just wondered

[gem]

hi just a thought. my son was found guilty of rape in june 2011
we are currently in process of evidence gathering with new defence team for appeal.
just wondered if something i have found out is worth telling my new solicitor .he is on holiday at the moment by the way. when we were at the trial we found out by overhearing the solicitor that they had the girls age wrong they said she was 15 when in fact she was 16 years 10 months. we told the barrister who sent for her birth cert and low and behold we were right. but our old barrister never brought this matter up to the court as to who actually gave the police her wrong age . i dread to think if we hadn,t actually over heard this he would have been found guilty of rape on a minor. being found guilty was traumatic enough when you know for a fact that they had no evidence at all .anyway a friend of afriend has just informed me that she was speaking to the girls mam on the bus about the case and the mother kept saying my poor girl was only 15 so it must have been the girl and her mam that told the police this.can i use this in the appeal what was the motive in doing this

[Casehardened]

Hi Gem,

I imagine the motive for representing that the girl was under 16 is that it would then only be necessary to prove that intercourse took place to bring a charge of (statuary) rape.

When the person making the allegation is over 16 the issue of consent/no consent comes in.

[Rights Fighter]

anyway a friend of afriend has just informed me that she was speaking to the girls mam on the bus about the case and the mother kept saying my poor girl was only 15 so it must have been the girl and her mam that told the police this.can i use this in the appeal what was the motive in doing this

Was this some random conversation on a bus and that this might have been the mother of the complainant in your case?

Re: rape/consensual sex with a minor (under 16 years): it would either be rape if no consent was given or statutory rape if there was consent but the girl was under-age.

I believe that under the age of 13 years the girl is deemed unable to give consent so that would be "rape" in any event. As we know, sadly, some girls are sexually active from the age of 11 years....freely giving consent however "in law" they cannot......

[gem]

hi thanks for reply.
yes it was the complainants mother that said this .i was just wondering why they lied about the complainants age to the police.she must have known her own daughters age at the time of complaint.it is the lies that are worrying me .just thought if i could establish that the mother and daughter lied to the police that i could use it for our appeal it would just add another lie to the list of lies she told at the trial