Do defendants found innocent get support / compensation?

[troubleanstrife]

It’s the Letby case that has set me thinking, but this is just a general question.

I was surprised to realise that she has been in prison for 5 years already while waiting for the trial and verdict. Obviously in her case it doesn’t matter because she is guilty and will be likely serving a life sentence anyway.

But if somebody were found to be innocent, they could have lost their job and their home in that time, and no doubt 5 years on prison takes its toll on mental and physical health too.

Would they be entitled to claim anything back, or get help to get their lives back on track?

Well yes, absolutely, that's the whole thing of innocent until proven guilty. Any organised society has to decide how it's going to treat criminal accusations: do you go with innocent until proven guilty (beyond reasonable doubt) and take the risk that some guilty people will get away with crime due to lack of provable evidence, or go with 'guilty until proven innocent' and take the risk that some innocent people will be locked up on a sometime-incompetent, sometime-malaevolant state's say-so? Most people would say the potential consequences of the latter are much worse than the former, and that's why we have the whole court, judge, jury mechanism to ensure a fair and independent process.

The trouble we have at the moment is while still running a system theoretically based on innocent until proven guilty, to a large extent we are now sleepwalking into the reverse, where we're happy for people accused of crime but not proved guilty to suffer terrible consequences from police/CPS errors due to a massively underfunded system, to wait years for a fair trial, to be unable to get legal help to defend themselves unless they can pay from their own means, without any possibility of compensation or repayment of losses even if there's been a definite, undisputed error, all on the assumption that "well they're a criminal anyway, the police/CPS said so, so they deserved it anyway". I don't think that's morally right, and the people that do are probably operating on the naive assumption that something like this could never happen to them or to ordinary, law abiding people 'like me', (the whole sub postmaster scandal demonstrates this is absolutely untrue IMO).

BTW, I don't actually think generous compensation schemes for people who are found not guilty in court is the answer, I think properly funding and managing the whole system including police, CPS, courts and legal aid would be much better so that the chances of mistakes and miscarriages of justice happening would be much reduced and caught earlier if they do (and would have the happy additional effect of catching and punishing criminals much more effectively too). But just ignoring the whole current situation and saying well it's only nasty criminals suffering so it doesn't matter is naive at best and morally wrong at worst (also factually incorrect, the current court system treats victims of crime horribly too).

I remember reading about a man who was in prison for 15 years for the murder of a child. At that point, DNA advances meant the real killer was arrested and convicted. I thought about how that first man's life had been utterly destroyed and he was completely innocent. Not just 15 years of life lost, but for such a despicable crime. He probably lost not only everything but everyone in his life. I'm not sure how you'd ever recover from it.

Innocent people being in prison is really just classed as collateral damage. Everyone just willingly accepts that it will happen sometimes and it's just tough luck.

The problem is, many found "not guilty" will be guilty, the evidence just wasn't strong enough for a conviction. Should we then also reward them financially? There is no definitive way to prove who is innocent and who has got away with it. So no one gets anything. I don't see really how it can be any other way.

It is frightening though to think that theoretically, it could happen to anyone.

A friend of mine has recently been found not guilty of a serious crime - he absolutely could not have done the thing he was accused of which all came out in the trial. He was never on remand but he still lost his job once hed been charged. It took three years to get to trial. He qualified for legal aid because he has little money but that meant he couldn't work because it would disqualify him for legal aid. His girlfriend left him and he moved back in with his parents. His life has been destroyed. I don't think anyone involved feels that justice has been served. Its a sorry mess.

BTW, I don't actually think generous compensation schemes for people who are found not guilty in court is the answer, I think properly funding and managing the whole system including police, CPS, courts and legal aid would be much better so that the chances of mistakes and miscarriages of justice happening would be much reduced and caught earlier if they do (and would have the happy additional effect of catching and punishing criminals much more effectively too). But just ignoring the whole current situation and saying well it's only nasty criminals suffering so it doesn't matter is naive at best and morally wrong at worst (also factually incorrect, the current court system treats victims of crime horribly too)

Agreed. And I think Sally Clark (another lawyer) would agree too.

Proper funding for the system, enabling sensible salaries that mean good professionals want to work in the system, is badly needed.

Utterly devastating. And it shouldn't have had to wait to trial if the evidence was so clear. But that's the consequence of an over stretched system

The problem is, many found "not guilty" will be guilty

No that isn't a problem at all. Because they are innocent until proven guilty.

All this thread (and more than one elsewhere, whether the current "baying mob" nes or any of the prior ones) is proving is that many members of the public - the same people who sit on juries - are actually unfit to make judgements. Funny how many of them are positive that an alleged murderer or rapist must be guilty (well they've been arrested and put on remand, haven't they?) when the so-called evidence has been provided by a bunch of people that there are numerous other threads about on here - the same "corrupt" police that are regularly slammed for being untrustworthy and unreliable, and, at times, criminal themselves. Which one is it?

It is immensely disturbing that according that to a great many people here, anyone arrested and charged with a crime - whether placed on remand or not - must be guilty because they wouldn't have been charged if they weren't guilty. And if they are found not guilty it is not because they are innocent but because they got away with it on a technicality. That is what you are arguing.

And this is a "civilised" society, is it? This is "justice"? God help us.

It’s really very troubling.
I appreciate all your posts on this subject@Banditqueen12. And you too @FerryPink and @maxelly.
I’m definitely going to read more about this.

I think I posted on a different thread that while I think jurors should be selected at random initially, I also think they should also have to undergo an assessment to ensure suitability for the role - i.e. ability to think analytically and recognise own biases. I say this having sat on a jury myself a few years ago, and while I am personally confident in the verdicts we gave in the end, I can’t say I was filled with confidence in the process.

My dad is a judge and he wouldn't disagree with you ... Or rather he understands the principle behind it but finds it a shame so many educated/intelligent people find reasons not to do it. When my sibling was selected and tried to ask him about ways to get out of doing it because they "couldn't miss work" he gave them quite a lecture .

@Banditqueen12

30 years experience in the CJS has shown me that yes, most of them are guilty. The CPS don't bring cases to Court on a whim. Do mistakes happen? Of course. But lets not pretend that everyone who gets a "not guilty" verdict is innocent.

How can it show you that most of them are guilty of that specific crime if they are found not guilty?

Essentially though I agree, it's sobering to think that the state has the power to completely destroy the life of someone innocent, and it's why we should all care about how the government has decimated the criminal legal aid system.

The permadim never quite realise (or pretend to for effect) that's why we have human rights. To protect us from the state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedy_trial

The US has the sixth amendment. We have Suella Bravermans assurances.

Malice or incompetence made little difference to someone banged up for 5 years waiting for a trial. Or, alternatively who has been arrested and charged 5 times over 5 years and spent a year in jail each time.

There is a quaint notion of "abuse of process" where a court says "this is enough" and kicks some arse back to the wall. However in a system where points make prizes, and judges get gongs, would you risk it ?

But I didn't ask for your opinion (or a claim of expertise). I asked for evidence of your claim. If you work in the CJS then I would assume that you understand what evidence is? If you don't, then we have a real problem with the system right there.

Nobody, absolutely nobody, gets to decide that someone who has been found not guilty is actually guilty and should be treated as though they are. It does not matter what anyones opinion of that judgement is - this is the law, and if you actually believe in the law then you must uphold it. We cannot have a civilised society in which people get to make up their own minds; or to have them act according to their own lights.

And if the system is so screwed that guilty people walk free to often, then how can we depend the same screwed system to not find innocent people guilty?

Nobody is saying the system is perfect. There can never be any such thing. Nobody is saying that some people who did a crime get found not guilty. But nobody can say that all convicted people are guilty of the crime they are convicted of. And if people suffer harm and damage because the system gets it wrong, then they should be helped - not have people shrug their shoulders and say "tough luck, they were probably guilty anyway". If, with all the collective resources of the investigative system, the CPS and the courts, you cannot find the evidence to prove someone guilty, then that is what is wrong with the system - not the alleged perpetrator, most of whom have no such resources to prove their innocence.

@SerendipityJane
The US has the sixth amendment. We have Suella Bravermans assurances.

Based on the evidence, I wouldn't rely on either....

OP, you could start with the Howard League for Penal Reform reports on remand statistics. And you can google 'remand statistics and subsequent imprisonment' and similar.

I did some research in this area some years ago:

https://howardleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Whats-wrong-with-remanding-children-to-prison.pdf

Key points:

The number of children remanded to custody increased between 2017 and 2019, even though the number of children sentenced to custody has been falling since the late 2000s
• Two-thirds of children remanded to custody do not get a prison sentence
• In 2019/20, Black and mixed-race children were more likely to be remanded to custody than white children and more likely to be acquitted at trial
• During the Covid-19 pandemic, children were held in custody on remand for excessively long periods with an impoverished and restricted regime
• Work by the Howard League with children on remand in prison in 2021 identified that children are spending months on remand because of the failure of the services around them
• Some children do not apply for bail or are unsuccessful because the local authority has failed to meet its statutory duty to provide a safe place for them to live in the community
• Children with adult co-defendants are often left waiting on remand for long periods
• Children’s experiences of exploitation were often not sufficiently explored and factored into remand decisions
• Transferring children who turn 18 while on remand to adult prisons is damaging to their welfare and long term prospects.

That's awful.

Read the secret barrister. Lot of information in that

And there are plenty of people who know that there is equally a difference between being convoy and being guilty.

You about the children in custody? Yes, it's abhorrent. The Howard League has uncovered some real injustices over the years involving under-18s.

Thanks for the link to the Edith Thompson article, btw. I have just read it. Sad and infuriating.

In the UK only the courts can find someone guilty. If you really do work in the CPS you should know that.

In the UK only the courts can find someone guilty.

You forgot about His Majesties Press - ask Colin Stagg.

Remand prisoners are actually treated more leniently in prison, yet the time counts in full against their jail term. Some people convicted are not sent to prison because it's time served - they are only sentenced to the time they have been on remand.

But here are some slightly out of date figures for you https://www.fairtrials.org/articles/news/highest-number-of-people-on-remand-in-england-and-wales-for-over-50-years/

Well then you are a disgrace to the CJS. The purpose of a trial is to put all available admissible and relevance before a jury of 12, and with the benefit of seeing witnesses and hearing submissions and learning about the law from the judge, the jury decide if they are sure that the defendant is guilty of the crimes. If so, guilty. If not, not guilty.

everyone is innocent unless proven guilty. If the jury doesn’t find them guilty of that or those crimes, then they continue to be innocent of them.

Why do you think you know better than the jury?

Admissible and relevant evidence that should say

Right so, less than 5% of rape cases that go to court secure a conviction. Are 95% of those women lying about being raped??? Wise up.

I think there is a difference between assuming that all 95% of them are guilty or accepting that many of them may be but you don't know for certain which ones, and some may be innocent. The wrong person could have been arrested for example etc

But if you blanket say that everyone who has ever been to court is guilty and should be treated as such by the public it would make a mockery of the justice system.

There again a 5% conviction rate for rape makes a mockery of the justice system so I guess it's a bit fucked either way tbf