Innocent man who was jailed charged for board and lodging

[Agent]

Victim of false rape claim must pay £12,500 for bed and board in jail | the Daily Mail

Absolutely sickening.

[Funkstar]

Not the first time this has been reported.

The practice of charging "bed and breakfast" was challenged in 2007 by the Bridgewater Three, the men wrongly convicted of murdering newspaper boy Carl Bridgewater in 1978, but the principle was upheld by the House of Lords.

It would be interesting to see this judgment, to she why they decided to let it stand.

[Stewart]

What gets me, apart from having to pay this cash, is whats going on with the justice system? Some mad woman accuses this bloke of rape, there was no rape, therefore no eveidence of any kind. How then, does he get convicted in the first place?

One persons word against another is not proof, and there can not have been anything other than one persons word against another in this case.

No evidence, and this man has no previous convictions.

So how can the Jury find him guilty?

Lock the woman away for a long, long time, and ship the jury to some island somewhere. We have no need for these sort of people.

[pauldarkside]

That's disgusting - being penalised for being a innocent victim! So those that are justifyably serving at Her Majesty's Pleasure get "free" board and lodging but if you're found to be innocent you have to pay for that privilege!? That's screwed up and I hope it and the precident gets overruled and that common-sense prevails.

[SiM]

Whats the problem? He still gets £240,000, not bad for 3 years...

[directhex]

Lock the woman away for a long, long time, and ship the jury to some island somewhere. We have no need for these sort of people.

if only there was some island, on the other side of the world, where we could ship all our undesirables.

[SiM]

if only there was some island, on the other side of the world, where we could ship all our undesirables.

lol... I bet you she is part Australian...

He should be allowed to rape the woman now...

[Stewart]

Not undesirables, just thick people.

I suggest Greenland. Clear the Greenlanders out first, they wont kick up a fuss, it can't be much cop living there.

[pauldarkside]

Whats the problem? He still gets £240,000, not bad for 3 years...

Oh come on.

No amount of financial award would make up for losing the 3 years he could have spent with his family (the article states he's a father of two). No matter what age his children were, they'd have likely suffered abuse ("your dad's a rapist", etc), his wife would have likely been scorned by those around her; we all know what gossip is like and how evil people can be. Hell, their lives would have been turned upsidedown, not to mentioned what he'd have gone through in knowing this.

On one hand he's been granted an award, on the other he's had some taken away because some unelected toffs lack common sense.

[Funkstar]

So what would have happened if they had just awarded him £240,000 in the first place and never mentioned the £12,500 in "lodgings"?

Would it have made the papers? no, probably not.
Would he have made a fuss about it? No, probably not.
Would we be slamming the state for a lack of common sense? No. We actually most people probably would, we seem to do that habitually these days.

It sounds like a crafty piece of accounting rather than a lack of common sense. Rather like when a car dealer offers you £1,000 for your old car, but when you get the receipt he's given you £400 for the trade in and £600 discount on the new motor.

[SiM]

Oh come on.

No amount of financial award would make up for losing the 3 years he could have spent with his family (the article states he's a father of two). No matter what age his children were, they'd have likely suffered abuse ("your dad's a rapist", etc), his wife would have likely been scorned by those around her; we all know what gossip is like and how evil people can be. Hell, their lives would have been turned upsidedown, not to mentioned what he'd have gone through in knowing this.

On one hand he's been granted an award, on the other he's had some taken away because some unelected toffs lack common sense.

Regardless of all of that, he can't get those 3 years back... He has been fairly compensated, what more does he want now? I am not saying that anyone would like go to jail for 3 years for any amount of money, but that mistake had already been made...

What Funkstar said is completely right...

[pauldarkside]

There would still have been a breakdown listing what the compensation covered much like the one used to ascertain the figures in the article. I don't see how that would have made any difference to this going public.

The fact would still remain that even if you're detained for something you didn't do (he committed no crime in the first place), you have to pay for it.

What you're basically saying is that that would be fair.

[Sukh]

Am I the only one who thinks he should be able to rape her now as disturbing as it sounds it does make some sort of sense
And how come people that are guilty dont have to pay and he does!?

[Saracen]

What gets me, apart from having to pay this cash, is whats going on with the justice system? Some mad woman accuses this bloke of rape, there was no rape, therefore no eveidence of any kind. How then, does he get convicted in the first place?

One persons word against another is not proof, and there can not have been anything other than one persons word against another in this case.

No evidence, and this man has no previous convictions.

So how can the Jury find him guilty?

That's a bit harsh.

There was evidence. It was presented, and it's for the defence to attack it, and for the jury to assess it.

At the time, the notion that the attack took place was not disputed, and there was evidence (and I mean physical evidence) that it had. Now, however, it seems that the injuries caused (bruising to arms, etc, and some injuries in a rather private location) may have been, and probably were, self-inflicted.

Ultimately, it all came down to two things :-

- the attack took place.
- was the identification of the attacker sufficiently credible to convince the jury that the accused was the attacker?


Have you ever served on a jury? If not, then I'll tell you it's quite a heavy responsibility whatever you decide. In a case like this, if you vote for acquittal (given that the assertion that the attack was genuine was unchallenged) then if you're wrong, you're voting to free a sex attacker who, presumably, may well go on to attack someone else. You can prevent that.

Or, conversely, if the identification is incorrect and yet you believe it, you'll be imprisoning an innocent man.

Either way, it's quite a load to shoulder. We have no reason to suppose that the jury didn't take that duty seriously. If the system allows a conviction based on the identification evidence of one witness (the victim), then we MUST allow the jury to assess the credibility of that evidence and form a verdict accordingly.

On the other hand, if we don't think that a sole witness is sufficient, then the system ought to be such as to preclude allowing the jury to be placed in the position of having to decide on it. BUT .... if you design the system such that a single (victim) witness is not sufficient, then the likely outcome of that is that you'll be giving an automatic free ride to a lot of rapists, because almost by definition, there'll often be little or no other supporting evidence.

In other words, it's a bad option whatever you do.

I don't think we can blame the jury. We have no reason to suppose that they didn't do their very best given the situation the system put them in.

How would you feel if a jury booted out a case because there was only the victim's evidence, and that rapist then proceeded to rape your wife, mother or daughter?

The jury have to decide if the evidence if sufficient for them to be satisfied ("beyond reasonable doubt" is no longer used), but they are given the case they're given and have to decide based on what they're told. We weren't there, we didn't hear the evidence and didn't hear the deliberations. All we do know is that they convicted, but by a majority verdict not a unanimous one.

What this does prove, beyond any doubt at all, is that the system is flawed. But, how do we improve it?

The system is already quite seriously loaded in favour of not convicting the innocent, but short of requiring absolute, categoric proof of guilt (which will mean vast numbers of guilty go free, and probably reoffend), how do you prevent occasional miscarriages of justice?

How do you balance the damage to the innocent extra victims against the damage to wrongly convicted people when trying to set that balance in the right place .... especially when someone sets out to deliberately cause a travesty, as this woman seems to haver done?

[Stewart]

The fact remains, the British justice system, held up as the right way to do things, and an example to the world, can be completely turned on its head by some crazy bint with a self inflicted bruise on her arm, crying rape.

As there was no attack, there was no witness to the attack.

As there was no attack, there can have been no DNA evidence.

The accused had no previous convictions.

This woman has a long history of accusing men of rape.

Given all that (the jury were not aware of this womans history of false accusations obviously) you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to work out any conviction is going to be unsafe.

However, our great justice system allows a man accused of rape, with no previous convictions, and no evidence or witnesses, to be found guilty and jailed. Also, via the cunning tactic of changing her name, nobody was aware this woman was a fantasist.

Judge fooled, jury fooled, police fooled, innocent man convicted with no evidence of any kind.

Praise be to the greatest justice system in the world.

Innocent until proven guilty... and yet he was 'proven' guilty. And the proof consisted of?

And what happens to this woman now? How long does she get sent down for?

[Lucio]

The fact remains, the British justice system, held up as the right way to do things, and an example to the world, can be completely turned on its head by some crazy bint with a self inflicted bruise on her arm, crying rape.

As there was no attack, there was no witness to the attack.

As there was no attack, there can have been no DNA evidence.

The accused had no previous convictions.

This woman has a long history of accusing men of rape.

Given all that (the jury were not aware of this womans history of false accusations obviously) you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to work out any conviction is going to be unsafe.

However, our great justice system allows a man accused of rape, with no previous convictions, and no evidence or witnesses, to be found guilty and jailed. Also, via the cunning tactic of changing her name, nobody was aware this woman was a fantasist.

Judge fooled, jury fooled, police fooled, innocent man convicted with no evidence of any kind.

Praise be to the greatest justice system in the world.

Innocent until proven guilty... and yet he was 'proven' guilty. And the proof consisted of?

And what happens to this woman now? How long does she get sent down for?

How do we know this evidence was presented at the trial? Remove some of these pieces of evidence and it becomes a completely different story. Think about how many times a friend has told you about something that's happened to them, and then you've been given a different story by some other people a while later and you realise your friend was lying.

People, e.g. the jury, can only decide based on the facts put in front of them.