Greenwood charges dropped

[shefcanary 2,405]

4 hours ago, hertfordyellow said:

Ched Evans is a convicted rapist, Greenwood has not been involved in a trial let alone convicted. 

Wrong! Evans was cleared in a re-trial. He is totally innocent in the eyes of the law.

[East Rider 549]

The main witness (the victim) has decided not to present her evidence. No reasons given as to why but that alone is going to cause the case to collapse. At the same time it looks like she has been involved in something that causes concerns for the cps.

All in all a real mess.   

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

7 hours ago, TheGunnShow said:

A very quick look says key witnesses have withdrawn

Including the victim I suspect, read that they have been back living together for a while.

Edited February 2, 2023 by TeemuVanBasten

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

5 minutes ago, East Rider said:

The main witness (the victim) has decided not to present her evidence. No reasons given as to why but that alone is going to cause the case to collapse. At the same time it looks like she has been involved in something that causes concerns for the cps.

My guess is that the only way out for Mason Greenwood was if she said she'd made up the allegations and faked the recordings or similar, as there is no such thing as an alleged victim "dropping charges" in the UK, either the CPS feel there is enough evidence to prosecute or not. That then puts them in a difficult position as a false allegation is of course treated as a crime in itself.

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

4 hours ago, hertfordyellow said:

Ched Evans is a convicted rapist

The conviction was overturned.

[hertfordyellow 460]

4 hours ago, Mr Angry said:

His conviction was quashed and he was acquitted in a re-trial, so no, Ched Evans is not a convicted rapist.

I wasn’t aware of the acquittal. He was found guilty by a jury, Greenwood didn’t get near a trial.  I still think it will be different for him because of this difference. 

[Duncan Edwards 2,233]

Rape convictions are incredibly difficult to obtain. The actual rate of conviction is tiny, most don’t even make it to trial because of the burden of proof. So often it comes down to word against word. Then there is the question of consent and the fact that the defence drill into the alleged victim, their sexual history etc.

Walking from a rape charge isn’t a vouch of innocence, it’s an acknowledgement that it cannot be proven beyond reasonable doubt. Said doubt is relatively simple to bring into the trial. “That’s how they like it”, “They’d done this before and then enjoyed it”, “They like it rough” etc etc

All I would say is that getting a walk isn’t a pronouncement that it didn’t happen. It’s a statement of it being too hard to prove.

Convictions vs complaints sit at a ridiculously low level, I believe somewhere under 2%. If you believe that 59/60 accused rapists are “innocent”, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

Truth is, it’s so, so difficult to prove. Stand their ground, maintain innocence, how do you get past that? Especially when it’s partner on partner.

It’s sh1tty really but it’s there to protect the genuinely innocent against malicious accusation. It’s just that it’s also open to abuse from the brazenly guilty willing to style it out. 

[Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man 3,820]

7 hours ago, shefcanary said:

Wrong! Evans was cleared in a re-trial. He is totally innocent in the eyes of the law.

There's a big difference between 'innocent' and 'not guilty'. Just because the jury felt it wasn't proven beyond all reasonable doubt does not mean that he didn't do it. If you look at the evidence, I still think he's a lucky boy: he probably did do it, but 'probably' isn't enough in a court of law.

[Naturalcynic 629]

1 hour ago, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man said:

There's a big difference between 'innocent' and 'not guilty'. 

What happened to innocent until proven guilty?

[GodlyOtsemobor 2,307]

14 hours ago, CDMullins said:

Bizarrely, the original video was released by one of the girls friends, the family didn't want it releasing or passing to the Police.

Even after the video came out, her dad refused to condemn Mason.

🤑🤑🤑🤑

Edited February 3, 2023 by GodlyOtsemobor

[Greavsy 2,413]

3 hours ago, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man said:

There's a big difference between 'innocent' and 'not guilty'. Just because the jury felt it wasn't proven beyond all reasonable doubt does not mean that he didn't do it. If you look at the evidence, I still think he's a lucky boy: he probably did do it, but 'probably' isn't enough in a court of law.

https://www.amacdonaldlaw.com/blog/2016/may/what-is-the-difference-between-innocent-and-not-/#:~:text=In short%2C "not guilty",but rather “not guilty”.

In short, "not guilty" is not the same as "innocent." Innocent means that a person did not commit the crime. Not guilty means that the prosecution could not prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" that a person committed the crime. Therefore, the court does not pronounce someone as “innocent” but rather “not guilty”.

[PurpleCanary 5,558]

25 minutes ago, Greavsy said:

https://www.amacdonaldlaw.com/blog/2016/may/what-is-the-difference-between-innocent-and-not-/#:~:text=In short%2C "not guilty",but rather “not guilty”.

In short, "not guilty" is not the same as "innocent." Innocent means that a person did not commit the crime. Not guilty means that the prosecution could not prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" that a person committed the crime. Therefore, the court does not pronounce someone as “innocent” but rather “not guilty”.

No. That is some American lawyer getting close to the Scottish intermediate verdict of "not proven". In English law it is binary. A "not guilty verdict" is a verdict of innocence. So Evans is innocent of rape. One might question his behaviour on moral grounds but legally he was declared innocent.

[shefcanary 2,405]

6 hours ago, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man said:

There's a big difference between 'innocent' and 'not guilty'. Just because the jury felt it wasn't proven beyond all reasonable doubt does not mean that he didn't do it. If you look at the evidence, I still think he's a lucky boy: he probably did do it, but 'probably' isn't enough in a court of law.

Never said he didn't do it. I said "innocent in the eyes of the law".

The CCTV of the incident shows Evans and his mate carrying the complainant unconscious across a car park to his hotel room. One jury felt that video and the testimony of the complainant was sufficient to find him guilty (although controversially not his mate). Another jury found that the complainant's testimony could not be relied upon given a history of previous false accusations.  Thus there was not enough reliable evidence for the jury to convict Evans, so in the eyes of the law he was innocent. No-one can say for certain what went on inside the hotel room other than the three people reported to be there.

Who knows ...? 🤷‍♂️

With Greenwood, the audio that TDK refers to was from a mobile phone video that was widely shared by his partner's friends on Twitter. From what I saw on the video, Greenwood verbally abused his partner and demanded to have sex with her. The video documented that she refused to have sex with him. There was no video evidence of Greenwood actually forcing his partner to have sex however. The video showed him forcibly holding her arms. The video did show his partner had a badly cut lip, bruising and was obviously in distress. Only Greenwood's partner can say for certain when and how those injuries were inflicted.

Who knows ...? 🤷‍♂️

[Mr Angry 1,555]

6 hours ago, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man said:

There's a big difference between 'innocent' and 'not guilty'. Just because the jury felt it wasn't proven beyond all reasonable doubt does not mean that he didn't do it. If you look at the evidence, I still think he's a lucky boy: he probably did do it, but 'probably' isn't enough in a court of law.

When Evans was arrested, he said that the girl consented and in his statement he gave details of what she had told him to do. He was found guilty but in his appeal, further evidence was allowed-this was not allowed to be made public after the appeal in which his conviction was quashed, but this evidence was presented at the re-trial.

This evidence was that on 2 other occasions, during consensual s e x, she had asked the partners to do exactly what Evans said that she had asked him to do, using similar expressions. He was found not guilty because the jury decided that someone who behaved that way was not incapable of giving consent, as the prosecution had claimed.

Allowing the complainant's sexual history to be heard in evidence does not usually happen, but in this case it was allowed because "the evidence is so similar that the similarity cannot reasonably be explained as coincidence".

During the appeal hearing, the appeal court dismissed claims that the new witnesses had been fed information by those close to Evans. During the re-trial, the Judge dismissed claims that Evans' girlfriend had offered an inducement to a witness.

Evans received a settlement of £800k from the legal team that had represented him in the original trial.

[PurpleCanary 5,558]

7 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

 

With Greenwood, the audio that TDK refers to was from a mobile phone video that was widely shared by his partner's friends on Twitter. From what I saw on the video, Greenwood verbally abused his partner and demanded to have sex with her. The video documented that she refused to have sex with him. There was no video evidence of Greenwood actually forcing his partner to have sex however. The video showed him forcibly holding her arms. The video did show his partner had a badly cut lip, bruising and was obviously in distress. Only Greenwood's partner can say for certain when and how those injuries were inflicted.

Who knows ...? 🤷‍♂️

Shef, I had no idea about any of that, but on that basis if the woman has now decided not to give evidence against Greenwood then the decision to drop the charges makes total sense.

What is interesting is that Greenwood reportedly broke his bail conditions by going to see the woman, and the police turned a blind eye. One can imagine that if this had not been a Man Utd footballer then they would very quickly have ended up in jail.

One can also imagine that on the basis of these reported visits, and the woman then deciding not to give evidence, that Greenwood could have been charged with perverting the course of justice, by interfering with a witness. But again that would have required the woman to testify against him.

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

5 hours ago, Greavsy said:

https://www.amacdonaldlaw.com/blog/2016/may/what-is-the-difference-between-innocent-and-not-/#:~:text=In short%2C "not guilty",but rather “not guilty”.

In short, "not guilty" is not the same as "innocent." Innocent means that a person did not commit the crime. Not guilty means that the prosecution could not prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" that a person committed the crime. Therefore, the court does not pronounce someone as “innocent” but rather “not guilty”.

In England it is...

“Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law”

[It's Character Forming 1,160]

A good friend of mine works at the CPS and the way she put it one time when this general subject (i.e. people who are accused and then the case doesn't go ahead, or is overturned later after a conviction like Ched Evans).  There is the "real" world and the "legal" world and they are not the same, people are basically mixing them up.

In the real world, someone either did it, or they didn't.  OK what they "did" can sometimes be a bit hard to pin down , but most of the time, there's no doubt.  People can form their own view about this guy or anyone else, but we should remember how little we really know about what happened normally.

 

In the legal world, we have the presumption of innocence and the CPS has to prove a case "beyond reasonable doubt".  So the CPS may have to drop a case when a witness folds or has their credibility undermined or whatever, a conviction may be overturned later because of problems in how it was obtained.  It means the person is not convicted and so the law presumes they are innocent.  Does this mean they are innocent in the real world ?  Not necessarily, sometimes yes, sometimes no.  That's life.

I'd add nowadays the "media/social media world" and that is normally way off both of the others TBH.

[Greavsy 2,413]

1 hour ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

In England it is...

“Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law”

thought you had me on ignore - or was that another of your false statements - you're getting quite a collection.

 

 

[dylanisabaddog 4,920]

23 hours ago, TheGunnShow said:

Agree with that. However, that footage was fairly damning and I definitely can't shake off the suspicion that some element of paying off, Stockholm Syndrome, or - even worse - intimidation might have taken place.

I do remember thinking quite clearly that Ched Evans should have been able to sign back on after serving his sentence as ultimately that was what the courts decided (IMO prison sentences for sexual assault are too short, but that's a different matter) but if he's served his time as judged by the justice system and therefore had his punishment he should be able to restart and reintegrate into society. Those who think he shouldn't essentially think the punishment dished out by the courts wasn't strict enough. Which I would agree with, but that's a matter for them, not for Evans.

Greenwood may be too toxic a brand to take back on. I'm sorta hoping he doesn't get back in due to the example it would set, but who knows?

Evans was found not guilty in a retrial. Quite rightly too. 

[dylanisabaddog 4,920]

The original CPS statement on BBC news said the case had been dropped because new evidence had come to light and a witness had withdrawn. 

Did the witness withdraw because of the new evidence?

[Haus 259]

5 minutes ago, dylanisabaddog said:

 

Did the witness withdraw because of the new evidence?

Or because he breached his bail conditions to contact them?