How does this get a conviction?

The fact that the victim waived her anonymity in order that to ensure that her father was pictured and named, doesn’t mean that witnesses, probably close family, who probably gave statements and were maybe cross examined by the defence team should also be named and pictured.

Cases like this are by their nature extremely sensitive and the media wouldn’t publish too many details.

Rest assured that the DPP wouldn’t have let it come to court if there wasn’t plenty of evidence and the father would have had a good defence team. The prosecution had to prove to the jury beyond reasonable doubt that he is guilty, his defence would have challenged every bit of evidence, but the jury didn’t believe him.

Convicting somebody is a very difficult thing for a jury to do (I've been on one), if there is the slightest doubt they will acquit. Given they didn't in this case I can't see how he's anything but guilty.

A friend of mine was on a UK Jury in a child abuse case. There was the word of a teenage victim & the word of the accused with not a shred of actual evidence. All the circumstantial evidence pointed to innocence. The Jury couldn't decide & "in order not to be there too long" decided to acquit on one charge but convict on another. This meant that they believed that the victim lied about the second occasion but believed them for the first.

My friend has remained disturbed by this & is convinced that the accused, serving a long sentence, is innocent.

Actually I agree but it does suggest that the account of the other incident was not believed by the jury. UK Ministry of Justice study found that 3% of complaints were malicious. So on UK figures around 75 people are falsely sentenced per year.

Maybe that's a price that has to be payed but not if you are one of the 75.

Approximately 3% of the rape allegations were identified as malicious (determined to be intentionally false). Surely intentionally false suggests someone is lying ?

I am not, in any way, advocating for offenders but any justice system must accept that wrongful convictions occur. This poor man served 17 years & was not eligible for early release because he refused to admit guilt.

He will have to pay the government for 17 years board & lodging.

Of course malicious means lying. As I pointed out, complaints do not equal convictions.

What poor man? The one your friends jury found guilty?

That was a miscarriage of justice.

it has nothing to do with malicious complaints.

That's a fking scary story.

Yes, I know.

If someone admitted making a false accusation, as the poster suggested happened, then they would absolutely be prosecuted.

Even leaving this case aside as I haven’t had the time to read up on it, yes, as a former jury member, I concur on that - as it happens in the case I attended, we did convict - evidence was strong and refutations from the defence were feeble to say the least.

While it’s up to the prosecution to prove guilt, and not up to the defence to prove innocence, if a defendant gives a no reply when questioned, it leaves little for the jury to go on, so we focus then purely on the quality of the prosecution case alone, as we’ve nothing from the defence.

Had they supplied even the smallest piece of evidence to create doubt it may have helped- no reply interviews have their benefits but also can lead to a greater strengthening of the prosecution case.

I see someone above quoted a miscarriage of justice case in the UK- I don’t know the ins/outs of the case- I wonder if he took the stand or answered questions put to him by police. It feels like the police felt they had solved the case and the jury agreed- I think it’s dangerous prosecuting a case with very little clear evidence unless there is a multitude of circumstantial evidence like in the case of that Architect done for murder of that vulnerable woman or the Mr Moonlight case. I guess this CAN happen but thankfully rare enough we hope- it wouldn’t have happened at my jury experience- we very much tested the evidence presented-

I often look at cases, even discrimination cases etc and very often there is no evidence whatsoever, yet a verdict is made that can ruin someones life on no evidence at all.

I was on a Jury once for a sexual assault case where a guy sexually assaulted a woman at a party 10 years earlier.

It all came down her word against his.

I couldnt find him guilty on that evidence myself but 10 jurors did. 7 of them women and 2 of the men easily led by the women, and one wanted to go home, i think he was getting a flight to see a football match that night. I did think he did it though but that was just my feeling and nothing more, i didnt like him, but there was no evidence at all apart from both their sides of the story.

They did bring in character witnesses for both sides and also people who were at the party. All of the witnesses were in the other room and saw them go in and noticed nothing before or after. One of her friends said the victim told her in the car on the way home but told her not to tell anyone.

Looking at it with a logical mind, there was no evidence whatsoever that anything took place apart from the woman saying it did. The man was very nervous and this was assumed to be guilt by most of the Jury. At one point one of them said to me "You would believe her if she was your sister wouldnt you. And beside he looks guilty as hell. He definitely did it.".

It was 9 - 3 at first. The judge told us to go back in and said they would except a 10 - 2. Most people said they wouldnt change their minds. Eventually after a few hours one of them changed to guilty, probably because we all wanted to go home. Said that the judge would just send us back again and again and then go for the majority verdict in the end so why drag it out. That was that. I read about 6 months later that he got 2.5 years.

The way the jury works is that you are picked from a pool and then go to the court. There they narrow it down to 12. You are then all taken for food and told what is going on. Then you go home and come back for the next day. You have lunch together and you do talk about the case though you are told not to talk about it outside the jury room. Some people you just know googled the people in the case too. You come in every day, and are sent out a few times while the barristers and judge speak without you around. You have to lock up your phones when you go into the jury room.

Then at the end the judge gives you instructions (what charging the jury is, reasonable doubt etc) and you go and discuss the case. You ask some questions and have to all go back into the courtroom to ask them. The judge gives out to you and sends you back saying you only have the evidence in front of you. You come back at the end of each day and say no verdict. Judge brings you back in the morning and says they will accept 10-2 now. It was afternoon the first day. After a few hours we were sent home for the weekend. Monday morning we spend another 3 hours deliberating. You give your verdict. Judge says you are free of jury duty for 2 years and then you go home. You hear nothing about the case again unless you read it in the media.

I wouldnt like someone to ever accuse me of anything where there is no proof apart from each others word. Because you are going to get convicted for sure if you are a man and the woman cries. Thats what had the most effect on the jury. The women all had him convicted without hearing a word and never wavered and you would get daggers and accusations yourself if you argued with them. 2 of the men were terrified of the women. It was like a gang. On the first morning before the trial started - "Did you see the creepy fker. He was looking at me and i was shaking". "Yeah and hes so ugly. What woman would ever voluntarily go near him". All just from the jury picking and before the trial even got underway.

Well, that's a report of the evidence led by the defence. You need to look around for reports of the evidence led by the prosecution, but — spoiler alert — it may not be reported. Newspapers these days don't have the funds to have a court reporter in every courtroom, so whether a day's evidence gets reported depends on whether there was another, possibly more newsworthy, case going on in another courtroom on the same day.

All we know is that the jury, who heard all the evidence and heard it first-hand, found the charge proven beyond reasonable doubt. I'd be very slow to second-guess that based on partial, second-hand, accounts of some of the evidence given at the trial.

We're told that the defendant doesn't accept the verdict and, of course, she has a right of appeal. If there's any kind of argument that the evidence really doesn't support the verdict, you'd expect her to exercise that right. Do we know if she has lodged an appeal?