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

^Earlier she told the court she sat on his sofa watching TV, and he offered her two glasses of water, which she said she drank.
She said the water tasted 'bitter and a bit strange', and that she felt tired after drinking it.
'I felt like closing my eyes, and I felt like going to sleep,' she said.
She said she was then taken to a nearby park, where he is alleged to have sexually assaulted her.
'He touched my tummy…He pulled down my trousers. He kissed me on both cheeks and the mouth,' she said.^

@GoldenPheasant Would your innocent acquaintance also innocently drug that child, and innocently pull down her trousers and innocently touch and kiss her?

man with history of violence snatches a girl, packets of Benedryll found hidden in his flat to back up her story, 2 hours of unaccounted for time in his flat- the jurors are scum I hope they know they’ve let a monster free.

I believe her.

You can read the summing up from the judge on Judiciary.uk when it's added. Lots of interesting summaries including Letby and Victoria McCulloch

Judiciary.uk

Having sat in two juries, both of which were hung, this really doesn’t surprise me. Some people are genuinely not capable of sitting on a jury

These rules also exist to protect less powerful people in society from prejudice towards certain groups and from the whims of powerful individuals.

Again, it's hard to the point of impossibility for me to believe he is actually innocent. But the jury didn't declare him innocent, they said there wasn't sufficient, objective evidence that he committed the specific crimes he was accused of. And I do believe in a society where we have strict evidentiary requirements for criminal convictions because I understand the implications of not having that.

I can't get past the fact that he took her anywhere tbh. It simply doesn't make any sense. That poor girl & her family.

So basically if we’re saying that the girls testimony counts for Jack shit. Any of us could be assaulted by a random man who jumps out the bushes, maybe doesn’t rape up because doesn’t want to risk dna. But wears gloves and sexually assaults us. We say it happened, he says it didn’t and he doesn’t know why we’d make up such a story. He forced us to take a roofie during the attack but he says we must have taken it beforehand, nothing to do with him. And he’d get away with it because no evidence?

Unfortunately many sexual assault juries won’t convict if it is “just her word against his”. A lot of jurors think “beyond reasonable doubt” means “beyond any possible shadow of a doubt whatsoever, regardless of how unlikely”.

It’s why rapists always claim their victims consented. It’s unassailable. They can claim they met a stranger down a dark alley, and she consented to be beaten, raped and strangled half to death, and enough jurors to get a hung verdict will think if there’s even a remote chance this might be true they should vote not guilty.

I’ve just been ranting about this to DH. How on earth could they find him not guilty? If he was innocent in any way he would have just handed her over to the Harrods staff who are everywhere near those entrances.

I feel so sorry for the poor child and her family.

Not an excuse , more likely the work of an aspiring author of fiction .

He doesn’t need to deny it at all. Just say we agreed to it.

@AGoingConcern What is about the girl's clear statement that he pulled down her trousers and kissed her that violates your strict evidentiary standards?

They were in his room for two hours!? WTH? Her poor parents.

Thank goodness she was spotted by the police officer, who knows how it might’ve otherwise ended.

I believe the child, and I’m so sorry for her. No other explanation makes any sense.

I have been a victim. Fuck off with your assumptions.

We should always be striving towards a justice system that convicts correctly more often. That doesn't mean we toss out evidentiary requirements for convictions or ignore the dangers of doing so.

I wasn't on the jury. I didn't hear how that statement came to be given or any of the other evidence, and it is absurd for me to think I know more than the people who did.

We don't do trial by press in this country for a damn good reason.

A justice system where "evidence" equates to someone saying you're guilty therefore you are, is the reason political opponents end up in prison in some parts of the world. You can't have it both ways

I agree. I honestly couldn't believe the attitudes of some of the jury members when i did jury service, with men and even 1 women saying 'she asked for it' etc. I met both the best and the worst of society in those 2 weeks.

@AGoingConcern What other evidence could have been admitted that would mean that pulling down a child's trousers and kissing her was not assault? Hypothetically, if you wish.

Oh I can believe it.

After all, we had a thread last week where the OP and about 10% of voters here on a mostly-women forum openly decided that the victim in a revenge porn case deserved what she got.

It does puzzle me that people who've read a few paragraphs, written deliberately to cause this excitement, know more than the people who listened to all the evidence and the judge's summing up.

Children lie. I had a child lie to me only last week - barefaced. Very serious lie too. Luckily I had video evidence and when I told them that they went bright red and muttered something about 'being confused' Same age. 9 year old. I had to report to the safeguarding team regardless.

I'm not saying nothing happened here. I'm saying, they obviously couldn't prove beyond reasonable doubt. It could be he's innocent, could be autistic, could be 100 % genuine. Could be a nasty piece of work. Clearly was impossible to prove beyond reasonable doubt.

But children do lie.

Forensics for a start. They'd have looked for his DNA on her clothes and lips and cheeks, for traces of Benedryl in his flat. Absence of both will have supported his account that he didn't touch or drug her.

Pulling down a child's trouser's and kissing their genitals is assault. That point is not being argued here or in that court room.

The jury was asked to determine if there was sufficient evidence that this particular person committed the crime he was accused of. And there are damn good reasons that "[person] said you committed this crime" is not all we need to put someone in prison.