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Last week I took a poke at the Crown Prosecution Service for foolishly sending a case to court involving a trivial injury by a Pritt Stick. I made the point that some cases require the application of a good dose of common sense.
Yesterday a man was cleared by Sheffield Crown Court of a charge of rape falsely brought by a woman who eighteen months earlier had made a similar false claim against a man who ended up committing suicide as a result.
In the latest case, the judge said, ‘The evidence did not, and was never going to, prove rape’. Judge Patrick Robertshaw went on to deliver a scathing attack on the Crown Prosecution Service, part of which is worth repeating here:
‘The prime overriding consideration in the CPS’s decision had been merely that the complainant wished the case to go ahead. It was little short of a craven abdication of responsibility for making an independent and fair minded assessment of the case. It is quite astonishing these decisions are made by those who simply do not have experience of what happens in Crown Court because they never come into Crown Court. They sit behind desks and make decisions that result in this sort of trial taking place.’
The shocking thing is that, after making such allegations against two innocent men, the woman involved cannot be named. The law here should be changed, and quickly.
One hopes that someone will shake up the Crown Prosecution Service who are also heavily criticised this morning for bringing the case against two ten-year-old boys accused of raping an eight-year-old girl who some say may merely have been playing ‘doctors and nurses’.
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Last week I took a poke at the Crown Prosecution Service for foolishly sending a case to court involving a trivial injury by a Pritt Stick. I made the point that some cases require the application of a good dose of common sense.
Yesterday a man was cleared by Sheffield Crown Court of a charge of rape falsely brought by a woman who eighteen months earlier had made a similar false claim against a man who ended up committing suicide as a result.
In the latest case, the judge said, ‘The evidence did not, and was never going to, prove rape’. Judge Patrick Robertshaw went on to deliver a scathing attack on the Crown Prosecution Service, part of which is worth repeating here:
‘The prime overriding consideration in the CPS’s decision had been merely that the complainant wished the case to go ahead. It was little short of a craven abdication of responsibility for making an independent and fair minded assessment of the case. It is quite astonishing these decisions are made by those who simply do not have experience of what happens in Crown Court because they never come into Crown Court. They sit behind desks and make decisions that result in this sort of trial taking place.’
The shocking thing is that, after making such allegations against two innocent men, the woman involved cannot be named. The law here should be changed, and quickly.
One hopes that someone will shake up the Crown Prosecution Service who are also heavily criticised this morning for bringing the case against two ten-year-old boys accused of raping an eight-year-old girl who some say may merely have been playing ‘doctors and nurses’.
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