What used to be said from "Blackstones" was "better ten guilty men walk free than one innocent man be sent to prison".

Recently a high court judge said it's "better that an innocent man is sent to prison than a guilty man walks free"., Yes - it's swung the other way. No middle ground any more.

I've been working today on an application to the CCRC (the next step after an appeal has failed). I had a lot of input into the appeal and we were all shocked that it failed. The barrister actually said to the inmate "with this evidence, we should win". He shouldn't have said that of course, as it's giving false hope. I'm always criticised for being pessimistic but better that way than a huge disappointment after a big build up. But he was right - with the evidence we had, we should have won.

Going through the work I did some time back, I felt my hackles rise as once again, I was thinking "how the hell did this get a conviction on the evidence???" But of course, there are all too many such cases.

Sometimes I really can't tell if this is an innocent person, sometimes I can see it's a guilty person trying to hide among the innocent, and then there's the obviously innocent, and I'm left scratching my head: "where was the collective juror's one brain cell that day???"

I am not a number

I'm no Thatcherite, there is such thing as society, but there are no such groups as "rape victims", "rapists", or "innocent accused". These are all individual cases. There are no sides, there is no war. There is only justice in each and every case. No innocent man found guilty aids the cause of rape victims (as some hypothetical (but non-existent) group. No guilty man (usually) going free helps the innocent accused. What more is there to say? Except to release the white air-filled balls of the island to bounce up and down on Patrick McGoohan? Oh, except to notice that what I just wrote should be the bleedin' obvious !!

hi anon

What you say should be true, but isn't. That's the whole crux of injustice. There are groups, there are sides, there are wars, there are political agendas.

Well, I'm not sure what I'm hoping to accomplish here, but a movement to try to push the pendulum back the other way would be good!

Maybe after the General Election, depending on who gets in.

A few decades ago rape and CSA victims (the genuine ones) were often not believed so the pendulum has swung the other way, as has been said.

In fact it's swung so far the other way that some people really do believe that nobody, but nobody would lie about CSA. The recent alleged "Satanic Abuse" case in Hampstead is still being feted all over the net as the truth, despite the judgment that was clear that it was a load of old toffee and very dangerous toffee at that.

It's got to the point that many of those deluded people also believe that the Royal family, all MPs, government ministers, uncle Tom Cobley and all, are all raging paedophiles who are covering each others backs. These people who peddle such nonsense are the dangerous ones - I have to wonder whether they "protest too much" so as to cover their own possible guilt of the very same crimes they accuse "the establishment" of.

I'll accept that there are some with agendas, and some groups who live off the issue, that's fair enough. My pure position was overstated. But I think yours is as well. In general, victims are not helped by wrongful convictions, and the innocent accused are not helped by the guilty going free. The best address to the balance, is for it neither to swing against the accused, or against the accuser, it is best swung in the direction of just results.

Or is that just words? I guess a case could be made that more of a bias against the accuser would help both the guilty and the falsely accused? But its not a position I want to advance as "improvement". Just a change in the manner in which life is sh*t. I was rather hoping society would improve - not just change in the nature of the crappiness.

heard it said before


Well yes, I'm hearing that opinion gaining ground now, but that's the downfall of the democratic system, there doesn't seem to be any middle ground. I bet 40 years from now it'll be the genuine CSA victims saying exactly the same thing as we're saying on this forum now!

Yep we could end up going backwards. After all, it's costing the tax payer billions in false allegations, innocent people in prison, families, on benefits, separate housing due to SS intervention, cost of "investigation", magistrates, crown courts, appeal courts, solicitors, barristers....................... not to mention "compensation" for those who were never abused in the first place - all courtesy of the tax payer.

The trouble is, the guilty sometimes will attempt to hide among the innocent....... and the genuine victims then do not get their justice.

Agreed, but I would still say I would hate to have to be a descision maker in all of this - be worried sick I might've got it wrong on either count!