Conviction Politics

Oh, do tell me about the Crown Prosecution Service. It remains determined to try me again, three years after I was arrested, on a charge that would certainly have ended in an acquittal in April if it had not been for the second charge. The only witness to that has now refused, as is his right in relation to a foreign investigation, to hand over the passwords to several of his strikingly numerous email accounts. 

Well, not refused, exactly. As was heard in open court on Monday, he has given false ones for some of them, while others required higher verification that he has not supplied. He is an American living in the United States, all the way to which they went to fetch these things, so he is within his rights. 

Meanwhile, though, they have no case. Yet they are insistent on pressing on, even though the prosecution barrister, who I must add is a very nice man, could not even get the trial moved from Durham to Newcastle. Newcastle, where the collapse of the last one was merely the lead item on the regional news. Durham, where it was both that and the story on the front page of the local newspaper.

Now, to business. What would be the correct conviction rate for rape, and why?

We need the replacement of the existing categories of sexual assault with aggravating circumstances to the general categories of offences against the person, such that the sentences could be doubled. There must be no anonymity either for adult defendants or for adult complainants. 

We need to reverse even the existing reversal of the burden of proof. We need to rule out the legal possibility of being a specifically sexual assailant below the age of consent, which ought in any case to be raised to 18. We need to specify that intoxication was a bar to sexual consent only insofar as it would have been a bar to driving.

We need to outlaw American-style internally administered “balance of probabilities” or “preponderance of evidence” tests to sexual assault allegations at universities or elsewhere, outlaw extradition to face charges that fell short of these standards, and exclude such convictions from any legal standing in this country. 

We need to end the practice whereby the Police and others blocked people’s progress into paid or voluntary work, even though they had been acquitted, by suggesting that they might have been guilty after all. C5 notices need to be outlawed.

And why should an accused person who has not been convicted be stripped of the right to cross-examine an accuser in the family court, based on pure accusation?

Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party is now in the process of registration. After nearly 30 years of suggestion, speculation, and even a sort of preparation, I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.