So They Think He Really Did It Then?

[DangerUXD]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21195269
I presume they are saying they think he's guilty but it cannot be proved. The first conviction was quashed for a technicality I suppose.
Seems harsh that if someone has done time they should not have they cannot get compensation due to a change in interpretation of the compensation law.

[rojash]

I think you've totally misread the article.

[ChillDoubt]

Just reading that too and a little perplexed at how the judges came to that decision.
Furthermore, if I recall correctly one of the issues when he appealed was that Met firearm's officers in the case made statements to the effect that they had not searched his house, when it was subsequently shown they had and as a result may have cross-contaminated the scene.
Were any of them disciplined as a result? Maybe George has a case against the Met for wrongful prosecution?

[murraymints]

he was not cleared of crime...verdict declared unsafe...bit like unproven in Scotland...

[DangerUXD]

I don't think I have misread it at all. For compensation to be awarded...
"But the nine Supreme Court judges widened this by saying that if a person could prove that no set of circumstances could possibly lead to their conviction by a jury, they could get compensation." - so he has to prove that he could not have done it to get compensation. So basically you can spend years in jail innocently but to get compensation you have to prove your innocence! So you are now effectively not really innocent and not guilty either! Sounds very odd to me.

[jno]

the judges said he was "not innocent enough to be compensated".

I'll assume this was a correct reading of the law. If so, the law needs changing. How can being locked up for eight years before being retried and cleared not be a miscarraige of jsutice?

[rojash]

You have totally misread it.
It used to be that you had to prove you were innocent to get compensation. Now you don't have to prove that you are innocent, but you do have to prove that given the facts, there was no chance of a jury convicting you (in other words, that the prosecution should never have been brought).

It is still grossly unfair, of course, but, whereas you seem to be under the impression that the Supreme Court decision made it even more unfair, it made it a teeny tiny bit less unfair.

But the judges in this appeal don't have to have thought "he really did it" as you say in the title to your question, they just have to think that there was a reasonable chance of him being convicted.

[jno]

retract the first sentence in my last post, I misread it.

[jno]

murraymints, he was cleared. His appeal against conviction in the first trial was quashed and he was acquitted. The he was retried and acquitted again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_george#Appeals

[DangerUXD]

ok rojash, whatever the semantics, if a man can spend 8 years in jail, get cleared and not get compensation then somthing is clearly wrong.

[ChillDoubt]

I agree DangerUXD.
It has to be one of the worst miscarriages of justice. No witness statement nor piece of forensic evidence ever put Barry George at the scene of the crime at the time it occurred, he wasn't picked out in an ID parade and indeed the whole prosecution case was built on circumstantial evidence, against a man with well documented behavioural problems and a penchant for living in a fantasy world.
The judges decision in essence gives the premise that he is responsible as opposed to guilty.
Puzzling.

[FredPuli43]

The Supreme Court have introduced the proviso which applies to all appeals; if the jury would have convicted despite the misdirection of the judge, or the admission of inadmissible evidence, or other mistakes in the trial, the appeal fails. Many a Pyrrhic victory has been achieved by counsel when the proviso was applied. In the other case in the link,the man was mentally abnormal and would confess to anything and everything. If that evidence of confession was removed there was nothing left to convict him,and so he succeeded in gaining compensation.

Does make you wonder whether the Supreme Court has gone beyond that provision, reading the report, but probably not.

[NoMercy]

I am surprised he was convicted in the first place. In no way did he fit the description of the man seen running from the scene.

[bazwillrun]

@DangerUXD

"whatever the semantics"

semantics is the life blood of some on this board

[ludwig]

The whole thing is incredibly bizarre and mysterious, just like the crime itself.

// if a person could prove that no set of circumstances could possibly lead to their conviction by a jury, they could get compensation. //

How are you supposed to prove that then? Does anyone even understand what it means? I've read that sentence through a few times, and still don't really understand it.