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Man to sue after rape trial collapse

Ranb

Penultimate Amazing
Ranb
Joined
Jul 25, 2003
Messages
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Location
WA USA
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-42399802

Liam Allan was charged with 12 counts of rape and sexual assault but his trial collapsed after police were ordered to hand over phone records.

The case against Mr Allan at Croydon Crown Court was dropped after three days when the evidence on a computer disk containing 40,000 messages revealed the alleged victim pestered him for "casual sex".
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Do the UK police ever apologize after screwing someone over like that or does that just lead to more problems for them if their victim sues?
 
I am so pleased he is going to sue. Yes the police do occasionally apologise, but it is like getting blood from a stone. I also hope this case means the police tighten up procedures for disclosing evidence.
 
It will get worse as police, CPS and court budgets get further cuts.
 
I think it still counts as a win if it's truthfully established that no crime was in fact committed. It's not as if there's a rapist at large who was really guilty of raping that woman.

Mind you, is she going to be charged with making a false accusation?

And shouldn't this be in Trials and Errors?
 
It's unbelievable that this still happens despite CPIA.

Stuffing up your disclosure is the number one guaranteed nailed to the wall carved in stone cast iron method of getting your case chucked out. If you're lucky, without a miscarriage of justice and being at the center of an enquiry.....

But yes, more police cuts means cut price policing and cut price justice
 
Police cuts should have no effect on disclosing evidence. It could affect what enquiries are made, cuts meaning fewer enquiries are done as investigation teams are smaller.
 
I find I want more information on this. A stated desire to have sex with him does not mean he didn't rape her after all. And of course not turning over evidence is also very problematic.

It is unclear if she was being written off as a slut for making comments and thus someone who clearly cannot be raped, or if there are specific statements made that contradict her statements to the police, and that he is likely a rapist that the police bungled the investigation on.
 
Not in the UK, but my brother's rape trial collapsed a month ago a day before the trial start date.

Costs: 28 days in jail before being granted bail (despite having no criminal history), tens of thousands of dollars in defence fees over the course of the year awaiting trial, his business which he has operated for 15 years is essentially bankrupt.

I don't know if he is going to sue, but it would be difficult because it is more a case of complete stupidity in the justice system instead of malevolence, or the hiding of evidence. Essentially it was a situation where a police officer believed a story that no one who has reached the age of 4 should believe. Then the prosecutor's assistant accepted that story that no one who has reached the age of 4 should believe. My brother's lawyer repeatedly asked the crown prosecutor if he, himself, had actually looked at the tapes and the claims because he was going to be made to look like a complete fool in court. Then finally in the couple days before the trial the prosecutor, in his preparation, finally looked at the evidence, claims, tapes, and quickly brought the accuser in to ask some basic follow up questions that should have been asked in the first place. Upon having the claims challenged the accuser almost immediately admitted that the claims were not true.
 
ponderingturtle said:
I find I want more information on this. A stated desire to have sex with him does not mean he didn't rape her after all. And of course not turning over evidence is also very problematic.

It is unclear if she was being written off as a slut for making comments and thus someone who clearly cannot be raped, or if there are specific statements made that contradict her statements to the police, and that he is likely a rapist that the police bungled the investigation on.
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Multiple requests for sex and she then made a claim of rape. It certainly makes the beyond reasonable doubt requirement for a conviction highly unlikely.

There is also the very important principle of we should presume his innocence.
 
Nessie said:
Multiple requests for sex and she then made a claim of rape. It certainly makes the beyond reasonable doubt requirement for a conviction highly unlikely.

There is also the very important principle of we should presume his innocence.
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And in what way does that contradict the previous testimony? Nothing in the limited articles say any of her testimony was disproved. It seems like basic harassment of victims with their sexual pasts and details is common but how is it relevant? Just goes to show why reporting rapes is a bad idea.
 
ponderingturtle said:
And in what way does that contradict the previous testimony? Nothing in the limited articles say any of her testimony was disproved. It seems like basic harassment of victims with their sexual pasts and details is common but how is it relevant? Just goes to show why reporting rapes is a bad idea.
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The limited details is another reason why we should presume his innocence.

I am a bit taken a back that you think reporting a rape is a bad idea. Why?
 
Rolfe said:
I think it still counts as a win if it's truthfully established that no crime was in fact committed. It's not as if there's a rapist at large who was really guilty of raping that woman.

Mind you, is she going to be charged with making a false accusation?
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I certainly hope so. And of perjury, if she made her evidence in court under oath.

I'm a bit puzzled why the defendant's solicitor puts it down to "incompetence" when he found the exculpating phone calls from the disk within a one day's adjournment. And according to one of the BBC articles:
It is understood police had looked at thousands of phone messages when reviewing evidence in the case, but had failed to disclose to the prosecution and defence teams messages between the complainant and her friends which cast doubt on the allegations against Mr Allan.
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That sounds very much like the definition of malevolence.
 
As far as I know it's rare that a prosecutor in the USA is held responsible for screwing someone over like this. Will this guy have to settle for money in a civil suit or can he expect to see those who are being sued to lose their jobs?
 
I'm lost. Where did the "phone records" come from? How do we know what the complainant said to her friends? Is it routine for "phone records" to reveal the content of messages?

I'm picturing the defendant giving police a disk that contained the time and content of every message he's ever received, because otherwise I don't know where the records came from. But that can't be right, because then the defense would have known all along that these messages existed.

ETA: Did the police do some big text-message dump from a bunch of different devices? I've read the article and some related links, and I still can't figure it out.
 
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