Viewing 23 posts - 1 through 23 (of 23 total)
  • Met: Presumption of innocence.
  • outofbreath
    Free Member

    So the met are saying they’ve been instructed to ‘believe victims’.

    Have they? Who by?

    The children’s charities used the term a bit but did it really become formal policy for Police forces?

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    Surely “presumption of innocence” is a term related to court proceedings, not the police investigation of an alleged crime.

    I’d imagine that actual crimes are statistically a lot more common than made-up crimes, so believing the victim seems like a reasonable initial position.

    scaled
    Free Member

    I suppose not believing the victims would pretty much eliminate crime.

    I was burgled!

    No you weren’t sir, carry on

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    martinhutch
    Full Member

    There’s a difference between prepared to look for evidence in an open-minded way, and blind faith in the reliability of anyone who walks into a police station and start accusing people of serious offences.

    bikebouy
    Free Member

    He just wants to keep his job for another year.. HoganShmogan 🙄

    konabunny
    Free Member

    related to court proceedings, not the police investigation of an alleged crime.

    Yes, exactly.

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    Since you haven’t linked to any article I can only go on what you say, but I don’t think “believe the victim” equates to “have 100% blind faith in everything every alleged victim says regardless of the evidence”.

    Would you really prefer it if victims required evidence?

    “I’ve had my bike nicked.”
    “Oh yeah, prove it sunshine!”
    “It was right there”
    “All I see is a broken lock”
    “Yes that’s mine”
    “Is it? Well then sir I must inform you that unless you remove it I will fine you for litterring”

    martinhutch
    Full Member

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35546690

    This is the story – the suggestion is that police be prepared to investigate with an open mind, but not automatically believe allegations of sexual assault.

    Surprised this needs pointing out as an offical policy, but hey ho.

    Giving a alleged victim a sympathetic hearing is obviously good practice, but the thought should perhaps enter the officer’s head that they may not be telling the truth.

    Where is JHJ these days, anyhow?

    Sandwich
    Full Member

    It’s a hangover from past(?) practices where victims were not believed at all. The reaction was an over-correction to a perceived, implicit belief in all the complainant had to say. The catalyst for all this was a rape complaint during a Fly-on-the-Wall programme about Thames Valley Police where the officers behaved abominably to a distressed woman.

    kilo
    Full Member

    Op according to the BBC this arose from a HMIC report, so the police have been instructed to do this by those who oversee them

    outofbreath
    Free Member

    Op according to the BBC this arose from a HMIC report, so the police have been instructed to do this by those who oversee them

    Thanks, that answers my question.

    maccruiskeen
    Full Member

    Its a probable overreaction in the aftermath of the Saville case. On two sides of an allegation you have the accuser and the person being accused. You also commonly have a victim / scene of crime / or other tangible thing – except where an allegation is being made retrospectively.

    If theres a murder scene and a body then there is no doubt that a crime has been committed, theres a presumption of innocence on the side of the accused but theres also the presumption that someone somewhere is guilty – theres no doubt a crime actually happened.

    In the case of historic allegations part of the presumption of innocence is the question as to whether a crime has been committed at all. So in the past the police faced with an allegation were more likely to examine the credibly of the person making the allegation (from a position of doubt) than investigate the person being accused- they investigated the victim rather than the alleged perpetrator.

    In the aftermath of Yewtree theres been an about turn but in an attempt to be more ‘open minded’ the mindset has possibly swung from too readily doubting an allegation to too readily accepting it.

    midlifecrashes
    Full Member

    I have strong credible evidence that made-up crimes massively outnumber actual crimes.

    konabunny
    Free Member

    I don’t believe you

    outofbreath
    Free Member

    Have you ever been a victim of anything MLC? If so I guess it must be true.

    midlifecrashes
    Full Member

    No, but I made up 800 crimes before breakfast, a million before lunch, and a trillion trillion while waiting for the kettle to boil. The more you do it, the easier it is. Also, have you seen how many made up people have died in Midsomer?

    aracer
    Free Member

    I have an open mind on that

    jivehoneyjive
    Free Member

    It is a very tricky issue, not least because of the extent of involvement of Special Branch and the intelligence services in shutting down similar cases in the past.

    The IPCC have over 150 investigations into claims officers protected VIP paedophiles.

    In fact, even Bernard Hogan Howe himself is alleged to have been involved in halting such an investigation:

    Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe is reportedly being questioned by his own detectives for his role in allegedly covering up an investigation into suspected pedophilia from a Tony Blair minister.

    Top British detectives are questioning an unlikely suspect in a high-stakes child abuse investigation: their boss.

    Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe is getting grilled by his own detectives over an alleged police cover-up connected to former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s administration, according to the Mirror.

    Hogan-Howe was an Assistant Chief Constable for the Merseyside Police in 1998, when the department uncovered claims that one of Blair’s ministers was a suspected pedophile.

    Hogan-Howe now says he “does not recall details about the investigation” or any suspects, according to a statement from the Metropolitan Police Service.

    But a source close to the investigation told the Mirror it is “inconceivable” that Hogan-Howe and his cohorts weren’t aware of the accusations.

    “The senior investigating officer at the time would have been expected to have reported to his senior officers the fact a serving government minister had come under suspicion,” the source said.

    Even as he is apparently being questioned within his own department, the MPS said in a statement that Hogan-Howe “absolutely refutes any suggestion he would have stopped or inhibited a criminal investigation of the nature suggested, including politicians. It would be wrong to suggest otherwise.”

    The investigation was handed off to MPS, and then-detective Clive Driscoll officially named the Blair minister as a suspect later in 1998. The department abruptly axed its investigation after Driscoll’s bombshell claim and reassigned him, a Mirror investigation revealed.

    MPS opened an investigation into the cover-up claims just two years ago. Blair has yet to comment on it.

    The minister was one of several men suspected of sexually abusing children at a Brixton home in the early ’80s.

    Excerpts from Clive Driscoll’s book, in Pursuit of the Truth:

    There seems to be a concerted campaign at the moment to shut the whole thing down and brush it off as hysteria… believe you me, if the full extent of what’s involved and how it ties into the arms industry becomes public, there will be a great deal of positive change in the world, but whether that will happen given the power and influence of people involved is very much in the balance.

    midlifecrashes
    Full Member

    Well, I’m glad that’s all cleared up then.

    outofbreath
    Free Member

    the full extent of what’s involved and how it ties into the arms industry

    Priceless!

    jivehoneyjive
    Free Member

    Not sure if you can put a price on countless ruined lives and deaths for the sake of profiting a few sick individuals…

    It involves many of the same people (many of them MPs, some still serving) who stocked up Saddam’s arms supply in the 80s and helped prolong apartheid in South Africa, not forgetting fuelling the troubles in Northern Ireland.

    You should never underestimate the global networks in which key players in the intelligence services such as George Kennedy Young and Maurice Oldfield operated (and their equivalents today still operate).

    Its scary to think of the influence a few hundred people can have on a world of billions…

    Strange how little mention of the Paedophile Information Exchange there’s been recently…

    Fresh claims have been made that taxpayers’ money was used to fund a notorious group that campaigned to legalise sex with children.

    Whistleblower Tim Hulbert, a former civil servant, said he raised concerns about the grant to the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) with his manager because it seemed “crazy” to be giving the group money.

    He claims payments were made at the request of the Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch.

    A Whitehall investigation into the claims grants were given to PIE, which was published earlier this week, found that there was no evidence that the group was funded “directly or indirectly” by the taxpayer.

    But Mr Hulbert, who worked at the Home Office unit charged with allocating money to voluntary groups, told ITV News he become aware of the grant to PIE during the first year of the Thatcher administration.

    Speaking publicly for the first time he said he raised the issue with his superior at the Voluntary Services Unit (VSU): “I have a very clear recollection, not of who tipped me off, but of being sufficiently aware of it to go to my then boss, the head of the unit Clifford Hindley and to say ‘look Clifford what the hell are we doing funding an organisation like PIE?’ and the reason for that was firstly I had young children at that time and PIE were openly campaigning for the reduction of the age of consent to four.

    He continued: “Secondly we were also responsible for funding across government departments including the Department of Health and it seemed crazy that we should be funding an organisation that was advocating, certainly a lessening of the constraints around child abuse, when one of our constituent organisations was the Department of Health, which was spending a lot of money trying to prevent child abuse.”

    But he claimed his boss told him that the money was going to a “legitimate” organisation and that the funding was “at the request of Special Branch”.

    outofbreath
    Free Member

    I’ve lost track – is it lizards or peados running the world? 😀

    jivehoneyjive
    Free Member

    I seem to remember you’re a defender of Savile…

Viewing 23 posts - 1 through 23 (of 23 total)

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