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To all those seeking clarity amidst the swirling rumours and misinformation, we welcome your enquiries and are committed to addressing any concerns you may have. Our campaign stands firmly against the spread of fake news and is dedicated to fostering open and honest communication. We encourage you to reach out to us directly through email, as we are here to provide accurate information and engage in meaningful dialogue. Together, let’s set the record straight and build a foundation of truth.
QUESTION-1: Was Joseph convicted of rape?
ANSWER: NO. Joseph was not convicted of rape. The conviction says that he “incited” his partner to engage in oral sex when she was aged-fifteen, but his partner said that their relationship and sexual life began when she was aged-sixteen. For persons age- sixteen to engage in romantic relationship is not a criminal offence in law of this country.
However, what his prosecutors did not know was that because of his sensory disability, he doesn’t really like being touched and those who knew him sexually in the past testified that he doesn’t like being given oral sex.
QUESTION: Is it not a criminal offence to make sex images of persons age-sixteen?
ANSWER: Section 1A of the Protection of Children Act 1978, in which Joseph was convicted, says that it is NOT an offence to make sex images of person age-sixteen, ONLY if you are in a family relationship with this person. In this case, there is parental consent to marry between Joseph and his partner before his arrest; they already acquired a 3-bed room house and renovating their house when Joseph was arrested, they bought a car and an engagement ring. And they lived together as partners in an enduring family relationship before Joseph was arrested for being in this relationship.
QUESTION: If the lady said there was no under-age sex and that their relationship began when she was aged-sixteen, which is of course within the legal age of consent, and it is not a crime for making sex images of themselves since they were in a family relationship when the images were made, why was Joseph prosecuted and convicted for this?
ANSWER: Joseph was prosecuted and convicted on Opinion-Evidence. As such, the jury verdict was decided on a ‘Balance of probability’, which is a lower standard of proof in a criminal trial, as opposed to “Beyond Reasonable Doubt”. There was no allegation or evidence that ‘Under-age sex’ occurred or that the lady “cried or distress” in a 29-second video selfie they had. This case and the nature of its opinion-evidence is now the subject of appeal, and we have been strictly advice not to discuss the minute of the case while this process is ongoing.
Question: Would you be publishing on the internet the whole narratives of the case after the appeal process is over?
ANSWER: If the conviction is quashed, there would remain no further interest to publish the minutes of this case.
QUESTION: Why does the learning-disability matters on the conviction? There are millions of dyslexic people on the planet, Richard Branson the Virgin Billionaire is one, does this woman have other learning disability condition?
ANSWER: The woman was not on the disability register before Joseph was arrested for forging a family relationship with her. She attended a special school because she was dyslexic. There was nothing on her medical records before Joseph was arrested that she has any sort of learning disability impeding choice. The case of such learning disability as described on the conviction was submitted at trial as Opinion-Evidence and not medically certified that she does have this condition.
QUESTION: If this is a criminal case and this man has gone to prison for it, can you provide any photographic evidence of court papers where the trial-Judge directed the jury to ‘Balance on probability’ and not ‘Beyond reasonable doubt’?
ANSWER: We cannot provide any photographic evidence of court papers at this stage, because this case is currently under investigation at the CCRC. If this conviction is not quashed after the CCRC ongoing process, then all relevant evidential materials on this case would be published all over the internet for the world to see. If we get to that point, you should look out for the Judge’s Direction to the Jury page Volume:27C and 28D to 28G. The trial-Judge directed the Jury that they do not have to be sure of his guilt before bringing a guilty verdict. The Judge said to the jury on quote: “that the phrase balance of probabilities means it is more probable than not, not that you have to be sure that it was the case”. Also, on Volume: 4F, the trial-Judge directed the jury that: “on a balance of probabilities, that they were in such a relationship, living together as partners in an enduring family relationship. If you are not sure that they probably were then he would be guilty of that count.”
Whereas, the word ‘probably’ is used when you think something happened or may be true, but you’re not certain enough to say it definitely happen for fact. If the Judge had actually applied the criminal standard of proof of ‘Beyond a reasonable doubt’, the jury would not be told to do ‘mini mini mani mo’ or toss a coin to verdict the case. The evidence that they lived together in the same house, they shared the same bedroom and sleep on the same bed everyday in their relationship, and their clothes are hanged in the same wardrobe, and they already seek parental consent to marry, with engagement ring and renovating their house they planned to move in by July-2015, all these are beyond a reasonable doubt evidence.
What particular care could we say the trial-Judge had applied to distinguish between situations where there is an evidential burden for a defendant to raise a particular defence of being in a marriageable relationship, and where the defendant has the legal burden of proving the defence that he is in a marriageable relationship? In this particular case, the evidential proof lies in witness statements of Joseph Spencer, his partner and her parents whom parental consent was sought from, outside the probability opinion of the juror, the police, the CPS, the Judge and society at large. The evidential proof of being in a marriageable relationship remain present in this case and everywhere on court-papers, how deceptive to go the probability proof route as though the evidence does not exist!
The fact that the Judge gave the jury the freedom to bring a verdict on probability proof means the jury were free to employed their personal prejudices against the couple’s age-gap relationship and perceived opinions to find an innocent man guilty.
QUESTION: The age-gap relationship doesn’t appear to raise any moral issue with me personally. A lot of young women in this country married at age sixteen or with a child and lives independently. It is now clear to people that the newspaper articles have not reported the truths of this man’s case. My concern is where the newspaper said that the lady was a school girl at the time. Does this not suggest the reason the school teachers got involved in the case to make the lady prioritised her education above going into marriage?
ANSWER: The newspapers’ articles copied their stories from a single source i.e the police/prosecution, where the clinical name for the learning difficulty was not disclosed to the Courts, and hidden from both the Jury and the media. The learning difficulty in fact is Dyslexia. The impacts of dyslexia on the individual, parents and society have been shown in several scientific research to be characterised by negative thoughts which, in turn, tend to worsen self-image and can lead to clinical depression [1]. It is public knowledge that dyslexic people do badly academically and form high percentage of school drop-outs in their teenage years. This lady cried and begged her parents on almost on a daily basis that she wanted to drop-out of school, but she was not allowed to do so and was continually forced to go back to school to avoid problems with the Social Services.
It was very clear that this young woman suffered mental health from being forced into school life and forced education that she clearly had no social capacity for due to her dyslexia. As soon as the lady turned sixteen, she entered into this relationship with Spencer. Apparently, Spencer was known in the community to be a single man and had expressed strong desire to marry and to settle down. Spencer, being an autistic man that conduct his affairs strictly based on rules, demanded that due to her age by law parental consent must be sought before they can forge such relationship. This is actually in conformity with Spencer’s African culture as well.
Parental consent was refused at the initial stage. The lady expressed distress and got in a commotion with her parents for their abrupt refusal. Without going into the specifics of this woman’s mental distress, knowing what we know about mental health in teenagers in general and their tendency to self-harm or commit suicide. In 2018, 759 young people took their own life in the UK and Republic of Ireland, data shows. In the UK, suicide rates among young people have been increasing in recent years. The suicide rate for young females is now at its highest rate on record.[5].
About 7% of people have attempted suicide by the age of seventeen and almost one in four say they have self-harmed in the past year, according to a paper in the British Journal of Psychiatry…The data, which is nationally representative, can be extrapolated to the UK population to give figures of 52,427 17-year-olds having attempted suicide at some point in their lives and 170,744 having self-harmed in the previous 12 months before Covid hit….“So we have widespread societal driving factors which are most certainly impacting on children.
The other issue is education has been a huge stress for young people,” she said, adding that a general rise in mental health problems was contributing to a rise in self-harming.” “I think it’s important that all children are able to thrive in the education system. We know 50% of young people make it to university and another 50% don’t, and within that group there are lots of disadvantaged children with learning difficulties or autism or looked-after and traumatised children. We need equal chances for all children,” she said.” The report said: “Age 17 marks an important age before many key life transitions, including the ending of compulsory education and moving away from home [5].
The emotional impact of a lifetime of shame and feeling stupid should not be underestimated. Students with learning disabilities like dyslexia have a three times higher risk of attempting suicide [2]. Having dyslexia, or another learning disability, is still stigmatised and misunderstood in many school districts, and many public schools do not have the resources or knowledge to educate students that require additional accommodations adequately. These combined forces have contributed to a staggering drop-out rate for students with special educational needs [3]; which is another upsetting consequence of our unwillingness to understand teenagers living with dyslexia in their need for practical education and their desire for particular social needs. Adults who experienced four or more adversities in their childhood are four times more likely to have low levels of mental wellbeing and life satisfaction [6].
As parents, should we forced our morality on our teenagers and drove them into irrecoverable mental health for life or suicide, or guide them on their chosen life paths through counselling and advise to let them grow and learn through their own lived-experiences? The parents chose the latter and eventually grant her the parental consent to marry Spencer, knowing that there was already an history of teenage self-harming in the family. One of her parents expressed education. She reiterated her wish to drop-out of school, to marry Spencer and to go into a business.
Research have shown that work options at sixteen for the young person who does not wish to continue formal education due to negative experiences of school because of dyslexia may be limited. Many dyslexics who left school at this age, such as Richard Branson and Lord Sugar, have made their millions, but not everyone can do as well as them. Interestingly, though, research from the Cass Business School in London found that more than a third of the entrepreneurs surveyed (35 per cent) identified themselves as dyslexic [4]. In the case of Spencer and his partner, there was certain talk about starting an off-licence shop/Art shop business following her particular interests and desires as an individual. Research have shown the many positive aspects to having dyslexia and a lot of sixteen-year-olds choose careers suited to their unique characteristics. Indeed, there are successful dyslexic role models in many walks of life, such as architect Richard Rogers and chef Jamie Oliver [4].
Spencer, being a highly academic man, intervened and pleaded with her to complete her ongoing last term at school at the time before starting the business venture planned for her. She was scheduled to finish in a few months anyway, and the reasoning Spencer gave was simply that going to school is not about passing exams and that it’s about learning the process of something; and that to have a failed educational certificate is beneficial than to have known at all – This is a common mental reasoning with academics. If not of Spencer, she would no longer be at school at the time of his arrest. Even though she was not happy going back to school, she accepted Spencer’s advise to finish the last school term she was already on, in recognition of their enduring family life relationship and set plan to open a business that suited her unique interests in arts.
It is generally accepted by the experts in dyslexia that the answer to managing dyslexia is not to have special schools, as the disabilities are subtle and often mild, but to get these young people accommodated in the mainstream schools, with special support. Dyslexic people need to believe that they are not stupid but have a disability that can be overcome once it is properly understood [1].
Teenagers with dyslexia are struggling in school and are dropping out at astonishing rates as soon as they enter age sixteen. Why? Because we have evidence that the Special School this lady was placed failed in their duty of care to teach her how to read in the way she learn before Spencer was arrested. It was in 2015 during the Court proceeding that the School added additional years to her school leaving date and taught her how to read and write moderately, in response to Spencer’s case against the school authority. Apparently, it was Spencer who took the responsibility to teaching her how to read and write in the course of their family life relationship.
The prospect of setting a realistic and attainable goals with Spencer derailed the lack of opportunity that the achievement of educational failure presented to this dyslexic woman. Her emotional needs were met; she no longer express feelings of mental health or the negative feelings of being forced to go to school and passing exams; marriage date was set to February 2017; there was plan to move in to their own 3-bed house under renovation at the time; they walked hand-in-hand on the streets and do normal things in any given relationship. All of these helped her to live above her dyslexia and recovery from long exposure to mental health, depression and social discontentment with life.
All the investigating police officer Donna Hector cared about was to add Spencer to her long lists of sexual offending conviction of men to advance her own egoistical desires for work promotion and Queen’s medal as at 2015/2016. We have carried out our investigations about who done what and why. All she saw was how the public image of black man, dreadlocks, coupled with sexual relation between age-gap could be manipulated to give a certain public narratives, and that’s enough for her to falsified evidence against the innocent and win conviction. How pathetically narcissistic!
This raised particular problem when, in our 21st century, our Criminal Justice System is still operating on the old arm of Anglo-Saxon law template (that spans approximately in the six centuries from 410-1066AD) and places the establishment of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in the same prosecuting field over the police, as opposed to placing the police in lower field arbitrator capacity directly with the Courts. Quite often we see Police and CPS collude together to convict someone and the Judges had to throw the case out of courts most of the time; wasting courts’ time and resources. Hence, a lot of police are not conversant with the law they purports to wield their power with and they have to be educated all the time by ordinary members of the public.
Whereas, if the Criminal Justice System operates in line with the 21st century advances, the police would have to apply directly to the Courts administratively for an ‘Overture’ hearing before a formalised charge can be brought against a person for an offence. Any such notice of an overture hearing against an individual would carry equal parallel power of a charge with imposed restrictions, but is less of a charge in itself.
To put it simply, an overture hearing is merely a proposal for a charge with the defendant in attendance if wish to do so, in which the conclusion of that hearing would result in the court’s verdict for a charge and a preliminary hearing for a plea will be set. Obviously, if a defendant do not attend own overture hearing and a charge is brought, it will in the eye of the court make the individual pose a higher risk of being remanded in prison pending the conclusion of the case. Administratively, the CPS would be on-call by the order of the Courts to represents the public interest or the proposed victim against the defendant in the existence of a criminal charge after such overture hearing.
In Spencer’s case, the case was almost thrown out of courts, with particular emphasis that the case was not fit for a criminal trial. It was dragged on for a year between 2015 and 2016. When the minutes of this case is published, if we do get to that stage in this process, the world would see the lies, deception, intimidation, bully, threats, perpetrated against a lone vulnerable man by individual parties they put to the courts to push the case to trial by force of deception. Sometimes when a group of people colluded together to destroy someone’s life with a lie, they forgot that their own lives too can be destroyed in the same fashion with the truths.
REFERENCES:
[1] Al-Lamki L. Dyslexia: Its impact on the Individual, Parents and Society. Sultan Qaboos Univ Med J. 2012 Aug;12(3):269-72. doi: 10.12816/0003139. Epub 2012 Jul 15. PMID: 23269947; PMCID: PMC3529660. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3529660/
[2] Why We Should All Care About Dyslexia. https://dyslexiauntied961254870.wordpress.com/why-we-should-all-care-about-dyslexia-the-societal-impacts-of-dyslexia/
[3] Understanding the dyslexic drop-out: why students with learning disabilities graduate at a lower rate than their peers, By mcd49 on . https://campuspress.yale.edu/edstudiescourses/dyslexic-drop-out/
[4] Coping with dyslexia post-16. By Katrina Cochrane. https://senmagazine.co.uk/content/specific-needs/dyslexia-spld/1239/coping-with-dyslexia-post-16/
[5] About 7% of UK children have attempted suicide by age of 17 – study, by Sarah Marsh, Sun 21 Feb 2021 16.00 GMT. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/21/uk-17-year-olds-mental-health-crisis
[6] Mental health is a big issue for young people. https://www.youngminds.org.uk/about-us/media-centre/mental-health-statistics/
QUESTION: What was causing all the excitements on the newspaper articles and what they took as the main reason for conviction was the ’50-Shades of Grey’ costume where Spencer was being insulted and that he forced the lady to wear the cloths and enjoyed it. What do you say about this?
ANSWER: The allegation that Spencer forced his partner to wear a ’50 Shades of Grey’ costume was made at the opening speech of the trial by the prosecution barrister as ‘Opinion-Evidence’. The CPS barrister said to the court that they have no witness evidence against Spencer and that the police case was brought to trial on opinion-evidence. Whether such ‘Opinion-Evidence’ is admissible in British courts in a case such as this is another question the police and the CPS failed to asked themselves, and turned themselves into ‘Morality Police and Morality Prosecutors’.
In witness evidence with the police and at the trial, the lady said that she was not forced to wear the 50-shades of grey costume; that she never cried or in distress during any activity with Spencer; that their relationship and sexual life was entirely consensual; and that it was her idea to watch the ’50-Shades of Grey’ movie and had suggested getting the costume as well.
In Spencer’s evidence to the court, he said that they bought the costume on eBay and it was an Halloween 50 shades of grey theme with a plastic handcuff that requires no key to open and unlock. His partner wore it and tried it on and they took a few selfies of it together laughing and joking and messed around with the costume kissing and cuddling for selfies and two short videos lasting 29-seconds and 68-seconds. This occurred on a single occasion, and that was the end of their curiosity with the 50-shades of grey costume.
In police evidence, Donna Hector presented to the jury the Halloween 50-shades theme selfies of the couple. In respecting the ongoing CCRC process at this stage, we can only go as far as to say that, she re-edited and reduced the duration of one of the videos to hide a very crucial statement evidence that Spencer made in part of the video to the jury. The couple’s voice in the other video was muted and replaced with an unknown child’s voice that appear to be on aesthetics on a dentist surgery making the ‘eeeeiiiiieiiieeeee’ sounding. The couple broke down in tears at how this evil police woman falsified evidence against them in court. The police now claimed to had destroyed these evidence of the couple’s selfies and short videos to prevent it from being presented at the Appeal-court.
Immediately after the jury verdict, the Judge immediately started reading out sentence remarks. It was at that stage that police Donna Hector passed a note to the Judge in open court. The Judge then began to read from that note and all the narratives and more turned up on all the newspapers’ articles in the same way. As we can see, the newspapers’ false narratives of the case was Donna Hector’s pre-planned idea of how she imagined and wanted the case to be publicly told.
Whereas, If the police had done their due diligence on this case to know the sexual personality of Spencer, they would find, as we have found, that on speaking to some of the women he had been in sexual relation with in the past, each and every one of them expressed disbelief and shocked about the conviction narratives. They all confirmed that he had no single shred of kinkiness in him or ever suggested any interest in bondage sex with anyone. One even said that one would try hard to make him try new things he had never done before.
We went to all the areas he had lived and neighbours expressed that he was a very quiet, easy going, and a very respectful man and that when he’s home you’d rarely even know that he was around. This man has never been a club-goer, has never been known to the police as some kind of a ‘bad-boy’ type, has never drank alcohol or ever smoke even. After Donna Hector falsified evidence to the jury and ‘won’ conviction against an innocent man, she immediately populated her lies about Spencer to her friends in the media, and none of them have the gut to challenge us today!
QUESTION: The criminal conviction that the woman was “crying and distressed” has now been exposed to be a lie, and there was no victim allegation in this case. The interest in bondage is a trend among this generation, with some people liking such practices. However, the big age-gap between Joseph and his partner has raised moral concerns within the community.
ANSWER: Age gap relationships, not defined as an offence by law, highlight a fundamental principle: individuals within the legal age of consent are entitled to engage in romantic relationships and marriage. The legal age of consent in the UK began at age 16. This perspective aligns with two significant legal theories: Natural law and Legal positivism.
Natural law suggests that laws are based on inherent moral principles shared by humans. In the context of age gap relationships, if both parties are within the legal age of consent and consenting, Natural law argue that their mutual consent reflects a natural, moral right to pursue happiness and companionship, regardless of age differences.
Legal positivism, on the other hand, emphasises that laws are rules established by the State, and citizens are obliged to follow these laws, irrespective of personal morals or cultural practices. Since our legal system do not specify age gap relationships as an offence, provided both Joseph and his partner are of legal consenting age, their family life relationship with parental consent to marry are legally permissible in British law. Legal positivism requires individuals to adhere to the explicit statutes of their country, which, in this case, do not prohibit relationships based on age differences.
Thus, from both a Natural law perspective, which prioritises inherent moral rights, and a Legal positivism viewpoint, which mandates adherence to the explicit laws of the State, age gap relationships, when involving consenting people within the legal age of consent, are both morally acceptable and legally valid. Individuals, irrespective of their personal or cultural morals, are obliged to respect the national laws of their country, which, in British law, allow for such big age gap relationship between Joseph and his partner legally permissible.
It is by law offensive to the UK legal principle for anyone to criticise the age-gap relationship between Joseph and his partner. Joseph and his partner can sue anyone to court who criticise their age-gap relationship and seek appropriate compensation for injury to feelings, because age-gap relationship is not prescribed as an offence in British law. As a community, we should be conversant with the law so we are not led by prejudice people that would drag the name of a whole community into disrepute contrary to the law we strive to uphold.
Joseph originate from an African cultural practices where men are morally expected to be older than their partner, if not significantly older. The age-gap difference between King Charles and princess Diana is practically within the same category as the age-gap relationship between Joseph and his partner. Are we safe to say that famous people are allowed to engage in big age-gap relationships and marriages, and ordinary people are not? Joseph and his partner have been a victim of bad policing and they require our support to overturn the conviction. As a community, we should not be distracted by our individual personal morals against age gap relationships, because that is immaterial to the essence of this case. We should be wholly concern about the nature of police and CPS ‘Opinion Evidence’ to prosecute and convict anyone based on subjective opinion without any victim allegation and falsification of evidence at court trial.
As a community, we should be particularly grateful that Joseph had legal experience and was a legal executive and had not lose a case before his prosecution and conviction, which, as we found out was not fully disclosed to Police Donna Hector not until after she falsified evidence against him and sent him to prison. If Joseph was not legally experienced, he would ofcouse lack the legal knowledge to defend himself against his prosecutors. It is particularly important that this conviction does not stand, because it would then be easy for the police to rely on the subjective ‘Opinion Evidence’ of this case as a case-precedent to began to prosecute other people they simply don’t like in society and sent to prison, where the police would no longer require factual evidence to convict or require the court to verdict a criminal case on the well-revered British legal principle of ‘Beyond a Reasonable Doubt’, but simply on the opinion evidence of ‘police say so’ and court jury verdict brought by ‘Balance of probability’. This would be dangerous and a bad legacy to leave to our younger generation. It wouldn’t be long before it all comes home to roost and becomes the convention; where our children and granchildren are ending up in prisons on subjective opinion of police tyranny and a law unto themselves.