Wrongly accused of rape - an innocent man's 'two years of hell' | Adam North, aged 33, was found not guilty of sex offences in just 44 minutes.

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Criminal defamation occurs when one purposely communicates to any person, orally or in writing, any information which he or she knows to be false and knows will tend to expose any other living person to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule.

The following is a State Statute (Montana) defining Criminal Defamation:

Mont. Code Anno., § 45-8-212 Criminal defamation.

(1) Defamatory matter is anything that exposes a person or a group, class, or association to hatred, contempt, ridicule, degradation, or disgrace in society or injury to the person's or its business or occupation.

(2) Whoever, with knowledge of its defamatory character, orally, in writing, or by any other means, including by electronic communication, as defined in 45-8-213, communicates any defamatory matter to a third person without the consent of the person defamed commits the offense of criminal defamation and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 6 months in the county jail or a fine of not more than $ 500, or both.

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[–]The_Pringles_Man0 points 7 years ago* [recovered] (1 child) | Copy Link

No, it leaves one option, your number 3.

I don't actually believe you lack the intelligence to spot the ambiguity in your statement - either you generally do lack the intelligence, or you're just being difficult - presumably because I've disagreed with your views elsewhere in this thread and made efforts to back up what I've said and for whatever reason, this has irritated you.

Person A went to do B and he went without C.

Never do that.
Never do B without C!

Which is clearer? Which is more likely to lead to confusion? None of this should be difficult for you to understand surely?

When I refused to sign it without the errors being corrected he leaned in at me at told me I wouldn't be allowed to leave the police station until I did.

I'm sorry but that sounds like a complete and utter fabrication. This is what actually happens in those circumstances:
I'm not signing that....
Ok - don't then. I can't force you.
Let me guess though - you refused, told him you knew your rights and everybody clapped?

Unfortunately, it is the belligerant attitude of modern police officers that is making the public, even conservative people such as myself, unwilling to help them. You sir, do not help the cause.

In terms of being belligerent (which is the correct spelling - are you sure you corrected all those typo's? Or more likely fabrication?) - being aggressive / hostile - I'd ask you to reflect on your own posts.

[–]mikesteane 0 points1 point2 points 7 years ago* (0 children) | Copy Link

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Yes - correct.

Police & Criminal Evidence Act 1984
Code G
Paragraph 2.9
Section E
Sub-section i)

The above allows for an officer to arrest you where it is thought unlikely that you would attend a Police station voluntarily to be interviewed.

So it is quite simple - I invite you into the station for a voluntary interview about a criminal matter I am investigating that you are a suspect in. You have read some legal advice from some random person on Reddit that says you should NEVER consent to this - so you tell me no, you won't be coming in. You are telling me you won't attend - you are quite literally giving me the power to arrest you. Fine by me - it makes no difference to me if I arrest you and interview you that way, or if you just pop in at a time suitable for both of us and do the interview that way. If you really want to spend probably around 5-6hours in a cell that's your call.

[–]mikesteane 0 points1 point2 points 7 years ago (6 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] -2 points-1 points0 points 7 years ago (5 children) | Copy Link

As I've said in another reply - it wasn't clear what you meant at all. Perhaps (whilst we're going to question each others competence) you struggle with expressing your opinion in a clear and coherent manner?

And whereas I am an identifiable individual, you are hiding behind a Reddit pseudonym. It is you who are the random person.

Well observed. What is your point there exactly? (Once more, the exact point you seek to make is not clear - is it?). Is it that because I am the 'random person' I am incorrect and shouldn't be listened to? Look it up for yourself - I'll even provide you with the link. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/117583/pace-code-g-2012.pdf
I'm not asking anyone to take this on faith - it's there, on a government website in black and white. Code G covers arrest necessity - it's all there.

You also fail to mention that you can be arrested at a voluntary interview.

Yes this is correct - although once more, you're not clear on what your actual point is.

[–]mikesteane 0 points1 point2 points 7 years ago (4 children) | Copy Link

As I've said in another reply - it wasn't clear what you meant at all.

Here is what I said, and it's right there in front of you:

"

Mr North was interviewed as a voluntary attender at a police station without a solicitor.

Never do that. "

It that is not clear to you, then your powers of comprehension are not of the highest order.

You bring up the subject of my being a random person on the Net in order to devalue my advice and when I point out that it applies to you more fully than it applies to me you ask what the point is.

This arguing style - creating confusion for no apparent reason- is, in addition to everything else, very good reason for not dealing with people such as yourself without a lawyer present. Which is what I said right at the beginning.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 7 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

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See, again you're struggling so I'll make it a bit clearer for you (I think we're going to need crayons for you soon though as I'm not sure how much clearer I can make this)...

You've created a line that has two main pieces of information - in the context of what you have said drinking six pints of beer is considered by most to be ok - and driving home is considered by most to be ok - so it's quite evident that you won't be arguing you shouldn't do these which only leaves one likely option which is both actions combined as combined they are unlawful.

Now in your case it was not so obvious. i) Interviewed voluntarily. ii) Interviewed without a lawyer. "Never do that..." - you could easily be referring to either or both - especially given your apparent lack of knowledge around the criminal law of England and Wales and particularly the relevant pieces to our discussion such as PACE and CPIA, you could quite easily, as someone ignorant of the law, be arguing that you should never accept a voluntarily interview - as people often do and then find themselves in a cell.

We both know that you understand fully what I am saying, and that you could have been clearer with what you said. But by all means, continue to make a fool of yourself.

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So a failure to disclose is equivalent to making a conscious effort to hide it? In order for the officers to have 'hidden it' there needs to be:
i) Knowledge of the existence of the item they have 'hidden' - you cannot hide something if you don't even know it exists.
ii) An intention to hide it. This should be fairly obvious. You can't 'accidentally' hide something.

As someone who has had to download smart phones and sift through the evidence I can tell you that the amount of data that can come back on a smart phone with a large storage medium that is mostly occupied is absolutely vast. To sift through every piece of data would take quite literally weeks. Now, couple this with the fact that in most Police Forces in England and Wales the CID and related departments are considered within the Police to be significantly overworked (when I was there I was holding around 30 serious and complex investigations at any one time - up from 6 before austerity driven cuts were implemented) - there is simply not the time to devote to just one case in this instance.

In these cases it is very easy to see how the investigating officer (usually just one - not a whole team of officers working the case, just one to do everything) could miss one lone text message, one lone Whatsapp exchange. Do I think this is right? No, absolutely not. But saying things like The Police hid the information! Is inaccurate and unfair and doesn't help resolve the issue. The real issue is that the workload is overbearing and the departments are short staffed. I wouldn't want anyone to go to jail who shouldn't - and I don't know any Police Officers who would (and before anyone who is utterly uninformed chimes in, there are no targets for convictions and no bonuses etc - there is however a potential career ending moment if you screw up like this!). What is actually needed is additional resources to be pumped back into Policing (and rape cases aren't the only areas that are suffering - rise in hate crimes, rise in anti-social behavior, stabbings through the roof etc) and realistic time scales for investigation through to court.

It's easy to just say They hid it! But it's wrong - and there's no evidence (as far as I am aware) in any of these cases that any officers intentionally held back evidence. The IPCC on the other hand......!

[–]mikesteane 1 point2 points3 points 7 years ago (13 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 7 years ago (12 children) | Copy Link

916 cases - as your own article says, makes up just 0.15% of cases. Flipped around, in 99.85% of cases there is no evidence of any disclosure issues.

Your own article again highlights the number is going up - I seem to recall pointing out that since austerity the workload for individual officers has gone up, and up, and up - it is no surprise more and more mistakes are made as the impact of the cuts bites more and more each year.

In terms of Police being 'trained to hide evidence' - that is simply laughable, and a deliberate misunderstanding of the MG6D. As a nationally accredited Detective who has completed the NIE, undergone all the relevant training including considerable training on CPIA (which governs the Disclosure Regs) I can say with absolute confidence this is complete and utter nonsense. There is no training to deliberately hide evidence - it is the complete opposite and it is constantly drilled into you that the consequences of deliberately withholding evidence would be you are looking at being sacked and potentially dealt with criminally yourself. Unusual for the Daily Mail to get something so radically wrong isn't it? (/Sarcasm).

The MG6D is for 'sensitive' information that you don't want to be disclosed to the defence. For example - you are a drug dealer and I am investigating you. Your neighbor rings the Police and tells us you have a cannabis farm in your garage - and gives their name. I would put the incident log for that phone call on the MG6D as I don't want you and your defence team to know that your neighbor grassed you up as it will put the neighbor in danger. Once the MG6D is completed it is forwarded to the CPS who have the final say on what gets disclosed and what doesn't. If the CPS think "No, the defence should know that" they disclose it - if they agree with the officers assessment they won't disclose it. The CPS have had considerably more training in the Disclosure Regs than the officer in the case.

If there are officers who have deliberately sought to withhold information - and it is proven - they deserve punishment. I've seen no evidence this is happening at all - let alone that it is widespread or systemic in anyway.

I know it's not as good a story - but there is no grand conspiracy to stitch up blokes for rape (especially considering the majority of Police are blokes, the majority of DC's are also blokes).

[–]mikesteane 1 point2 points3 points 7 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

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[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 7 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

Again it doesn't work like this.

When a smart phone is downloaded most forces utilise a specialist department to download the phone - the officer simply requests what they want from the phone - i.e. photo's, messages, appdata - etc. In most cases it won't be relevant for example to request Wi-Fi settings or Wi-Fi history - so it isn't requested. This means that the officer doesn't get back *all* of the data on the phone - even the reduced amount that is returned is still vast, so you can imagine how much data would be returned if they said "everything please" - and you can also imagine how long the investigations would drag on. The officer ticks a box to say words to the effect of "to the best of my knowledge I have reviewed/had sight of all the evidence in the case" - which is, technically speaking - true. It is simply not possible to review every single line of data on a modern smartphone. Not to mention, it's potentially 'fishing' - i.e. looking for other things we aren't investigating - if I'm investigating you for a domestic abuse case - and it is alleged you have sent threatening messages to your ex-partner via WhatsApp - should I really be looking through your pictures? Should I be looking through your memo's, your calendar? This is potentially an invasion of your privacy. Of course, it is different if *you* tell me there is evidence in those areas that will exonerate you. So again, the whole of the device won't, and rightly shouldn't be looked at.

I would also add as I think I alluded to earlier, it doesn't help when defendants often offer "No Comment" interviews and then 9 months later, 3-4 days before trial suddenly go "Actually there might be a message on this obscure App I use that completely proves my innocence..." - had they simply said that in interview the message would have been located, reviewed and they may have been NFA'd (no further action - i.e. not charged and released free). Not to mention that if they mentioned that in the recorded interview and the Police then fail to pursue that line of enquiry the defendant would have absolutely fantastic grounds for a civil litigation - as they could rightly point to the fact they outlined evidence that proved their innocence, the Police failed to investigate and as a result they got charged etc.

[–]mikesteane 0 points1 point2 points 7 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

I would also add as I think I alluded to earlier, it doesn't help when defendants often offer "No Comment" interviews and then 9 months later, 3-4 days before trial suddenly go "Actually there might be a message on this obscure App I use that completely proves my innocence..."

This sounds unpleasantly like "because he said 'no comment', we're not going to find the evidence." Very thin ice. And since you mention it, in five of the cases evidence was withheld.

I quote from the BBC report:

"A total of 47 rape or sexual assault cases were stopped - five where prosecutors found disclosure failures to be the main reason and 42 where disclosure was an issue.

As a result, 14 defendants had to be released from custody.

But what is far more worrying is that the review only covers a tiny fraction of the total number of cases prosecuted by the CPS each year."

They could cut the workload down by prosecuting false accusers thus reducing their numbers.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 7 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

This sounds unpleasantly like "because he said 'no comment', we're not going to find the evidence." Very thin ice
No it's more because someone won't tell the Police where the evidence is - it's much harder for them to find it. That shouldn't be a contentious thing to say. If you're alleged to have punched your neighbor and 4-5 months later, 2 days before the trial you suddenly decide to disclose (after 4-5 months of silence and No Comment) that in fact the postman saw what happened and can confirm you did not in fact assault your neighbor - you can't be surprised if this may throw a spanner in the works. Imagine your frustration if you then find out that the postman who saw it retired 2 months later and moved abroad, and nobody can get hold of them now - there goes your key witness who could have proven your innocence. I imagine you'd rather regret at that point opting for the 'wall of silence' strategy in interview.

Since you mention it, in five of the cases evidence was withheld.
I think we've already covered this ground (and in plenty of detail too I would add). A failure to disclose information doesn't by default mean that the officer in the case and/or CPS saw the information in question and made a conscious decision not to disclose it. There's nothing in this article that I can see that demonstrates a conscious decision on anyone's part to withhold information. Showing information wasn't disclosed only proves information wasn't disclosed - not that this lack of disclosure was done intentionally. I've already covered this in previous replies which I'll direct you to re-read.

They could cut the workload down by prosecuting false accusers thus reducing their numbers.
Potentially yes.

[–]genkernels 0 points1 point2 points 7 years ago* (6 children) | Copy Link

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[–]genkernels 0 points1 point2 points 7 years ago* (4 children) | Copy Link

Well, I would argue that regardless of whether it is malicious it still qualifies as systemic and that for mission-critical efforts one in one thousand is a large error rate, but that can get pedantic. I get what you're saying and, sure, you're right about that. Here you go:

Under her leadership, the number of prosecutions in England and Wales that collapsed over disclosure failings increased by 70% in two years.

From another source:

Her removal has been welcomed by lawyers and campaigners. The radio broadcaster Paul Gambaccini, who was kept on bail for 12 months before being informed he would not be prosecuted in relation to unsubstantiated allegations of historical sexual abuse, called Saunders a ‘zealot’ who had presided over significant injustice. Allison Pearson, writing in the Telegraph, called hers a ‘cruel reign’ which had ‘ruined lives’.

...Saunders was hoist with her own petard. By publicly committing herself to combating particular problems, such as violence against women or hate speech, she is understandably remembered as someone who used the law as a crusading tool, rather than an instrument of justice.

...Saunders also followed in the footsteps of her predecessor, Keir Starmer, by seeing it as her role to atone for the CPS’s historical mistakes. By talking publicly about the need to drive up prosecutions for particular offences, she presented the CPS as an organisation willing to proceed with prosecutions in order to make amends for the past. This, too, contributed to a feeling that her role was administered with less than absolute objectivity; with rather too much political intent.

Regardless of Saunders' mistakes, CPS and lawyers both recognize that as a systemic risk going forward:

"As appeal lawyers, we are refused access to these documents and so material that was wrongly withheld from the defence doesn’t come to light. And in some cases, this will have led to conviction of the innocent.”

..."All cases are kept under continuous review but we have implemented changes to ensure disclosure is considered as early as possible so if cases need to be halted, this happens as soon as possible.

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