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Belfast rape trial - all 4 found not guilty Mod Note post one

Sam Quentin

Strange.. I'm kinda relieved it's all over.

http://www.thejournal.ie/belfast-rape-trial-verdict-3928309-Mar2018/

Mod Note Keep this relevant to this thread and don't bring up others. ie the eighth amendment thread.

MOD NOTE By the way don't post anything from members on the jury that's appearing online.

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BrianBoru00

washman3 wrote: »

Good post. When the judge informed the jury that she would only accept a unanimous verdict the writing was on the wall.
For the men to be found guilty, all 11 jurors would have to agree.
Is it entirely possible that a few jurors or maybe just a single one insisted from the outset that his/her mind was made up and wasn't for turning so a unanimous guilty verdict wasn't possible.
It is extremely unlikely that all 11 jurors agreed the defendants were not guilty.
Maybe a juror will give a 'tabloid interview' in the future.

Sweet Jesus.

It ALSO means that for them to be found Not Guilty All 11 jurors have to agree - it cuts both ways.
How do you know its unlikely 11 agreed they were not guilty. They would would have discussed the case during breaks/lunches etc.

Judging from the speed of the verdict its far more likely that the 11 agreed they guilty.
And remember its essentially less than 60 minutes to arrive at each decision

[Deleted User]

podmu80 wrote: »

Thats a shocking case. Shame on the judge. Shame on waterford United. And the media. Disgusting.

I won't go to a game he's involved in because I don't want a ban from my local team and you can bet it would be called a hate crime. :P

johnpatrick81 wrote: »

The Tonight Show on TV3 had a very good discussion on it.

I agree with others that the female witness played a HUGE part in the acquittal.

As Terry Keane and the lady from Rape Crisis pointed out though, if you remain silent and numb while being mugged, it’s not questioned. But during rape it’s used as a sign of consent.

Not quite the same though. Again what's the alternative? Yes means yes but you can change your mind and say nothing and the other person is now raping you?

You’d also wonder about the witness, I mean unless yer wan was in cries of ecstasy or giving her the thumbs up, how can she be sure the complainant was consenting?

She said it was in her opinion and it seemed.

Could money have encouraged a witness? Or ties to the rugby society?

Believe women.

The character witness who had their bag lifted onto a bus by 1 of the lads was pure bizarre too.

Hadn't heard that, it's a good 'un.

c.p.w.g.w

spookwoman wrote: »

Nice narrow minded view of people you have there.
Maybe someone of them are protesting about how the courts try these cases that the issue. Bringing up someones history or how they dressed has nothing to do what happens on a night out especially if they are assaulted /raped.

Some of these defense lawyers put the victims on trial when its the people up on the charges that are on trial.

That's there jobs. The complainant's sexual history is certainly a grey area. But in some cases if a complainant's sexual history may be relevant to refute a claim made by complainant.

cloudatlas

How would you know by looking through a door briefly if sex was consensual or not surely you'd have to be in the room for quite a considerable amount of time.

sapper

Having served on a jury in a rape trial a few years ago I would make these points

- the jury would have had plenty of opportunity over 9 weeks to talk to each other about the case so the quick deliberation may have just been wrapping up weeks-long surreptitious conversations
-for rape to occur a) sex should have occurred b) the complainant should have not consented to it and c) the offender(s) should have known or have not been bothered about the absence of consent. I think it’s easy to agree that a and b had been met but the State is charged with proving beyond reasonable doubt that c was true, and the jury have to judge if the state had been successful in doing that. Although the texts etc involved in this case are terrible, to me they only prove if anything that the defendants thought the complainant was consenting. If the jury don’t have any credible evidence from the state to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the defendants -in their own minds -thought she was having sex against her will then they are required by the court to return not guilty. The judge would have made this very clear. The jury just did what they required to do - give a verdict on the case being made by the state regarding what was in the minds of the defendants, which in this case was a thumbs down

Broke and Desperate

podmu80 wrote: »

There's a convicted rapist playing for waterford United is there not? Out of the country at the time, but did that get much coverage? Surely that is something to be outraged by no?

There was a thread on Boards about it at the time but it was deleted.

johnpatrick81

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Not quite the same though. Again what's the alternative? Yes means yes but you can change your mind and say nothing and the other person is now raping you?

That’s not the point I was making. The witness wasn’t there for the point at which the complainant said she made her lack of consent clear. Just because she was passive when she witnesses it shouldn’t be in any way a sign of consent.

It would have been much more honest if she had said “I can’t possibly know if consent was given, I couldn’t see any signs of a struggle though but could also not get any clear indication the girl was actively taking part or enjoying herself”

c.p.w.g.w

Broke and Desperate wrote: »

There was a thread on Boards about it at the time but it was deleted.

No marches for that tho...But sure we'll target 4 lads who have been found not guilty...

FrancieBrady

cloudatlas wrote: »

How would you know by looking through a door briefly if sex was consensual or not surely you'd have to be in the room for quite a considerable amount of time.

You wouldn't and nobody asked her to be categorical. She gave her impression. And the jury assessed that with the other info.

It's not a film where one piece of information sways the case dramatically.

bilbot79

holyhead wrote: »

Without being in the room how can you make that statement? Why should she have to prevent anything?

Only based on what I've read I think she didn't do enough. I don't buy the whole 'you freeze' thing. She needed to make it clear or else how do they know she doesn't want to?

johnpatrick81

FrancieBrady wrote: »

You wouldn't and nobody asked her to be categorical. She gave her impression. And the jury assessed that with the other info.

It's not a film where one piece of information sways the case dramatically.

True but the defense basically said straight out that this was the key part of the case.

Laois_Man

washman3 wrote: »

Are you sure of this.? Did the judge state that for the 4 to found guilty all 11 jurors would have to agree on this.?
I find it beyond comprehension that after hearing 9 weeks of evidence, all 11 jurors could reach the same conclusion in 2 hours.

Judges require a unanimous verdict at the initial stages of deliberations - whether the verdict is to be guilty or not guilty

If it becomes a problem to get all jurors to agree, the judge then declares he/she will accept a verdict of (in this case) 10:1. If they still can't agree, after a period of time, he will accept 9:2. He/She probably would not go any lower than that - it would end up declared as "jury failed to reach a verdict" and a re-trial would ensue

There's also a bit too much hang up on the length of time the jurors deliberated. Its not as if they just heard 9-weeks of evidence this morning and only then started thinking about it. They have been considering every aspect of this case for 9-weeks!

Roadtoad

Whats the 12-hour record for posts?
This one at 1590 must be up there.

cloudatlas

FrancieBrady wrote: »

You wouldn't and nobody asked her to be categorical. She gave her impression. And the jury assessed that with the other info.

It's not a film where one piece of information sways the case dramatically.

Just read a load of comments on this thread saying that evidence was crucial, I didn't feel it was.

Also she said paddy was having sex with her he said he wasn't, blane said he was in the room paddy said he wasn't... Who is lying?

FrancieBrady

johnpatrick81 wrote: »

True but the defense basically said straight out that this was the key part of the case.

'Key' but not pivotal. The prosecution had an equal say and they dismissed it and got her to say that it was not necessarily a sign that it was consensual.

The jury made their own decision on it.

BrianBoru00

brooke 2 wrote: »

And Jackson does not seem to have learned anything, going by his twitter tonight in which he is celebrating, inviting people back to his gaff afterwards - 'if you dare. lol!' How can he be so lacking in emotional intelligence? What a prick!! :mad:

Do you perhaps have a source for that? or a screenshot of the tweet?

C__MC

brooke 2 wrote: »

And Jackson does not seem to have learned anything, going by his twitter tonight in which he is celebrating, inviting people back to his gaff afterwards - 'if you dare. lol!' How can he be so lacking in emotional intelligence? What a prick!! :mad:

ARe you for real?
That is a fake and untrue tweet-

FrancieBrady

cloudatlas wrote: »

Just read a load of comments on this thread saying that evidence was crucial, I didn't feel it was.

Also she said paddy was having sex with her he said he wasn't, blane said he was in the room paddy said he wasn't... Who is lying?

That was dealt with by the judge in summary, that a lie/conflict in one part did not mean that it was all untrue. It was a reference to the amount of alcohol and recall.

Vladimir Poontang

Twitter really is for twits

johnpatrick81

FrancieBrady wrote: »

'Key' but not pivotal. The prosecution had an equal say and they dismissed it and got her to say that it was not necessarily a sign that it was consensual.

The jury made their own decision on it.

Yup true again. My point is though that Florence seemed biased towards the lads when in fact she could have just as easily made it far clearer she had no clue what was happening in truth. From what I read, she was essentially a witness to help clear the lads name when she could have just as easily given a different perspective of the exact same events she briefly viewed based on her bias.

I dunno, just doesn’t sit right with me.

spookwoman

c.p.w.g.w wrote: »

That's there jobs. The complainant's sexual history is certainly a grey area. But in some cases if a complainant's sexual history may be relevant to refute a claim made by complainant.

How? if someone has had many partners are they more at fault for being sexually assaulted? They may have more of a chance of meeting a rapist but that doesnt mean the rapist is free to rape them
That's like saying if I drive down the same road more often its my fault if a drink driver hits me.

spoonerhead

If you are a women/man and you get raped. It’s not so important if you where raped, it’s more important who you where raped by. That’s all this case has shown really. Girl was 100% raped, look at the texts for crying out loud. If these lads (who gave four different accounts of the event) where innocent yet they where asking each other “was she okay” or “panicked”?

I’ve had lads brag to me about getting laid but if I seen a message like that I’d know exactly what happened. Lots of people commenting on this thread think they know the court system of the UK/Ireland inside out. Yet few have any real sense of how many cases get off on the smallest of things.

Only 7% of rape cases get a guilty verdict. I see it so much where I live with drug dealers, shop lifters and petty criminals. Law favours the criminal. Them lads are rapist scum, if they where soccer players they’d be found guilty on day one (eg Ched Evans case)

clairewithani

c.p.w.g.w wrote: »

It'll be a mix of stay at home mother's, unemployed, students and full time feminist...People who generally lend nothing to society. They should look at themselves and maybe try and understand how the courts work...

How do courts work? By not pre-judging people as you have above. Says a lot about you really.

C__MC

The snippets of Jackson’s cross examantion didn’t bode or olding for that matter. They were not pressed on key things, mc ilroy and Harrison got a more thorough examantion. The closing speech also poor by the prosecution in comparison to the defendants.

[Deleted User]

C__MC wrote: »

The snippets of Jackson’s cross examantion didn’t bode or olding for that matter. They were not pressed on key things, mc ilroy and Harrison got a more thorough examantion. The closing speech also poor by the prosecution in comparison to the defendants.

What I didn't get was how each defence lawyer seemed to get an entire day each to tell the jury that she was making it up at the end..

FrancieBrady

johnpatrick81 wrote: »

Yup true again. My point is though that Florence seemed biased towards the lads when in fact she could have just as easily made it far clearer she had no clue what was happening in truth. From what I read, she was essentially a witness to help clear the lads name when she could have just as easily given a different perspective of the exact same events she briefly viewed based on her bias.

I dunno, just doesn’t sit right with me.

Unless you are suggesting doing away with witnesses, there is no answer.

She gave her impression, the prosecution countered and the jury made their minds up. Happens in court cases every day of the week.

johnpatrick81

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Unless you are suggesting doing away with witnesses, there is no answer.

She gave her impression, the prosecution countered and the jury made their minds up. Happens in court cases every day of the week.

Of course not! But witnesses can usually be more factual. I think she was unnecessarily biased towards the lads based on the evidence she gave. It just seemed like an unnatural bias. Perhaps she should have been discounted as a witness as a result.

She was essentially suggesting she was a mind reader FFS.

C__MC

riffmongous wrote: »

What I didn't get was how each defence lawyer seemed to get an entire day each to tell the jury that she was making it up at the end..

I’m not an expert but the length of time was optional to each team. Brendan Kelly took a morning and afternoon. 16 chapters. Tobi hedworth was much quicker

[Deleted User]

johnpatrick81 wrote: »

Of course not! But witnesses can usually be more factual. I think she was unnecessarily biased towards the lads based on the evidence she gave. It just seemed like an unnatural bias. Perhaps she should have been discounted as a witness as a result.

She was essentially suggesting she was a mind reader FFS.

And didn't her testimony disagree with Jacksons? I thought she said she saw people having sex while Jackson claimed he only used his fingers?

FrancieBrady

johnpatrick81 wrote: »

Of course not! But witnesses can usually be more factual. I think she was unnecessarily biased towards the lads based on the evidence she gave. It just seemed like an unnatural bias. Perhaps she should have been discounted as a witness as a result.

She was essentially suggesting she was a mind reader FFS.

She was looking a scene, and the girl looked at her. She didn't need to read minds, her impression was there was nothing she could see that showed the girl was distressed.