Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Prosecuting people

Oh dear!

Rape complainant is not the prosecutor


The Court of Appeal has said so


“If she were to be regarded as a prosecutor, so was every key witness whom an acquitted defendant considered to have lied, with incalculable consequences for both the civil and criminal justice systems.”

Of course, it is more complicated than that.

If she had deliberately manipulated the authorities into taking a course which they would not otherwise have taken then she would be regarded in law as the prosecutor. Otherwise the Crown Prosecution Service would, for all legal purposes, be the prosecutor.

Interestingly, or depressingly, the Court ruled that she would not be the prosecutor even if she had lied. My original preference for being called the prosecutor (Prosecutor or victim?) was of course based on the assumption that I would be telling the truth.



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