Barry George.

[DaveR]

"In the trade it is called, being framed, fitted up, put any sap in to release us to nick motorists and cigar butt droppers.

I remember having a conversation about this case when they stated they had found 'a loner' and Barry George fell into the hands of the police and from that moment he was gonna be 'it'.

Conveniently forgetting that one third of the population live alone, and are 'loners'.

He was a simple mark who had no help from any source except his solicitor, but he is not mentioned, why

Is this another case where the solicitor and/or court is unfit for purpose

British justice in this case, and most of the cases that Charles Dickens wrote about

from Pickwick Papers to Bleak House, just stinks."

A few strange conclusions to draw from one very unusual case. The investigation had been going no for nearly a year before Barry George was arrested, and had, as far as I'm aware, followed classic major incident procedures. It does seem pretty clear however that cops and prosecutiion lawyers attributed too much weight to generally prejudicial evidence e.g. he's a bit of a weirdo, not good with women, lied to us in interview, and took their eye off the ball - there was almost no direct evidence against the guy. At that stage, pressure to get a result (and if I'm cynical, the knowledge that any jury would not be too impressed with George) probably took over.

I see that it is now being reported that at least one of the cops neve thought it was a good case, and that the famous mask and gun photo isn't even of him - that is worrying.

[SteveT]

DaveR wrote: 1. almost no direct evidence against the guy, 2. followed classic major incident procedures

I do not understand how a man can do 9 years without substantial evidence.

2. I do not understand what is meant by this statement?

Are you a legal eagle DaveR?

[SteveT]

DaveR wrote:A few strange conclusions to draw from one very unusual case.

Very unusual case?

in what sense unusual, there has been plenty of murders throughout the nine years Barry George was 'away', and I don't suppose he was the first to be "fitted up" and I doubt he will be the last.

Justice they say has to be seen to be done, should the copper who 'fitted him up' do nine years?

If he did, I guess fitting people up would suddenly decline.

Should the judge do time for incompetence, or sacked as unfit for purpose.

[Marmora Man]

Steve T has made a key point - one that the attached press release from an organisation I occasionally subscribe to has made.

[SteveT]

Marmora Man you have just directed a ray of light into my life.

I have never heard of these sanest of people, it was like when I discovered Hatchards, the New Statesman, Private Eye, Charles Dickens etc...

How do I subscribe?????????????????????????????

[Marmora Man]

Steve T

The Libertarian Alliance website

Libertarian Alliance

[DaveR]

This was a very unusual murder for a number of reasons:

celebrity victim, weapon not recovered, no scene-of-crime forensic evidence, no obvious motive - I could go on.

I am not aware of any evidence that Barry George was actively 'fitted up', and after two full trials and two appeals, I would have expected it to come out. It has never been suggested that any witness lied or that any evidence was fabricated or that any dubious investigative tactics were used (contrast with Colin Stagg).

What appears to have happened is that George came under suspicion because of his generally doubtful previous behaviour and a few odd things he did in the days after the murder. He was interviewed and didn't give a great account of himself. He was identified by one witness as having been in the street earlier that day. The analysis of his clothes turned up the alleged gunpowder residue, now discredited. They key decision had to be taken - enough evidence to charge? At that stage I suspect the cops and lawyers felt the pressure of a massively high profile unsolved murder, and convinced themselves that there was. After that it was a matter for the jury, and they may well have felt the same pressure. George didn't give evidence (in either trial) and juries often don't like that.

They key point to arise from this case is that prosecutors need to be strong and objective and resist the pressure to put someone in the dock on the basis that thay cam let a jury decide. That is, however, a million miles away from the type of case where there has been clear misconduct/corruption/criminality on the part of investigators or lawyers.

[ratty]

It scares me that the legal system has little to do with fact and justice and a lot to do with who can convince a jury.

[SeanMacGabhann]

That could be one reason why some people on here get so finicky about "facts" and "reason" as opposed to hearsay and rumour

[Asset]

There is a good George Orwell (I think) quote - "British justice is open to all - just like the Ritz".

I saw it used recently in relation to the mega rich tetra-pak couple who just got let off for taking a few grammes in to the American Embassy.

If Barry George had been mega rich he wouldn't even have been considered for the crime, just seen as an 'eccentric' rather than a weirdo.

[ratty]

Mate of mine is a Barrister. Defending legal aid cases usually. He gets guilty people off all the time. How can this be right?

[SeanMacGabhann]

what's your alternative ratty?

I know guilty people get off - but that's the job of prosecution to remedy. Having the system is what seperates us from our barbaric pasts

It is better than witch-hunts and people saying "ohh look at 'im - course he's guilty!"

[mockney piers]

That's rather the point of it being a non prejudicial system. Though he may say as such in private there is no way your pal should take his own perceptions regards their guilt into consideration. Accused are innocent until proved otherwise.

Any moves away from that and you'll pretty soon end up with extra-judicial executions, etc etc, and if you think the rich have an advantage now, just wait until you can effectively buy your way out of justice/injustice.

You don't have to look too far in distance and/or time to find many examples, and we've only a good couple of hundred years of it here ourselves. Your mate's conscience and Barry George's incarceration/freedom is a small price to pay for a system that may be far from perfect, but is at least constantly under scrutiny.

For myself and this case, it always looked pretty iffy, and one microscopic piece of gunpowder that could have come from a firework on a jacket should never have persuaded a jury. One previous juror said that they were guaranteed that this was cast iron evidence of guilt, and apart from that none of the rest of the case would have come even close to putting him away.

I don't think he was fitted up knowingly, I think the police genuinely felt he was the man, and it is their job to provide the evidence, even if it is rather weak. The CPS really shouldn't have let it get to court, but then there was A LOT of media pressure all round at the time.

[DaveR]

"Mate of mine is a Barrister. Defending legal aid cases usually. He gets guilty people off all the time. How can this be right?"

Individual cases are not really a good guide to whether the system works. Lots of possibly guilty people do get off because there isn't enough evidence, and a good barrister will point out defects and weaknesses very effectively to a jury. In any case that is mainly reliant on witness evidence, and particularly 'victim' evidence, it will be more difficult to reach the standard of proof i.e. beyond reasonable doubt. Where there is objective evidence, particularly non-witness evidence, it is much easier. Conviction rates for different offences bear this out - drug possession, where the key evidence is usually a big bag of what is undeniably heroin/coke or whatever, 90%+ conviction rate. Common assault, often no injury and one person's word against another, more like 50%.

There is no doubt that really good defence lawyers can make a difference, and that if you can pay for them you can get them. But there are very few criminal lawyers who only do privately paying work, and lots of very good ones that do almost exclusively legal aid work. Lawyers also love a challenge, andit's the case rather than the fee that is the attraction. The criminal courts are probably the part of the justice system where how much cash you have matters the least.

[SteveT]

The police were floundering in the dark and had been for months.

The boys in blue then found the 'loner' who lived in squalor, unable to keep his one room tidy.

Plod can all breathe a sigh of relief, we can put this case away now, Barry George has saved our arses.

Barry George was considered to be a simpleton, a liar, a fantasist.

He confounds all the most talented of the Met police force.

He produces a perfect murder, no forensic evidence to take seriously, no weapon, how does he do it.?

Some of the more cynical amongst us might argue he was fitted-up knowingly.

Anyone here like to serve nine years because of 'media pressure'?

For a system under constant scrutiny, a little slow to react don't you think.

This case looked pretty iffy to anyone who could share a brain cell.

All the judicial eyes closed, and their ears ceased to listen for many months, to get that man jailed.

Would you trust this same group of judiciary, with nine years or more of your life? You wouldn't, thats tough because

we have no choice, there is no option, when you are in the hands of the judiciary, your freedom is in their hands.

[Marmora Man]

"Mate of mine is a Barrister. Defending legal aid cases usually. He gets guilty people off all the time. How can this be right?"

Isn't this a bedrock of British justice - "better that 10 guilty men should go free than one innocent man be condemned". NOt sure this quote can be attributed to - and it doesn't always work as we know but it's a sentiment that's heading in the right direction

[SimonM]

>>Isn't this a bedrock of British justice - "better that 10 guilty men should go free than one innocent man be condemned"<<

Not an adage I have ever been terribly happy with, given that each of the 10 guilty men set free might then go on to murder, rape, burgle other innocent victims....And of course in England & Wales what we seem to get far too often is 10 innocents condemned & 10 guilty set free. Time to abolish the Jury System!

[HonaloochieB]

SimonM Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> >>Isn't this a bedrock of British justice -

> "better that 10 guilty men should go free than one

> innocent man be condemned"

> Not an adage I have ever been terribly happy with,

> given that each of the 10 guilty men set free

> might then go on to murder, rape, burgle other

> innocent victims....And of course in England &

> Wales what we seem to get far too often is 10

> innocents condemned & 10 guilty set free. Time to

> abolish the Jury System!

Time to put a better argument than that.

[macker]

SimonM Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> >>Isn't this a bedrock of British justice -

> "better that 10 guilty men should go free than one

> innocent man be condemned"

> Not an adage I have ever been terribly happy with,

> given that each of the 10 guilty men set free

> might then go on to murder, rape, burgle other

> innocent victims....And of course in England &

> Wales what we seem to get far too often is 10

> innocents condemned & 10 guilty set free. Time to

> abolish the Jury System!

In favour of? The lord high judge/jury/executioner HRH SimonM? Agreed, the jury system is the worst possible system. Except for all the others.

[mockney piers]

"Would you trust this same group of judiciary, with nine years or more of your life? You wouldn't, thats tough because

we have no choice, there is no option, when you are in the hands of the judiciary, your freedom is in their hands."

And your argument is SteveT, I've no idea where you're going with this. There should be no judicial system. Despite the fact that it's a human system, it should be perfect, you've found a higher and better arbiter? Please share this with us.

[SteveT]

Mockney I am afraid I do not have all the answers but I do feel the judicial system is either corrupt or incompetent.

I also feel that Barry George was fitted-up over a long period, by police and judiciary who knew, or at the very least suspected, that the path they were embarking on, was crooked.

I like you feel he was framed because of media pressure on the police.

Because of his shambolic lifestyle, he appeared expendable, except he had extensive family to help him to get justice evetually.

Suppose that his position was without the extended family he would have stayed like some others, incarcerated in perpetuity.

Nine years is far too long for a mistake of this magnitude to be rectified.

The judiciary are a law unto themselves and have far too much unfettered power, and when this monolith is set against you, it is the devils own job to turn it back to a straight path.

My feeling is, too many of the guilty go free and the punishment rarely fits the crime, and yet it appears to be far too easy to send an innocent party down, and this has not changed since Charles Dickens wrote about it over a century ago.

It has desperately needed overhauling/changing/reducing, more so than any other system in my opinion and if it is not tackled we shall deeply regret our inattention.

My rant is over and thank you for your patience Mockney I do hope you are not a lawyer;-)

[Keef]

Behold the Lord High Executioner

A personage of noble rank and title ?

A dignified and potent officer,

Whose functions are particularly vital!

Defer, defer,

To the Lord High Executioner!

Defer, defer,

To the noble Lord, to the noble Lord,

To the Lord High Executioner!

(Enter Ko-Ko)

Taken from the county jail

By a set of curious chances;

Liberated then on bail,

On my own recognizances;

Wafted by a favouring gale

As one sometimes is in trances,

To a height that few can scale,

Save by long and weary dances;

Surely, never had a male

Under such like circumstances

So adventurous a tale,

Which may rank with most romances

[mockney piers]

I don't think he was iftted up, I think the police lent too much credence to their hunches and exaggerated the importance of one piece of evidence while compiling a large amount of very dubious and circumstantial evidence. I think the CPS may have allowed it to at least go to court, where in another case, less in the media glare, they might not have been so inclined.

Then, once in the courts I think it was subject to the same rigour of any case where someone's long term freedom is involved.

I honestly don't think the judiciary acted like a law unto themselves, and he was offered the same level of defence that thankfully we all are entitled to. I don't think there was corruption, you seem to be hinting that the defence may have colluded in his conviction and I don't know where you're getting that from.

Far too much weight was given to that microscopic gunpowder fragment, with which the prosecution persuaded the jury of his guilt. Once this type of evidence was deemed inadmissible in court, the rest of the case was so weak it was only a matter of time before he would be freed. It is depressing that it took almost 2 years for this to come to pass, but institutional inertia seems to be a fact of life in most places, not just the judiciary, which I'd rather acted in a measured way rather than knee jerk if anything does.

Like I say, it's far from perfect, and there is always room for improvement, but I do think it's a good system on the whole, and better educated, trained and less corrupt than most comparable systems around.

Would you rather a system where the blatantly guilty get off because of their wealth and/or celebrity, then go on to write a book called, "I done her good and proper, now where's me small glove?" or something?

[DaveR]

SteveT, is there any particular experience or knowledge that leads to your "feelings"? I don't mean that in a confrontational way, but I would be interested to know.

"Fitting up" usually means some sort of fabrication of evidence, 'verballing', 'planting' etc. Not even a hint of that in Barry George's case, to my knowledge. The expert evidence at the first trial has now been discredited, but that's another story.

In my experience, the judiciary are far from being a 'monolith' but are a highly unpredictable body of individuals, and are often criticised for exactly that reason. Judges in criminal courts have less power than in civil courts and are generally much less interventionist now than they were in the past. There is incompetence in every field, but no more in the judiciary than elsewhere, and as for corruption, is there any evidence?

Punishment - should it be harsher or more lenient? I remember a survey a year or two ago where people were asked to guess what they thought the likely sentences were for a number of different crimes, and then say whether they thought that was too high or too low. Most people thought sentences were too low, but in fact most had significantly underestimated that actual sentences imposed.

Believe me, I have no reason to put on rose-tinted specs where judges and courts are concerned, and there is definitely room for improvement, but the Barry George case is a classic example of a miscarriage of justice because a case was so untypical. Hard cases make bad law.

[Moos]

On the topic of the defense barrister, I believe that if they are informed of a client's guilt they are unequivocally obliged either to talk them into a guilty plea or resign. Can anyone confirm?