To think this is an insane verdict

[DancingNotDrowning]

pilot who takes lost girl back to his hotel not guilty of kidnap and assault.

unbelievable verdict, poor girl.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly2xv1yx83o.amp

I thought I was exempt for life; the rules have changed and after retirement I was called onto a jury this year. So frustrating to hear what some of my fellow jurors were saying at first; he doesn't look like he's guilty, nicely dressed etc and those comments were made by both men and women prior to hearing any evidence.
I had to be so careful to just listen to what was presented in court , only the people who were there will know all that was said .There was such a lot that wasn't mentioned in court and as jurors we could not look at any other information sources throughout the trial.
After 3 weeks we delivered a guilty verdict on all counts (there were many). This was a predatory paedophile so given multiple life sentences. Jurys are fallible and easily manipulated but on this occasion I had some of my faith restored . It wasn't easy and frankly a pretty traumatising experience.
What we learned later about his history was devastating but the defendant had a fair hearing.
In this case I am so sad that the Pilot was acquitted but reckon that as he was immediately re-arrested the evidence of possession is robust .
Prison for a long time, such a pity it will be here in a sex offenders wing rather than in a sweat tent in Arizona.

Well every days a school day!

Scotland and N. Ireland retained the legally qualified exclusions. I'm not just exempt but ineligible whilst practising and for 5 years after I retire. That will take me to 71 where I can then claim exemption as over 71.

I don’t think he will go to prison. A custodial sentence for images is unusual.

I hope his two daughters are safe. Didn’t he say they’re the same age as this girl? Without a guilty verdict his ex wife will have no grounds to prevent access. Though hopefully if he is convicted of any other similar offence in the near future that might prevent him ffrom unsupervised access to them.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14019221/robert-prussak-charged-possessing-making-indecent-images-children.html.

As if we were ever in any doubt about that poor little girl.

Absolutely awful. So she obviously wasn’t believed. Also must be so frustrating for the police investigating this.

Would parents of the girl be able to complain further and bring back the case in front of jury again? Especially with new evidence of Prussak being a pedo. I'm not familiar with UK laws but some countries victims can complain to "higher" court of that makes sense.

I think they can retry the case if new evidence emerges but not totally sure.

This is absolutely unbelievable.

how can anyone have a sense of justice? I don’t know how to get over this

And we all know a jury always makes the right decision, especially in rape and sexual abuse cases. It’s a mystery isn’t it, why women don’t have faith in their wisdom?

🙄

Poor kid, I just hope she’s doing ok.

Well he’s currently arrested an in custody over illegal images of children in his computer - allegedly.

hoping the digital evidence is water tight and the judge likes grudges.

A lot of aspects to this have not been tested.
The family of the child. Do we know anything about it?
How did the child became separated?

Read the articles. The NY Post one has a lot of details. I think there’s a Times one but it’s paywalled.

Meanwhile, the girl’s family and Harrods security scoured the area for the missing child — and eventually zeroed in on footage of her being led away by a man.
“I saw my wife going inside the shop holding the hand of my other child and then they went inside Harrods. After 15 seconds we asked ourselves, ‘Where is my daughter?’ We didn’t know if she came inside Harrods or if she remained outside. I started panicking,” the girl’s father told the court through a French interpreter last week, according to the Times of London.
“I thought she was lost but when I saw the picture of the man I thought that she could’ve been abducted.”

It's madness - his wife had a restraining order against him after he sexually assaulted her. Britain is a shamefully dangerous place to be a girl.

https://archive.ph/oVO5J.

https://archive.ph/submit/?submitid=tLPHHWpHO8c5sEcegUGzCGxyYsTLzyrkvwcjldUo8M%2Fiqr6MpvY68R8mEH5U9Xda&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thetimes.com%2Fuk%2Fcrime%2Farticle%2Fman-drugged-and-assaulted-girl-9-he-kidnapped-outside-harrods-j3xsjw5l7%3Fregion%3Dglobal

https://archive.ph/IEmtP

surprise, surprise, it turns out he's (allegedly) a wrong 'un

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14019467/us-air-force-captain-robert-prussak-charged-indecent-images-child.html

That's bizarre that the police would leave it until he was leaving court to arrest him. Surely they hadn't just discovered the alleged offences that morning? I don't buy the argument that it might prejudice his trial either, it's perfectly possible to arrest someone and not inform the jury. Hell, we saw a couple of weeks ago that previous convictions weren't notified to the jury in the police shooting case.

That's bizarre that the police would leave it until he was leaving court to arrest him

sometimes the police/CPS take the view that a less serious case (especially one where there is not an identifiable victim) is not worth pursuing if it would not add anything in terms of sentence or monitoring (i.e. defendant is already serving a lengthy custodial sentence and on the sec offenders register). Essentially it wouldn’t be seen as a good use of resources and therefore not in public interest.

However since he was acquitted and therefore presumably due to be released they decided it was very much in the public interest.

Well that's not a surprise is it?
I wonder how the jurors must feel having given him the benefit of the doubt?

Does anyone know why we don't allow bad character evidence e.g. restraining order by ex wife, possession of child abuse images in cases like this? Seems to me the guilty would be a lot less likely to get off.

I understand why we don't where the identity of a person is disputed by the defence. Otherwise the police could just say round up all the local burglars if a burglary had taken place and find one without an alibi and it might look quite convincing.

Does anyone know why we don't allow bad character evidence e.g. restraining order by ex wife, possession of child abuse images in cases like this?

it can be in some cases but generally it’s not permitted because the probative value is outweighed the prejudicial affect. I.e. the fact that a defendant has committed a previous offence is not of itself evidence that they committed the offence for which they’re on trial and evidence that they had committed a previous offence would provoke feelings of bias or hostility that would interfere with the jury’s ability to make a decision based on the facts of the case alone.

I’m sure someone else has a more succinct way of putting it!

There are circumstances in which it is allowed, but in general it isn't. The purpose of the trial is to see if the prosecution has proved its case. It is for the prosecution to show that the defendant is guilty. If we allow bad character evidence, it can result in the burden of proof being effectively reversed, so that the defendant has to prove their innocence rather than the prosecution proving their guilt. That would result in more wrongful convictions. We have too many of those already.