Miscarriages of Justice – can you be found guilty without evidence?

Author: Jacqui Cooper

The role of the Expert Witness in a miscarriage of justice case where evidence is purely circumstantial. Would you believe that a man could be found guilty of a serious sexual offence without the police and prosecution being able to prove he was present at the time of the alleged offence?

How, one might ask, could this happen in the UK courts, where we firmly believe that trial by jury represents the best way to ensure a fair hearing for the accused? Especially as we all are brought up to believe in the adage “innocent until proven guilty”.

How then might the police and prosecution bring a case to court and secure a conviction where the only circumstantial evidence is connected to the possibility of an offence being committed but, where no evidence points to any one individual?

Enter the Expert Witness. A person well grounded in their particular discipline; one who has been trained to give unbiased evidence and who gets paid for giving their opinion on evidence or where evidence is non existent gives an opinion which is then treated as fact - and gets paid for their opinion.

Let me just repeat that for you so you understand because this information could impact your life or the life of someone close to you.

Where no evidence is available, ‘Expert Witness’ opinion becomes ‘fact’ and is treated as such by the police and prosecution. Let us look at the case of a man convicted of a serious sexual crime against a child. He is put on the sexual offenders list and forever banned from working with children or having unsupervised contact with any child under the age of thirteen - even his own children.

One would think that the evidence in this case - where a 12 year extended sentence was passed, with the accused having to comply with Probation Office directives for any part of that sentence served outside prison - would be very clear cut and conclusive. Unfortunately this is not the case, do you find that hard to believe? What evidence was there for the crime?

The offence is alleged to have taken place within a fourteen (14) day time span. Here is the first problem for us, the public. If you cannot pinpoint a crime to even a twenty four (24) hour period how can you possibly begin to build a case against one person? Think about that for a minute because it’s important for you and those you love.

This case effectively means that if you are in the company of a child who suffers an injury within a fourteen day period YOU could be accused of causing that injury even though you are not the only adult to have had access to the child in that period!

Then you’re told that the prosecution and police have obtained Expert Witness testimony and because this testimony concludes a crime was committed YOU are going to be prosecuted. Remember, this testimony does not include any indication that you are the perpetrator of the alleged crime only that in their ‘Expert’ opinion a crime was committed.

Now, one has to ask what their ‘opinion’ was based on. In this case it was based on photographs and reports prepared by attending paediatricians; reports which did not conclusively confirm that any deliberate damage was caused - instead they concluded that it could have been accidental or deliberate.

Again, we have to ask ourselves what possible motive the Expert Witness could have in giving testimony that was less than scrupulously un-biased? Of course, police and prosecution teams are the largest employers of Expert Witnesses so one cannot rule out the monetary factor - after all, who would bite the hand that feeds him?

Secondly, we have to remember that Expert Witnesses are also human. They are not infallible gods, even though we the public tend to treat them as such - especially where they are medical experts. The next question we need answering is how was the defendant was found guilty if indeed there was no evidence to show that he was the likely perpetrator of the crime, no previous record of violent or abusive behaviour towards children?

For this we have to look at the psychology of decision making to understand how this could happen - and more importantly, why it matters to you! We also need to look at the role the Judge played in the trial and why questions are being asked about his conduct and complaints lodged with the proper authorities.

Article Source: Original Article

About the Author:
I teach communication skills including the Psychology of Decision Making using both verbal and non-verbal skills. I am part of a campaign to draw attention to the shocking miscarriages of justice going on in the UK today. I also write, paint, read and enjoy my family and friends - life is good!

www.jacqui-cooper.net
www.whenjusticegoeswrong.co.uk
eft@jacqui-cooper.net