Pubic Interest
Anthony McIntyre feels the PSNI and Public Prosecution Service have some explaining to do for ever having initiated the Belfast Rape Trial.
With the Belfast Rape Trial having reached a very definitive conclusion, the verdict has acted as an irritant rather than a balm. The polarising effect has left a chasm. People took their sides early and vociferously. Online commentary seemed to veer between Rugby Rapists' Foul Play to Porn Star in Rugby Trial. Prejudice was the occasion for venom: reason trumped by rabidity.
People, ostensibly free to believe whatever they want, are not obliged to share the opinion of the jury, and many have dissented from it, by proclaiming I stand with her, an endorsement of the position of the young woman whose evidence the jury rejected. From what I gleaned from the trial the jury reached the only safe verdict. That doses not mean that the young woman was lying but that her testimony was insufficient to reach the threshold for conviction.
It is impossible for me to say with any degree of certainty who was telling the truth but as a firm believer in trial by jury as a bulwark against judicial arbitrariness and state usurpation of societal and individual rights, I can find no compelling reason to dissent from the jury’s verdict. Little point in demanding trial by jury only to howl when the verdict is not what we might have preferred. I had no preference other than the returning of a correct verdict.
The real perpetrator in this case was the combined forces of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Public Prosecution Service, who between them in terms of assessing what was possible seem not to have 'a sixpence of an idea to fumble for'. How this case ever came to trial remains a mystery. I commented to my wife and others during court proceedings that there was not an altar boy’s chance in a priest's house of the Prosecution getting this one across the line. The evidence was simply not there in sufficient quantity to merit a conviction. Yet for their own institutional gratification, the PSNI and PPS persisted on their dash down the glory trail hoping that the windfall from a celebrity circus would fall on them. It has, right on top of their dunder heads. Not only did they put four young men in a dock which the quartet would as surely walk away from vindicated, they also failed in their care to the young woman they put in the witness box for eight days of gruelling cross examination. She did her best. They did not.
There was no public interest that merited this prosecution. Public interest in following a case and 'the public interest' are not synonymous concepts. The pubic is invariably a magnet for the public, and here it was no different. The Trials and Titillation of scandal.
The public interest has to be the protection of women from rape in all circumstances. Rape convictions are hard enough to secure without setting another rape trial up to fail. Whether the young woman at the centre of the Belfast Rape trial was a rape victim or not we cannot be certain in a way that we can about the existence of many rape victims out there who will never set foot in a court as a result of this trial. The celebrity nature of the trail coupled with the insufficient weight of the Prosecution evidence had 'Destination Failure' stamped all over it. Daunting and deterring enough for a rape victim to endure even a successful trial, the experience must be grossly amplified when the outcome is acquittal.
The PSNI and PPS between them, swaggered into court with eyes wide shut. Big hat no cattle.
Anthony McIntyre blogs @ The Pensive Quill.
Follow Anthony McIntyre on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre
With the Belfast Rape Trial having reached a very definitive conclusion, the verdict has acted as an irritant rather than a balm. The polarising effect has left a chasm. People took their sides early and vociferously. Online commentary seemed to veer between Rugby Rapists' Foul Play to Porn Star in Rugby Trial. Prejudice was the occasion for venom: reason trumped by rabidity.
People, ostensibly free to believe whatever they want, are not obliged to share the opinion of the jury, and many have dissented from it, by proclaiming I stand with her, an endorsement of the position of the young woman whose evidence the jury rejected. From what I gleaned from the trial the jury reached the only safe verdict. That doses not mean that the young woman was lying but that her testimony was insufficient to reach the threshold for conviction.
It is impossible for me to say with any degree of certainty who was telling the truth but as a firm believer in trial by jury as a bulwark against judicial arbitrariness and state usurpation of societal and individual rights, I can find no compelling reason to dissent from the jury’s verdict. Little point in demanding trial by jury only to howl when the verdict is not what we might have preferred. I had no preference other than the returning of a correct verdict.
The real perpetrator in this case was the combined forces of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Public Prosecution Service, who between them in terms of assessing what was possible seem not to have 'a sixpence of an idea to fumble for'. How this case ever came to trial remains a mystery. I commented to my wife and others during court proceedings that there was not an altar boy’s chance in a priest's house of the Prosecution getting this one across the line. The evidence was simply not there in sufficient quantity to merit a conviction. Yet for their own institutional gratification, the PSNI and PPS persisted on their dash down the glory trail hoping that the windfall from a celebrity circus would fall on them. It has, right on top of their dunder heads. Not only did they put four young men in a dock which the quartet would as surely walk away from vindicated, they also failed in their care to the young woman they put in the witness box for eight days of gruelling cross examination. She did her best. They did not.
There was no public interest that merited this prosecution. Public interest in following a case and 'the public interest' are not synonymous concepts. The pubic is invariably a magnet for the public, and here it was no different. The Trials and Titillation of scandal.
The public interest has to be the protection of women from rape in all circumstances. Rape convictions are hard enough to secure without setting another rape trial up to fail. Whether the young woman at the centre of the Belfast Rape trial was a rape victim or not we cannot be certain in a way that we can about the existence of many rape victims out there who will never set foot in a court as a result of this trial. The celebrity nature of the trail coupled with the insufficient weight of the Prosecution evidence had 'Destination Failure' stamped all over it. Daunting and deterring enough for a rape victim to endure even a successful trial, the experience must be grossly amplified when the outcome is acquittal.
The PSNI and PPS between them, swaggered into court with eyes wide shut. Big hat no cattle.
Anthony McIntyre blogs @ The Pensive Quill.Follow Anthony McIntyre on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre
No comments have been added yet.
Anthony McIntyre's Blog
- Anthony McIntyre's profile
- 2 followers
Anthony McIntyre isn't a Goodreads Author
(yet),
but they
do have a blog,
so here are some recent posts imported from
their feed.
