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.
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