need some advice on appeal

[gem]

hi new to this site
my story is very long but will try to keep it brief
firstly my son was accused of rape in dec 2010 he made a mistake of telling his friend he had been place d on the sex offenders register for slapping a young girls behind for a bit of fun she cried assault he admitted he done it for a laugh he got probation and asked to sign the register for 3 years he was 25 she was 15
that happened 3 years ago and we told nobody . but he got a bit drunk one night and told all to this friend . before you know it everybody in the area knew but laughed it off. as my son is a bit of a daft lad likes a laugh and a drink with his mates
then on dec 20th the police came to the house and arrested my son on a suspicion of rape . the allegation was made by a local girl 17 years old with a hugh reputation she lived next door to my sons good friend from school as my son was a regular visitor to his house. he met the girl on several occasions so was dumb struck when the allegation was made he was remanded on bail until his trial in june 2011 we used the solicitor on call at the police station to take the case
what a mistake that was .. she said he raped her in august 2010 and couldnt remember when but a hot sunny day in august . she lied about everything in court including her clothing on 2 separate interviews she changed her story
she never knew him then she did what she was wearing she said she told her brother the day after he took the stand and said she never. she said she told her friend 2 days later and showed her bruises on her neck and wrists but her friend said it was November and the bruises were yellow .. no dna was their the barrister never even took the jury to the place where it was supposed to take place it was apparently on a public footpath used by police dogs and dog walkers on a afternoon she admitted to lying about her age she told police she was 15 they never even checked i overheard the judge talking about her age i told him it was wrong through the barrister they sent for her birth cert she was 17 she admitted she has know my son for 3 years and not met him on face book as she had stated before she admitted she lied about telling people straight away we knew she was targeting him for compo after all he was a sex offender she lied about several points she said he ran away afterwards then he stood and urinated i told the barrister about the urinating after her statement on the stand i told him my son cannott stand up to urinate because of problems with his bladder from birth he dismissed it and said unless you can prove it leave it alone my son was found unanimously guilty after 15 mins we are devastated he was even offered a deal before the trial if he admitted to unlawful sex would get 18 months he refused so now has been given 7 years for something he never did we want to appeal the judge did make a mistake on his summing up but the barrister didnt think it would not have made a difference to the outcome a few other matters were allowed as well we have now found she has made allegations before but don,t know if it was reported were do we go from here regarding appeal

[largactyl1]

Hi, so sorry that you have had to find this site and that your son is in the position he finds himself in. I don't know anything about appeals but just wanted to tell you that someone who knows will be along at some point. There are a lot of people here who know what they are talking about, so it is a good place to get advice and also to vent as many of us have loved ones who have been falsely accused - as well as obviously people who have been falsely accused themselves.
Regards
Jen

[Casehardened]

Hi,

I can't advise on on the appeal procedure, there are forum members better qualified to do this, but I wanted just to pick up on one point:

If the investigating detectives, the CPS, and the judge all thought the girl was a minor (under 16) they likely proceeded on the assumption that this was a statuary rape (i.e. the girl cannot give consent, therefore any sexual intercourse must be rape) and presumably this was why he was offered the plea bargain of unlawful sex.

As she has proved to be over the age of consent, then the only issue is of consent. If intercourse actually took place (not sure from your post whether it did or not) then this makes a crucial difference to defending the case.

My thoughts are that her deception about her age should form the basis of an appeal, or at the very least a retrial. After all, what if he had accepted the plea bargain of unlawful sex and it then transpired she was over 16!

Edit; to add that this suggestion hinges on whether she was over 16 in Aug 2010, the date of the alleged offence, rather than the date of the trial.

[Rights Fighter]

the judge did make a mistake on his summing up but the barrister didnt think it would not have made a difference to the outcome

a few other matters were allowed as well

we have now found she has made allegations before but don,t know if it was reported

were do we go from here regarding appeal

If the judge made a mistake in summing up that can sometimes be enough to quash the convictions but this would result in a retrial where he could be found guilty all over again.

When did you find out that she has made previous false allegations? Was this known before the trial? If it was, why was this not put to the jury? If it was not put at trial then an appeals solicitor can try to find out if these were official complaints. If they were not official complaints do you know the people she accused? If you do, would they help?

Has trial counsel written a document called an Advice on Appeal? If not he or she should have done and the defendant is entitled to one free of charge.

When you post up your answers will you please do it so that is is not in one block? One long paragraph with no punctuation makes it very difficult to read and understand. Thank you.

Please do not post up too much on here as the general public can read every word, which means that so can the police - and we know that they do.

[gem]

advice on appeal

hi thanks for your reply
sorry about punctuation marks ,i was actually writing the post very late at night ,
and was just twittering on.
firstly it is a bit complicated , because we knew she had a a bad reputation before the trial, but we only had hearsay .so we couldn"t use it . we had 3 juries at the trial because of the defence and the prosecution , arguing it out what should be allowed to be said in the evidence, my son was ordered not to say anything about her on the stand that would put her in a bad light,and in return my son being on the sex offenders register, would not be used against him. it was during the trial, before the 3rd and final jury came in , that we found out she was 16 years 9months . at the alleged rape, i asked our solicitor at the time if she had disclosure, and he said yes im. sure the defence did that , but if they had her date of birth wrong, could they still have got this ? no sexual intercourse took place at all, he was never alone with her ever . he has denied this all the way .. i do know that her witness, who said she saw the bruises 3months later. has got a record as long as her arm .can this be classed as an unsafe witness? my son has now been sentenced to 7 years .....

[Rights Fighter]

hi thanks for your reply
sorry about punctuation marks ,i was actually writing the post very late at night ,
and was just twittering on.

firstly it is a bit complicated , because we knew she had a a bad reputation before the trial, but we only had hearsay .so we couldn"t use it .

we had 3 juries at the trial because of the defence and the prosecution , arguing it out what should be allowed to be said in the evidence,

my son was ordered not to say anything about her on the stand that would put her in a bad light,and in return my son being on the sex offenders register, would not be used against him. it was during the trial, before the 3rd and final jury came in , that we found out she was 16 years 9months . at the alleged rape,

i asked our solicitor at the time if she had disclosure, and he said yes im. sure the defence did that , but if they had her date of birth wrong, could they still have got this ? no sexual intercourse took place at all, he was never alone with her ever .

he has denied this all the way .. i do know that her witness, who said she saw the bruises 3months later. has got a record as long as her arm .can this be classed as an unsafe witness? my son has now been sentenced to 7 years .....

I am surprised that his previous sexual conviction was not put to the jury - unless the circumstances were completely different.

Was the criminal record of the witness who claims to have seen the bruise three months later known to Defence at the trial?

What did that record entail?

[worriedfather]

May i offer some advice? we were in similar circumstances last year, in the defence bundle, there should be a pack that says whether the accuser is known to the police. We had a transcript of radio messages that said she was known to plod for a previous allegation think it said CIU. CPS would have to declare as something that undermines their case, but in our case they were very evasive about giving info out, tried every trick in the book including ignoring the judges request that a hearing be held.

[gem]

falsley accused of rape

hi the other sexual offence was slapping a young girls backside. so the judge though it should not be mentioned.. as it was not relevant to this case .
and with us not knowing what was happening, we didn't know if this had been done.
we put our trust in the defence team to ask all the relevant questions.and checks.
can we do disclosure on the 2 girls if we use a new defence team .my son knows the implications of a re trial , but he wants to clear his name, the papers wrote a load of lies about the case, so everybody that knows us, knows all about the case and it seems he is a sexual predator now .. how do pick up the pieces on that ? we are currently selling our home that we love , just to get away from wagging tongues and pointing fingers . you certainly find out who your friends are .........

[Rights Fighter]

my son was ordered not to say anything about her on the stand that would put her in a bad light,and in return my son being on the sex offenders register, would not be used against him.

In the light of what you have just said about the conviction being merely for slapping somebody's backside then that was not a fair deal. That's not necessarily a ground with which to appeal though.

Nobody can properly answer your questions on here because none of us have seen any of your son's trial paperwork.

If trial counsel has put it in writing that there are no grounds with which to appeal then you need to find new representation fast.

[gem]

Accused of rape

hi
i have contacted another solicitor for an appeal , he wants the written advice on appeal, the former barrister does not think their are grounds for appeal .
the new solicitor wants all the paperwork and is going to visit my son ..

[Rights Fighter]

Fingers crossed for that

[gem]

Falsley accused of rape

does anybody know if my new solicitor. will be able to get a police check , on her to check if she has accused people before .i am getting all sorts of stories about the girl now. but nobody wants to get involved with the police or courts .so sad that some young ones these days don.t care about justice ..

[gem]

May i offer some advice? we were in similar circumstances last year, in the defence bundle, there should be a pack that says whether the accuser is known to the police. We had a transcript of radio messages that said she was known to plod for a previous allegation think it said CIU. CPS would have to declare as something that undermines their case, but in our case they were very evasive about giving info out, tried every trick in the book including ignoring the judges request that a hearing be held.

hi did you get the info you wanted in the end .
i don.t think for a minute that they were both checked out by the defence team
the victim:s age was wrong at the time of going to trial . so that would be hard..
i spoke to someone the other day who [ quote ]said to me .. hi is that true your son got jailed, for raping ........ ....... the other day she was always crying rape at school ...we never took her serious though cos she only told friends ....she was a habitual liar ........
so isn.t it funny how my son got accused of raping her through her friend. it was not the accuser who reported it to the police. it was her mate who reported it cos they had fell out, and she wanted to make trouble for her...this girls family will not get involved with the case ...but i believe the accuser had to go along with the rape claim , because she didn.t want to look a liar in front of her friend.

[gem]

falsley accused

Hi, so sorry that you have had to find this site and that your son is in the position he finds himself in. I don't know anything about appeals but just wanted to tell you that someone who knows will be along at some point. There are a lot of people here who know what they are talking about, so it is a good place to get advice and also to vent as many of us have loved ones who have been falsely accused - as well as obviously people who have been falsely accused themselves.
Regards
Jen

thanks for your kind words ,
it.s amazing how quickly our lives can change for the worse ...

[gem]

Hi,

I can't advise on on the appeal procedure, there are forum members better qualified to do this, but I wanted just to pick up on one point:

If the investigating detectives, the CPS, and the judge all thought the girl was a minor (under 16) they likely proceeded on the assumption that this was a statuary rape (i.e. the girl cannot give consent, therefore any sexual intercourse must be rape) and presumably this was why he was offered the plea bargain of unlawful sex.

As she has proved to be over the age of consent, then the only issue is of consent. If intercourse actually took place (not sure from your post whether it did or not) then this makes a crucial difference to defending the case.

My thoughts are that her deception about her age should form the basis of an appeal, or at the very least a retrial. After all, what if he had accepted the plea bargain of unlawful sex and it then transpired she was over 16!

Edit; to add that this suggestion hinges on whether she was over 16 in Aug 2010, the date of the alleged offence, rather than the date of the trial.

hi i understand what you mean. yes i did think something should have been done about that . also i have got the written advice of appeal from my son to give to our new solicitor , just so you get a picture of where i am coming from . my son was born with spina bifida .although he was normal in every way , he did have a small nerve that protruded from his spine at birth and was repaired at birth , the doctors said he was a very lucky boy not to have any other problems but they did say the nerve belongs to something and time will tell where .. when my son was 13 he started having what he called twitches in the scar on his back. but wouldn,t hear of going to the docs about it he was very embarrassed about the scar it wasn't until he was around 18 i realized he would spend approx 40 mins in the bathroom when i asked him why he told me he had to sit down to urinate because it hurt him to stand up ...he flatly refused to go to the doctors about it, even when he moved in with his girlfriend .she mentioned it to me and i said i knew about it . a few of his close friends knew as well and they pulled his leg about it ..he has had several girlfriends since then and they all know about his problem ... i never knew all what the victim had said in her statement until we got to trial. i didn.t know she had said he stood up and urinated into the bushes after the rape. when this came out i told the barrister this could not have happened as he could not do that . he sent for medical records and it was not in his doctors notes apart than 2009 he complained of severe pain upon urinating and back pain. so the barrister moved on and never used it he said we cannot dwell on that issue now .as the jury will think it is a last minute throw at the dice ..and now the advice on appeal has quoted no appeal is recommended unless . new medical evidence comes to light. as it was a very important factor of the case. and the victim would hardly make that fact up about urinating afterwards ...