Puddytats - A summary of the last 18 months of hell (this will be long and i hope will answer akll questions)

[puddytats]

Dear all

I have decided to start a new thread on this and run thro everything from the beginning, if you get to the end then thankyou for reading and well done. If you have any questions please ask, i will answer as fully as I am able considering i do not, and will never know the full facts.

Here goes...

On the 12 May 2005 DD was born. On the 13th June DH returned to work after paternity leave. He got to work as usual at 9.30ish and was met in the lobby by head of HR and immediatly taken into the boardroom. He was told that discrepancies had appearded on a firm he was working on but this was not a disiplinary, simply a meeting to establish facts. DH was shocked and stunned. He was asked variuos questions including whether he knew what was going on. He said he had no idea. He was then suspended on full pay while further investigations took place. He returned home and we tried to piece together what had happened.
Records at work show that a ficticious member was made up on a real client and that DH did work on this client, including the issuing of a cheque. His computer initials were over everything. Work decided that DH was at fault at dismissed his.
As this was taking place the police also knocked on our door. DH was arrested and all paperwork relating to financial records were taken away - including all the work we had done ourselves. It transpired that 3 cheques 'passed' thrioough our bank account - one in joint bank and 2 in dh sole account. DH was adviced to no comment throughout the interview, which he did. Because of this and because one of the cheques was in joint account the police arrested me.
Names on the cheques had been changed after they were signed by the partners at DH work, we know this because there are photocopiers of the cheques before signiture and from the bank after cashing. They had been changed to either our current surname or my maiden name. The police handwriting expert said it was likely to be DH handwriting. A certified copy of our marriage certificate was also provided with the one in my maiden name.
A little of the money was moved round our variuos accounts and the rest was taken out one way or another. It would seem that everything other than the initial paying in and one cheque withdrawel was done over the internet. That money as yet has not been traced.
DH and i were cept on police bail for over a year while they completed their investigations. During this time we were powerless to do anything, I attempted to committ suicide due to the stress and we have reached lows you can not imagine.
After a hellish year i was released without charge. DH was charged on 10 counts. 3 of obtaining property by deception, 3 of fraud (can't remember exact terminology) and 1 of forgery (a letter apparently)
We have already paid over £20,000 in legal fees and if we had decided to fight the case would be looking at at leat £100,000 more including solicitors, Queens counsel, computer experts, forensic accountants, private investigators etc. At the moment DH mother in paying for us to survive - although i have now got a job, and DH father in paying legal fees. We cannot live off others forever.
If we fight it we could lose everything. We have 2 children and a need to keep a roof over their heads, they have been through so much in their very young lives that keeping a familiar home is vitsl to their stability.
We could fight it to the bitter end and have the full support of friends and family who believe us and know we have been set up. Our morals say fight but we have learnt over the past year that justice is not fair, about who is guilty or innocent but who can prove what and who can afford to prove what.
We do not want the children to remember daddy being away, we do not want to be apart at all so are trying to limit damage. We know dh is innocent and now have to ignore justice and look to what affect a lengthy trail could have on the family, the stress, tension cost etc has had to be weighed up against what could be gained or lost. We will win in the end because we have eachother.

If you have got this far then well done and thankyou

The only reason people on here have made up their minds that he must have done it is purely because of statements made by you which are clearly untrue. It is not true that legal aid will not cover the cost of forensic experts. It will. Perhaps not the top ones who charge an arm and a leg, but it will cover whatever experts are required to give your dh the ability to defend himself.

please take the personal details off - apart from anything else you don't want this thread popping up in the future or for the prosecution, and in the unlikely event that you are a troll it'd be v unfair on the person named too.

1. They are both guilty.

(Sorry, just putting that in for the sake of completeness...)

I don't know how to take the personal details off

It has been done for you already puddytats (Use the red exclamation mark to the top right of each post)

Batters who would you listen to the solicitor in front of you or the mumsnet jury who seem to have hung, drawn and quartered her ?

It's all very well saying that Joe Public may not understand and may not convict but it's a gamble, I can completely understand why he would plead guilty to fraud (i'd rather be hanged than admit murder, but fraud, who cares really). Hopefully he'll get a suspended sentence and they can get on with their lives.

But there are lawyers on MN, and people who know about banking, some of whome have given their advice on this and other threads.

I've not commented before, because I don't know what to think. I don't want to believe that the police in this country aren't interested in sleuthing properly

but they aren't real and cannot back up their credentials can they, so I could claim to be the head of Lloyds of London and give advice but how can I prove it, the solicitor sat in front her can prove what he/she is qualified to discuss.

The Police are basically lazy, they have their man, case closed.

the most you can get the sentence reduced by for a guilty plea is one third and it may be as little as one tenth so at most if the sentence was 6 years then two years off makes 4, reduced by half for good behaviour makes 2 so the difference for the plea is 1 year..I think very few people would consider that worth going for if they were not guilty. I would do my utmost to make my case for the defence, the jury can't be second guessed. If the sentence is shorter (likely) then the benefit of the guilty plea decreases too.

I think if i was promised a day less I'd take it woudn't you ?

i am amazed... what is going on?

Hideehi - the solicitor has not advised him to plead guilty. Do you think the sentence ends when you get out? How easy will he find it to get work again?

I think Batters sums this up very well. I have worked in retail banking for 14 years and find it difficult to see how monies transferred via the internet cannot be traced - there has to be an audit trail, simple as that. DH is a criminal lawyer specialising in long complex fraud cases, often relating to VAT and tax, and often uses expert witnesses to defend his clients, with legal aid paying. I really really hope that puddytats dh pleades not guilty if he is as innocent as she says. This whole saga has made me very for many reasons.

My main concern is the long term effects of pleading guilty, not the prison term. Is a guilty plea for fraud not going to affect so much of your lives later - getting a house (mortgage, rental), getting a job, taking out loans or credit cards, etc? I would think a fraud conviction would make a major impact on your lives later because of the dishonesty aspect of it - probably more of an effect that something like violence or drugs.

pleading guilty also opens up the propsect of a civil action by the defrauded party, as well as a potential confiscation of assets under proceeds of crime act. Please be very sure you are doing the right thing, PT and your dh.

I agree with Hulababy, and so do most people..very few plead guilty to something they haven't done, it just won't be advantageous..it will be catastrophic

I respect Soapbox's judgement, esp. after JF. But I also know that injustice does happen and people are advised to plead guilty when they are innocent - happened in a fraud case involving someone close to me. They were advised to plead guilty because the local magistrates are known for their high conviction rate in similar cases and the penalties for pleading guilty were much less than if you fought the case and were found guilty. Not fair, but would you risk going against the advice of your solicitor who knows the local courts?

Legal aid does cover expert witnesses, athough you have to go through hoops to get it approved. But I think there can be problems in complex cases getting legal aid to approve the expenditure you want, either because the expert you need is expensive or because you need more than one.

So I don't know whether Soapbox is right, but Puddytat's account of pleading guity despite innocence is not impossible.

I'm not saying it's the best thing to do just that i can understand why he would.
My uncle was charged with raping a 10 year old girl who was the eldest daughter of the woman he had another child with.
He pleaded guilty because it was his word against hers and if he'd been found guilty my aunty (his wife and my mother) would have been charged with interfering with a witness, they went to the girls house to try and reason with her as it was complete bullshit.
He got three years and was out in 18 months, if he'd pleaded not guilty and been convicted it would have been at least 7 years plus they would have lost the house and their business.
It's terrible but I think you're very naive if you think innocent people don't go to prison.

I should add that my uncle was accused 20 years later, the girl was not a 10 year old but a grown woman who wanted revenge because my aunty and uncle got together whilst her mum and my uncle were dating.

The path of least resistance, people use it for more serious and far lesser problems...
If you add in the theory of a dishnoest husband, could also a guilty plea keep some of the evidence from being spilled in court?

I'd echo what Hulababy said about the future impact of a fraud conviction. I used to work for a mortgage lender and any fraud related conviction was a big no-no. I can also remember being specifically consulted by a broker about a prospective customer who had a conviction for GBH ..... since he had a perfect credit history and nothing in his background to imply that he was dishonest, or had problems dealing with money, the application was approved. A violent temper isn't morally right of course, but having served his time, a financial institution is in no position to judge any further.

However, this attitude does not extend to fraudsters since lending is based on risk and theirs was considered too high.

I also accept that innocent people do end up in prison - as someone has already said, you can't second guess a jury. But pleading guilty means you will definitely end up in prison and definitely acquire a conviction. Even if it's accepted that no further expert help can be gathered (for whatever reason) it is surely still better to gamble on the jury's verdict and the ability of the prosecution to prove without doubt that he is guilty than to deliberately drop yourself in the sh*t ?? As the trial hasn't yet taken place, why is DH so convinced he will be found guilty anyway ? And his defence lawyer will, for sure, be picking holes in the prosecution.

I really don't know what to make of all this.

But do you know puddytats, she's the only one who matters here.

As I said before, there is no way that the money couldn't be traced.
He is clearly guilty.
Or this is a loads of codswallop (apologies to the fish for taking her name in vain).

Either way, and I repeat, good luck to you puddytats... you need it.