Sleeping well at night, lawyer man?

The alternative is an innocent person being accused and presumed guilty. We can only acknowledge the strength and fortidude of the compainant who apparently now and as an adult has decided to seek justice and good on him. I’m sure there was an understanding of the legal system beforehand. 3 cheers and if he reads the riot act I heartily thank him for his bravery. Our English court system is terrible, but possibly the best going if you believe in innocent until proven guilty. That is not a universal program as for example in France. But that is how we do it here and the least likely component of our society to change for better or worse.

TheDancingDjinn said :

Sadly alot of sexual assaults where it is a male victim, go far more unreported than female ones. If this young man has come to court as an adult male and is standing up and saying he was raped by another man, then i’d put money on this young guy telling the truth. It breaks my heart as a person who has had a very violent and horrible crime comitted against her, that there are men and women out there who still go through this alone. Women have services to help here, men get nothing and thats truly heart shattering.

I only skimmed the posting of the case earlier today and I don’t really want to read it again tbh, so please forgive me if I don’t get the story straight:

I think the victim reported the crime fairly soon after it happened. Then some things happened – the offender disappeared, his mother died, and perhaps some other things, so that is partly why it has taken so long to get to court.

I think I read that part of the judgement involved the judge accepting the victim’s statement that he made at the time, his (now deceased) mother’s statement, and the statements of the police who initially followed up on the complaint.

The judge obviously believed the victim’s version of events. It’s a shame it took so long for it to go before the courts, but I guess an upside is that hopefully the victim is older & stronger now and better able to withstand the cross examination from the defence.

LSWCHP said :

I met a woman through some friends who described her a “survivor” of incestuous sexual abuse. At first I was appalled by her ordeal, and totally sympathetic. then over the next few years I became more and more dubious. She kept discovering new “repressed memories” through some weird form of counselling, and it seemed that as time went by she kept remembering stranger and more bizarre sounding things so that people would continue to be interested in her story.

One day she told me she’d just “remembered” an event from her childhood in which her sexually abusive father had rowed her and some other men out to an island in the middle of Sydney harbour. When they got to the island the mdn put on Ku Klux Klan outfits, tied an Aboriginal man to a cross, doused him with petrol and set him on fire while they all raped her.

I decided that this was all deranged nonsense, and it seems likely to me that all her other “recollections” were equally invalid. She was making it all up to gain attention, or for other reason that I couldn’t understand. But at the start of this process, I gather that things hadn’t gone very well for her father when her “memories” sounded a lot more plausible.

So yeah, it’s hard to read about the actions of depraved monsters, but everybody deserves the best defence they can get, because the accusations may be false. It’s a very problematic situation.

Memory regression and what not is a load of shit! – if you don’t remember it in your waking times then it never happened.

I met a woman through some friends who described her a “survivor” of incestuous sexual abuse. At first I was appalled by her ordeal, and totally sympathetic. then over the next few years I became more and more dubious. She kept discovering new “repressed memories” through some weird form of counselling, and it seemed that as time went by she kept remembering stranger and more bizarre sounding things so that people would continue to be interested in her story.

One day she told me she’d just “remembered” an event from her childhood in which her sexually abusive father had rowed her and some other men out to an island in the middle of Sydney harbour. When they got to the island the mdn put on Ku Klux Klan outfits, tied an Aboriginal man to a cross, doused him with petrol and set him on fire while they all raped her.

I decided that this was all deranged nonsense, and it seems likely to me that all her other “recollections” were equally invalid. She was making it all up to gain attention, or for other reason that I couldn’t understand. But at the start of this process, I gather that things hadn’t gone very well for her father when her “memories” sounded a lot more plausible.

So yeah, it’s hard to read about the actions of depraved monsters, but everybody deserves the best defence they can get, because the accusations may be false. It’s a very problematic situation.

Sadly alot of sexual assaults where it is a male victim, go far more unreported than female ones. If this young man has come to court as an adult male and is standing up and saying he was raped by another man, then i’d put money on this young guy telling the truth. It breaks my heart as a person who has had a very violent and horrible crime comitted against her, that there are men and women out there who still go through this alone. Women have services to help here, men get nothing and thats truly heart shattering.

Lawyers will do what lawyers do … I just hope that there’s a really special place in hell for that boys father.

“I guess someone has to defend the accused but…”

But what? The accused is sitting there potentially with their freedom in the balance, it’s only fair that they get to respond to every allegation which is put towards them.

I’m not going to say that lawyers don’t overstep the mark, but basically the “right of reply” is one of the most important legal things we have.

Where our legal system falls down is the grossly inadequate sentences which are then handed down. You can tell it’s inadequate by the number of repeat offenders which end up in the courts over and over again.

drfelonious said :

What would make me uneasy was if the likes of the OP got to sit in judgement on people accused of sex abuse. You know, throw out the hundreds of years of the jury trial system because…/quote>

Don’t mean to rain on your parade but the defendant opted for a judge only trial

weeziepops, are you advocating the abolishment of the Cab-Rank rule?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cab-rank_rule

I think the lawyer would be sleeping very well indeed.

What would make me uneasy was if the likes of the OP got to sit in judgement on people accused of sex abuse. You know, throw out the hundreds of years of the jury trial system because it is – shock horror – a sex abuse case (the new witchcraft).

What does the OP suggest as an alternative – trial by fire perhaps?

colourful sydney racing identity said :

Classified said :

Wow, that transcript is truly dreadful. The poor kid.

+1 couldn’t read it all.

I chose not to read right to the end. I know this stuff happens in society, but it’s just terrible for those who are actually exposed to it.

hang on – he was a kid when all the awful stuff happened – wasn’t that trial 11 years later? So he was an adult remembering what happened?

i mean – how could you ever forget….

Classified said :

Wow, that transcript is truly dreadful. The poor kid.

+1 couldn’t read it all.

devils_advocate said :

It’s an adversarial system and everyone is entitled to the most thorough defence their advocate can make. Think about the position you would be in if you were accused of a serious crime – would you want your advocate making up their own mind about whether you were guilty or innocent and then moderating his efforts accordingly? No, you would want him trying as hard as he could to ensure you remain free.

In cases like these, people can and do lie. The system’s not perfect but it’s axiomatic that it’s better for 100 guilty men to go free than for one innocent to be imprisoned.

Also I doubt it’s easy for the lawyer. FWIW, the lawyer is not allowed to lead evidence or questions suggesting innocence if that is inconsistent with what his client has told him (ie based on the info above, it would appear the defendant has instructed his solicitor/barrister it didn’t happen).

+1

It’s very difficult, because if it didn’t happen and lawyer couldn’t suggest things like this, then where does that leave the accused?

I had a friend in early High School who told me she was sexually assulted, then confessed a couple of years later that she made it up. Not everyone tells the truth, simple as that.

Appalling.

How do we get a punishment to fit the crime? Drawing and quartering is too kind ….

Such cases are very difficult, a good friend of mine is going through pretty much similar experience, her ex-husband was sexually abusing their now under 10 years old daughter, but authorities are very cautious, hard to prove case, although specialist psychologist confirms that child did not make any of it up. No physical internal damages-no case, pretty much.They were good, wealthy family.

Wow, that transcript is truly dreadful. The poor kid.

It’s an adversarial system and everyone is entitled to the most thorough defence their advocate can make. Think about the position you would be in if you were accused of a serious crime – would you want your advocate making up their own mind about whether you were guilty or innocent and then moderating his efforts accordingly? No, you would want him trying as hard as he could to ensure you remain free.

In cases like these, people can and do lie. The system’s not perfect but it’s axiomatic that it’s better for 100 guilty men to go free than for one innocent to be imprisoned.

Also I doubt it’s easy for the lawyer. FWIW, the lawyer is not allowed to lead evidence or questions suggesting innocence if that is inconsistent with what his client has told him (ie based on the info above, it would appear the defendant has instructed his solicitor/barrister it didn’t happen).

colourful sydney racing identity said :

It is a really vexed issue. How else can the lawyer defend his/her client other than arguing that the child was lying or mistaken?

He could try arguing self defense.

It is a really vexed issue. How else can the lawyer defend his/her client other than arguing that the child was lying or mistaken?

At the very least it is good you can actually read about this stuff from court documents. It means we are actually taking people to court over child rape. This in itself is a new thing. 30 years ago, in the ACT, male rape laws didn’t exist as sexual assault.