Quote:
Originally Posted by punky
Also the jury did have the absolute power to acquit him even though the crime is a "strict liability" or whatever. The fact they only deliberated for 20 minutes means they probably didn't even try.
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The thing with "strict liability," is that is does not allow a defence of ignorance, nor does "mens rea" need to be proved. This is what he court os using as a means to prosecute. There has to be something more to this case and I am puzzled as to why we are not being given the full facts.
---------- Post added at 13:42 ---------- Previous post was at 13:36 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kymmy
Hmmm, change the law and see a load of guilty people walk, or make a single innocent man suffer..Surely the police should have "lost" evidence in this one so the CPS couldn't proceed.
Make me wonder what I would have done.. Leave it in a low wall garden for the original criminal to return and recover or even worse a kid to climb over retrieving his/her ball and find... or pick up the weapon, make it safe by unloading and then put it securely away until the police came.. It's not as though him (or even myself) isn't qualified to make the weapon safe...
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Going by that assumption, one would have to assume that he has some knowledge of firearms regulations and what dangers the gun could have presented, whilst transporting it to the police station. But we still don't know what it was doing in the garden in the first place. It is a strong probability that the gun had been used in a criminal act, at some point and this person was connected to that incident, but this is the only crime they can prove he is guilty of. A bit like tax evasion for Al Capone (not suggesting that this person is of that same league, but just as an example).
---------- Post added at 13:44 ---------- Previous post was at 13:42 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kymmy
If there is then I'm sure that now the story has gone viral it'll soon pop out
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I can't find anything on it, except a couple of local news sites.