tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post7987096060681023780..comments2024-03-28T07:16:39.621+00:00Comments on Lallands Peat Worrier: Corroboration: will you or nil you?Lallands Peat Worrierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18276270498204697708noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-51496096751556912352013-10-24T17:53:29.141+01:002013-10-24T17:53:29.141+01:00Marvin,
Given the SNP majority in Holyrood (despi...Marvin,<br /><br />Given the SNP majority in Holyrood (despite the interesting and uncharacteristic skeptical noises from Christine Grahame), it seems very likely that corroboration is now effectively an <i>ex procedural safeguard</i>. Lallands Peat Worrierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07238432265194046726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-87556098436696455662013-10-22T23:57:04.430+01:002013-10-22T23:57:04.430+01:00Must change from the status quo.Must change from the status quo.Marvin Stonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02236756648928382652noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-42834798969252104222013-09-29T15:11:59.145+01:002013-09-29T15:11:59.145+01:00Thanks for adding that, Ian.
You make several imp...Thanks for adding that, Ian.<br /><br />You make several important points. Firstly, I think many folk who favour abolition could be persuaded that only partial abolition was necessary. There are clearly some circumstances where cases can't be brought to court which should be brought to court, to my mind, under the current dispensation. A narrower repeal measure could address those questions. On your last point: I tend to agree. A weak case doesn't become a strong case, simply by being put before a jury. I can't imagine anything worse than sitting in a jury, deciding whether A sexually assaulted B, when both parties seemed tolerably credible in their evidence. It is certainly a caution for those incautious folk who are arguing not simply that these reforms would lead to more sexual assault cases being prosecuted - which is at least a possibility - but that it inevitably entails a higher % of convictions. If anything, the inverse outcome seems intuitively more likely to be true. Lallands Peat Worrierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07238432265194046726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-91422621028729741602013-09-29T10:47:58.702+01:002013-09-29T10:47:58.702+01:00I have never understood why it is thought necessar...I have never understood why it is thought necessary to proceed with a blanket abolition of corroboration to deal with what, if it is a problem at all, is a problem affecting a very small number of cases. <br /><br />As you say, lack of patent corroboration, is not nearly as much of an issue as is maintained in some quarters because of corroboration by distress; special knowledge confessions and the creative use of Moorov, on which last point specialist police and prosecutors are now quite proactive.<br /><br />That there remain a small number of post Cadder cases where the accused, by exercising their right to remain silent, leaves a single but credible complainer out on a limb might argue for a change but a change relating to these cases alone.<br /><br />There is precedent for that. For many years before the blanket abolition of corroboration in civil cases, corroboration was not required in personal injury actions where the only possible witness was the victim of an accident. It seems to me that this could usefully be extended to sexual offences alone.<br /><br />These offences are also much more likely to be tried before a jury and certainly never in a JP Court.<br /><br />As you say, the real fear is that someone could be convicted of a crime on the word of one other person with their guilt being determined by a single judge. In the JP Courts not even a legally qualified judge.<br /><br />In England that problem is dealt with by the accused having the right to elect for a trial by jury but in Scotland the forum is entirely in the hands of the Crown with no suggestion in the legislation that this might be changed.<br /><br />The final point however cant be over-emphasised. How much good will abolishing corroboration actually achieve in relation to the small number of sexual offences at which it is, allegedly, directed?<br /><br />Where there is a jury and literally nothing more than one persons word against another, and the position of the accused is remotely credible, does that not surely mean that there would always be a reasonable doubt? We might see more prosecutions but I doubt we'll see more convictions.ianssmarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07863217818794644141noreply@blogger.com