Can what you say on boards.ie be used as evidence in court?

georgina toadbum

A hypothetical situation of course. A user on boards has the same username as their Facebook/Instagram/Twitter.

They have posts which give away personal information about themselves.

They post on boards asking a question about a bench warrant being against them.

In court, they claim to not have known about the bench warrant.

Can the thread they created be used as evidence to show that they did in fact know that there was a bench warrant and they are lying to the judge?

GM228

There would be huge issues of authentication and hearsay.

georgina toadbum

Even if it's the same username and contains info relating to their workplace, family circumstance and even a picture of them?

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Victor

georgina toadbum wrote: »

Even if it's the same username and contains info relating to their workplace, family circumstance and even a picture of them?

I could go to your Facebook, download your pic and biographical details, start an account on a different social media, claiming to be you and post all sorts.

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Not only that, you need to tie the IP address to a particular date and time, and even then there could be multiple users on the same IP.

georgina toadbum

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Ok thank you, I thought as much.

tuisginideach

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seamus

Ultimately it could be used as part of a catalogue of evidence - supporting information like IP addresses and such can pin the post down to a time, location and account.

So if the data shows that the post was made by an account using X's personal email address, had an IP that traces back to X's home at a time when X was known to be at home, with a digital footprint indicating it was an iPhone 6S, which we know X uses, then it's going to be tough to claim that it wasn't him.

There are all sorts of scenarios in which someone could maliciously do this, but "it wasn't me" isn't a great defence - it's the equivalent of saying that the person caught on CCTV was someone else wearing a sophisticated prosthetic mask to look like you. Not impossible, but unlikely unless you can show otherwise.

It really depends on exactly what one is trying to prove. If you're trying to prove that they knew about a bench warrant, then it would probably be taken at face value - why would someone else post on their behalf to try and "frame" them and how would someone else know that information in the first place?

If it's something more serious like murder, then it's highly plausible that a murderer could falsify an evidence trail to implicate someone else, so you'd need way more supporting evidence.

CelticRambler

If the other party has got as far as matching up a username on two different platforms, and believes the [boards.ie] admission to be genuine, I would expect them to invite the court to issue an order to [boards.ie] to release whatever information may help to establish the identity of the member posting.

If this happens in the context of [username] first standing up in court and saying "I never knew" and the hearing is adjourned while the [boards.ie] post is checked out, and the other party then comes back and shows "to the satisfaction of the court" that [username] on [boards.ie] is the same person as [username] on [facebook.com] is the same person as the defendent, then lying about it during the first hearing will not go down well with the court.

georgina toadbum

I appreciate the replies. Very helpful information.

Claw Hammer

The thread itself is hearsay. In most child abuse image cases, the prosecution have to find images on the computer, prove that the person was using the computer, was aware of the images and was deliberately storing them. In most cases the guards will only move when they have credit card payments for the images which link the accused to the computer.

GerardKeating

GM228 wrote: »

There would be huge issues of authentication and hearsay.

Depends, if the hypothetical defendant was stupid enough to post on Boards/FakeBook/Twitter that they had gotten the bench warrant, they might be stupid enough to authenticate the post and cave in and admit they lied.

Carawaystick

I presume it can be used as evidence if you turn up and say
"I wrote this"