Should future employers be warned you were found not guilty in a rape trial??
- Thread starter Hades
- Start date
It never is, but you are innocent at the end of the day, proven innocent it should not effect any job you apply for
So because we can't 100% remove the risk that a sex offender will offend somewhere like their own home then we should not at least make some effort to prevent them actually being placed in positions of authority concerning children? Is that what you are trying to say?
Effectively that Ian Huntley would have inevitably gone on to rape and murder a child or children so it's pointless trying to prevent someone like him working with children in the first place?
In relation to the second point it's quite simple children who are having sex with adults who are abusing them often don't want to report it because they are being groomed. The older person is providing them status and material goods that they would be unlikely to obtain from a peer. That 13 - 15 year old child having a sexual relationship with someone far older then them may themselves think it's OK at the time and may actively be against any intervention.
I have said it before and I will say it again ......
The criminal burden of proof is a totally unsuitable benchmark to use to assess the suitability of someone to work with children or vulnerable adults.
If we accept that the we have to look at what is a practical, workable system for assessing the suitability of a particular person to work in a particular job.
Some have suggested some sort of system that in advance of any potential DBS style application has a judicial system that pre emptiviely assesses the suitability of a potential applicant for any of the almost limitless number of roles that may require a DBS application.
I suggest this is totally unworkable for a number of reasons.
1) a lot of the information relevant to a DBS application doesn't have to have come from criminal court proceedings where someone is found not guilty. With the proposed (by others) tack on secondary 'trial' after the criminal trial to assess whether someone should work in a wide range of roles at someone potential unspecified point in the future.
This 'tack on' trial would in of itself cause a whole host of issues for example who as a defendant just found not guilty of a sexual offence would then want to go through a secondary trial, that in effect, could say that, on the balance of probabilities, you did commit that sexual offence!
2) If we wish to include information on DBS reports that doesn't stem from matters that have gone to criminal courts we would need to hold a massive amount of court hearings on the application of the police so that a court could have a hearing, in advance, to establish what should be in any future application made by a subject without knowing what role that person was actually applying for. Given that this sort of information is often rapidly changing and being updated this process would be even more unworkable. Remeber this is process that would have to apply not only to people working currently with children and vulnerable adults but any one who might possibly go on to work with such groups.
3) the relevancy of a decision with also take into account the time since the information came to light. Things such as lifetime bans generally get challenged often successfully. Therefore these decisions, made pre emptiviely, would need to be frequently be reviewed.
I'm sure I and others could come up with others given a bit more time.
I'm not suggesting the current system is ideal or perfect but I suggest it does generally offer a reasonable balance between protecting children and vulnerable adults and the rights of individuals to freely seek work.
Will it result in some unjust rulings? Absolutely but no human system is perfect and so we must seek a workable solution which seeks to minimise the overall harm and which offers balance with regards to the rights of different groups of people.
But this isn't the standard we would use otherwise to determine employment matters or child protection matters.
I you are fired by your employer and claim the dismissal was unlawful neither you nor your former employer have to prove the case to the criminal standard (beyond reasonable doubt).
If social services want to remove children from a parent(s) we dont use the criminal standard of proof as the test.
Why is this the case?.... Because its been widely accepted that the criminal burden of proof is not a suitable standard for such matters.
If social services can apply to courts to remove children from parents based on the civil standard of proof why on earth would it make sense for society to demand a higher burden to prevent persons suspected of being a danger to children applying to work with them?
Its absolute nonsense.
Last edited:
Associate
- Joined
- 5 Apr 2015
- Posts
- 41
It is not the same at all.
Ian Huntley was reported to authorities in Humberside on eight separate occasions over alleged sexual assaults or sexual relationships with underage girls. Within the space of a year, social services there investigated four sexual relationships between him and schoolgirls, (one was aged only 13). He was accused of raping three teenagers between April 1998 and July 1999 and was also accused of indecently assaulting an 11-year-old girl in 1997.
Because there were multiple allegations (made by several unrelated people) against him regarding sexual crimes against children it is perfectly reasonable to include that information in an Enhanced CRB check to any school, or employer who was offering a job where he would be around children.
However, the case the OP cited concerned a teacher who was acquitted of a rape charge made by an adult passenger in his taxi cab. There was no forensic evidence that sexual contact between them even occurred, so it's not a question of whether or not the woman consented. You may not know this, but some women are happy to threaten to make false rape accusations to the Police in order to rob you. (These women are usually drug addicts and/or prostitutes. You are likely to be exposed to these sort of women if you work in a city as a taxi driver for any length of time.) Others, usually mentally ill women, just do it to get revenge because you have angered them in some way, maybe by rejecting their sexual advances (as in the case of a friend of mine mentioned below).
It is unjust to add the rape accusation against the school teacher to his enhanced CRB record for his school because the case went to trial and he was found not guilty, it was a single allegation without any supporting evidence made by one person (not a history of similar allegations made by unrelated people) and there was no forensic evidence that sex actually occurred and the alleged victim was also an adult. Hence, there is no reason to believe that he might be a paedophile.
If there is only one rape allegation (which was found to be untrue at trial) and no other history of sexual abuse accusations then including it allows the false rape accuser to wreck his career. We don't know anything about her. You assume she is trustworthy. The Jury clearly felt otherwise.
But that rarely happens. I had a friend who was falsely accused of rape by a woman. We found out subsequently that she had done it several times to innocent men before and some time later she set fire to the home of another man she had falsely accused of rape and only then was she imprisoned.
The Police treated my friend like scum, raided his home, confiscated his property, questioned him under caution. It turned out that her story was as full of holes as a colander and riddled with major inconsistencies, so the CPS didn't prosecute him. But since your naive policy seems to be being implemented by the government it's a good job my friend is not a teacher, a doctor or a nurse!
Well straight of the bat you start with being wrong. The complainant in the case was 17 (as per the judgement in the article you linked to) so legally a child.
But was there any evidence that this particular case was a false allegation? Or that the 17 year old concerned was mental, a drug addict or a prostitute?
Or are you just indulging is some typical, ignorant blaming of a complainant in a sex case?
I. E...
They deserved it, there probably a prostitute, they were drunk and/ or under the influence of drugs at the time ergo its their fault?
I'm going to say this extra slow.... for the people who are still struggling to understand....
Being.... Found.... Not.... Guilty..... At.... A.... Criminal..... Trial...... Does...... Not ... Mean..... That.... The allegation..... Was..... Found..... To..... Be..... 'not true'......
It means that the (majority - 10 or more of the) jury could not be sure, beyond reasonable doubt, that the defendant is guilty.
It is of course possible that during the course of a trial that evidence may come to light which shows that an allegation being considered is false but such a case would never be put to the jury to make a decision as the judge would stop the case at that point. This isn't the case here.
Cool starry bra.....
I'm sure you could point us to at least some local news coverage of this lunatic of a woman who makes false allegations against men and burns their houses down so we don't all just think you made it all up? Because incidents like this tend to be newsworthy.
Of course your 'friend', having had a no doubt unpleasant experience having been apparently falsely accused of rape, would not have any difficulty with a DBS check as a result of this incident or would at least win an appeal against an adverse decision if he appealed at court.
Last edited:
The whole point of a court system is to display all the evidence and if found not guilty then we most trust that decision. If we go down the route that some of the posters are saying then we're going to weight the accusers words very heavy and anyone accused wouldn't be able to 100% defend their reputation.
Associate
- Joined
- 5 Apr 2015
- Posts
- 41
The age of consent is 16 in the UK. Hence, even if he was guilty then this does not prove he is a paedophile.
Was there any evidence that it was a true allegation (apart from her word)?
No. I am merely telling you that robbing men by threatening to make a false rape allegation against them is often done by drug addicts and (streetwalking) prostitutes. In other words, not all complainants are trustworthy and taxi drivers often have to deal with some very unsavoury characters.
According to the judgement she was drunk, so that could have impaired her judgement to the point that crying rape if he had offended her was possible. Or it may have been a consensual sexual encounter which she could not remember properly when she sobered up later or regretted.
Indeed. But don't you think that a single rape accusation based on the word of a single accuser (and no other evidence), for which the defendant was acquitted in Court, should be proved beyond a reasonable doubt before it is disclosed to Colleges and Universities etc and it wrecks the defendant's teaching career? A career he has spent many years training for and has invested tens of thousands of pounds into.
Obviously, if someone else (not associated with the complainant) had came forward and accused him of committing a sex crime against them then it would be necessary to seriously consider passing all this information on to potential employers. But one complaint of which he was cleared is surely insufficient on its own.
What are you trying to insinuate here? Making out I was accused of rape? Character assassination, much?
I just had a search for it online but it was over 5 years ago in Sheffield and all I could find were arson stories without details of the perpetrators' previous criminal activity (which in her case was not even pursued by the Police/CPS anyway).
The friend of mine was renting a room in the house we shared. He was an Iraqi asylum seeker and was married with a child. I arranged a brief for him actually because not knowing your rights when you are being interviewed by the Police on a serious charge like rape is a very risky business.
I also saw the woman who accused him on the street once. She weighed about 25 stones and looked horrendous. Presumably, she was so sick of being rejected by men that she had become mentally ill and felt the need to vindictively destroy the lives of men who didn't want to get involved with her. I think the Police knew she was lying but they still put him through the meat grinder. However, by your logic his false rape accusation should be disclosed in an ECRC to schools etc. After all, we cannot be 100% sure that it is not true can we?
Is it not innocent until proven guilty though?
Yes, but a criminal trial isn't there to assess innocence, only the question of guilt, hence a verdict of guilty or not guilty. There has to be some suspicion of guilt which is the only claim the courts are addressing.
Look at it this way - there are probably hundreds of crimes committed daily, none of which you have committed or had any involvement whatsoever. Do you have to go to court to prove your innocence in every single case? Of course not, that's ludicrous, which is why a suspicion of guilt has to be established first. However, someone suspected of committing a crime is presumed innocent until it is proven in court that they are guilty (obviously there are exceptions where someone is caught red- handed and a trial is just a formality).
Man of Honour
- Joined
- 17 Nov 2003
- Posts
- 36,747
- Location
- Southampton, UK
It's worth noting that in Scots law has three possible verdicts: one of conviction ("guilty") and two of acquittal ("not proven" and "not guilty")
Wikipedia said:
So are some here saying that you can never be found innocent, even if you have a cast-iron alibi and the jury unanimously finds you not guilty? That you should still have the accusation listed on an enhanced disclosure, and that you still have some measure of suspicion of your guilt?
Basically a number of posters here seem to be saying, that once charged you can never again be innocent. You are forever stuck in some limbo where you aren't guilty but you will always be doubted and distrusted.
Basically a number of posters here seem to be saying, that once charged you can never again be innocent. You are forever stuck in some limbo where you aren't guilty but you will always be doubted and distrusted.
If the loony left keep pushing their various damaging social policies we're going to end up with one hell of a backlash eventually, you can't keep oppressing majorities under the guise of minority rights or protecting women from the evil patriarchy and not invoke a reaction eventually. The best thing we can do is treat the far left with the same fear as the far right and return to a balanced middle ground where reason and sanity prevails.
Remember. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Nov 2007
- Posts
- 5,581
- Location
- London
This is true, not everyone will know the details and there will only be gossip and Chinese whispers.
Would suck for normal people i can imagine
Indeed. It is the left too. One only has to use OcUK as an example. Head over to the United Soviet Socialist Republic of Speakers Corner (USSRSC). They were effectively saying what the above posters are.
If you are found NOT guilty, you are by law innocent. That's how the system works.
It got me thinking today, I listened to my usual podcasts and it seems now that - particularly in the US - conservatives are now beginning to actually fight back. The left has poked, prodded, assaulted and shot at people who are on the other side of the political aisle.
Interestingly I've had a conversation with my step daughter about this the other day, following a Trump induced outburst by a Teacher at school the other day (that was demonstrably incomplete in details and lacking the moral compass).
If you keep giving ground to the left, eventually you will be so far back from your line and principles you wont recognize why or how. But the answer is simple: You agreed it when you didn't stand up/acquiesced to (threatening, unfair and oppressive) demands.
And to make one of my favorite quotes :
"Universal innocence always gives rise to a universal failure to act"
Last edited:
![[FnG]magnolia](/styles/overclockers/avatars/9.png){kind=avatar}
Caporegime
- Joined
- 29 Aug 2007
- Posts
- 28,765
- Location
- Auckland
Roar and RaohNS getting it on.
I would watch this film.
I would watch this film.
Does it involve a Mac-10?
This thread fails due to a failure to understand that a criminal trial is about establishing guilt for punishment of an individual accused of an activity, whereas a dbs check is about establishing risk for vulnerable people due to association.
As such, pretty much the rest of the thread is nonsense.
As such, pretty much the rest of the thread is nonsense.