You be the judge (sentencing)

kerikiwi said:
I fail to see any evidence of the police officer's being smug or badly spoken or barely literate.
Maybe it's not being English that is needed' but being something else.
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Maybe. I just think the trial is itself all the public needs to know, without a cop or a lawyer delivering a crappy little sermon on the court steps. They should STFU and get on with the next case IMO. To be fair to them (why?) they are pressed into doing it by the journos who are starved of live footage to feed the viewers/readers. I would still rather they didn't.
 
anglolawyer said:
Maybe. I just think the trial is itself all the public needs to know, without a cop or a lawyer delivering a crappy little sermon on the court steps. They should STFU and get on with the next case IMO. To be fair to them (why?) they are pressed into doing it by the journos who are starved of live footage to feed the viewers/readers. I would still rather they didn't.
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You said he was smug, badly spoken and barely literate.
What were those insults based on?
 
TragicMonkey said:
if a criminal wears gloves or wipes his prints or creates a fake alibi, is he not intentionally attempting to deceive the police? By denying involvement, not confessing, pleading innocent, is that not an attempt to deceive the police? Isn't every crime that isn't immediately confessed to then an attempt to pervert the course of justice? .
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The things you quote do not point the Police in a false direction or implicate another person for the crime. There is a difference between covering your tracks and creating a false set of tracks to mislead police. Were your criminal to plant someone else's fingerprints, trace evidence or DNA at a scene in order to point the Police in a false direction, then he's perverting the course of justice.

Scenario:

Three guys, Tom, Dick and Harry.
► Tom and Dick are friends.
► Tom murders a fourth (unnamed) person.
► Dick decides to help Tom out by planting evidence to mislead police into arresting and charging Harry for the crime.
► Harry is tried, found guilty of first degree murder and executed.

By your logic, Dick has done nothing wrong.
 
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smartcooky said:
The things you quote do not point the Police in a false direction or implicate another person for the crime. There is a difference between covering your tracks and creating a false set of tracks to mislead police. Were your criminal to plant someone else's fingerprints, trace evidence or DNA at a scene in order to point the Police in a false direction, then he's perverting the course of justice.

Scenario:

Three guys, Tom, Dick and Harry.
► Tom and Dick are friends.
► Tom murders a fourth (unnamed) person.
► Dick decides to help Tom out by planting evidence to mislead police into arresting and charging Harry for the crime.
► Harry is tried, found guilty of first degree murder and executed.

By your logic, Dick has done nothing wrong.
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On the contrary, he's interfered with scene of a crime.

If, however, Dick were isntead to post a YouTube video reconstructing the crime with Queen Elizabeth II as the perpetrator, and the cops believed it and pursued Her Majesty for a year with their attack helicopters and man-eating dogs, then in my court I'd throw out any attempt to charge Dick for the police's gullibility.
 
TragicMonkey said:
On the contrary, he's interfered with scene of a crime.

If, however, Dick were isntead to post a YouTube video reconstructing the crime with Queen Elizabeth II as the perpetrator, and the cops believed it and pursued Her Majesty for a year with their attack helicopters and man-eating dogs, then in my court I'd throw out any attempt to charge Dick for the police's gullibility.
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You are waxing ridiculous of course

What about if Dick were instead to post a YouTube video reconstructing the crime with Harry as the perpetrator?

Still think he's done nothing wrong?
 
smartcooky said:
You are waxing ridiculous of course
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I don't think I am. But the title of the thread is "You be the judge". You may run your court as you please. Mine will not be a court to rubberstamp whatever the prosecution feels like throwing at the defendant.

What about if Dick were instead to post a YouTube video reconstructing the crime with Harry as the perpetrator?

Still think he's done nothing wrong?
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Yes. Unless he's presenting this video under oath in court as truthful evidence (which would mean he doesn't reveal it's a reconstruction, but claims it's actual live footage) then he's done nothing wrong. Dick is under no legal obligation to only post what he believes to be true to YouTube. That other people mistake it for truth is hardly a crime. The police, of all people, should know better. That they didn't, and fell for it, is what caused this charge--petty spite for their mistake. I would not allow a precedent to be set that anything said or written or published can suddenly become evidence just because the police view it as such, and then punish the creator when it turns out they were mistaken.
 
Interesting how multiple counts of molestation can afford a lesser sentence than being in a consensual relationship and having consensual sex, where all the "harm" was caused not by the perpetrator of the crime but rather by the legal authorities themselves.

Then again i guess one shouldn't expect anything less from a nation of hypocrites and vermin. Bravo Britain. Bravo.
 
Arcade22 said:
Interesting how multiple counts of molestation can afford a lesser sentence than being in a consensual relationship and having consensual sex, where all the "harm" was caused not by the perpetrator of the crime but rather by the legal authorities themselves.
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You are aware that the judge in the Stuart Hall case was constrained by the limited penalties that were available at the time of the offences, which have been increased considerably since?
 
Late to the party as usual. I didn't read the second page so don't know what the actual penalties were, so:

Case A: Six months in prison, plus full restitution for damages.

Case B: Ten years (given his age, likely an effective life sentence)

Case C: They'll throw the book at him. 20 to life.
 
SezMe said:
You're right. Now being a thoughtful friend indicates you're going to commit a crime. It's a distinction without a difference.
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There's a rather large difference between being a thoughtful friend and grooming an impressionable kid.
 
anglolawyer said:
Ah, thanks Darat. I had a feeling I undershot with my four years. Seems about right to me.
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Well he's never going to teach again so odds are that conviction also means religation from the middle class.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Probably a defective judge. Wouldn't have happened in my court. I'd have instructed my backup dancers to jeer at the very notion.



Ah, yes, "ownership" of a "tag". I would think the video proved very effectively the one thing that matters--anybody can copy a tag. Which is yet another reason for the prosecution not to bring it up in court. I'd have instructed the jury to consider that possibility, if the defence missed it.

But then, if I were the judge, I'd be wondering the whole time about why they'd be pushing for a "perversion of justice" conviction at all. Surely that's more for criminal conspiracies, cover-ups by wrongdoing authorities, organized crime, and the like. As a judge I'd be suspicious the charge was preferred solely to harrass the defendant because let's face it, vandalism is hardly a serious crime. I'd suspect someone just wanted to pot the accused on something, anything, and was hurling charges at the wall hoping something would stick. And that sort of thing would piss me off, as a judge. So even if the jury did accept a complete pig's breakfast of a case and convict on that charge, I'd sentence him on that count to time already served, and see who comes out of the woodwork to appeal that. I didn't get to be a judge by not paying attention to politics.
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Given it is very unlikely that at any point in the police investigation they decided to search YouTube to see if there were any relevant videos that would assist them, I think it is a reasonable assumption that the accused not only created a video and uploaded it to YouTube, but that they then also raised the existence of that video with the police in an attempt to demonstrate that they were not the guilty person.

Does that change your view of whether that amounts to conspiracy to pervert the course of justice?
 
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