 6 times by children and investigated 4 times by social services. One event, probably shouldn't appear, multiple events which follow a similar theme should really be reported. A bit distasteful to report, but better to stop someone like Huntley getting away with working with kids again.
I've heard the enhanced check can even show up non-criminal intelligence too.
From what I understand is a police officer of a certain rank decides what is included in the enhanced version. But like a lot of things these days guidelines turn in to the normal procedure as everyone plays it safe. So he probably included everything on the check because it was to do with teaching. I'm thinking if it wasnt a teaching job then it might not have been included in the certificate issued.
From what I understand is a police officer of a certain rank decides what is included in the enhanced version. But like a lot of things these days guidelines turn in to the normal procedure as everyone plays it safe. So he probably included everything on the check because it was to do with teaching. I'm thinking if it wasnt a teaching job then it might not have been included in the certificate issued.
Soldato
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See i'd read the scottish system as "not guilty" being absolutely proven not guilty (ie like having a solid aliby, or a provenly false allegation) and "not proven" the same as our "not guilty" that is to say insufficient evidence to prove guilt.
Thing is i'm considering the legal status of innocent rather than actual innocence, the latter being lost when a person commits a crime, the former when judged by a court.
But then we're down the rabbit hole of false convictions etc and needless to say its rare to have a case where the jury can be as sure as the defendant wether or not they commited the crime.
The point either way is that if you are found not guilty you go back to the state you were before the trial. I.e. you shouldn’t be considered any more guilty than someone that wasn’t put on trial and found not guilty.
As already mentioned, socially that just doesn’t happen, but that’s what should happen. That’s why things like DBS checks and the public naming of pre judged defendants is such a touchy subject.
Did I say that or are you just putting words in my mouth?
I haven't made any statement as to whether I think this man's trial should be included in an enhanced check, or whether I think he was guilty/not guilty/innocent and from that you've falsely accused me of saying that I want people's lives ruined? WTF?
Ok, maybe I should have said a jury makes no judgement on the question of innocence, only to the question of guilt, i.e. the crime of which they are accused of committing. Think for one second why the phrase is "innocent until proven guilty" and not "innocent until proven innocent".
Courts aren't there to make judgements on innocence, only the claim of guilt is addressed.
The accused isn't there to prove his innocence - it is up to the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty (or not).
Here's an example:
You are woken by a burglar whom you confront but he escapes.
You give a description to the police and they arrest a man (it's definitely the burglar), you pick him out, it goes to trial.
He pleads not guilty.
You present your evidence.
The defence presents a whole list of witnesses that claim the accused was with them at the time of the burglary (they are lying).
The testimony from the witnesses causes the jury to have doubts that the accused committed the crime - it's effectively your word against his.
The jury reaches a verdict of not guilty.
Does this mean his is innocent? No, all that has happened is he's been deemed not guilty. But according to you, he is innocent.
Fast forward, and evidence comes to light that proves the witnesses were lying - if we go by your definition of not guilty (i.e. innocent) then the accused cannot be re-tried because, according to you, he has already been proven innocent.
However, a verdict of not guilty means he can be re-tried if new evidence surfaces.
This is why juries only address the issue of guilt, and whether there is enough compelling evidence to reach a verdict of guilty or not guilty.
Beat me to it, and kudos to your brevity.