Rolf Harris

[logbox]

Today in court Rolf sang part of Jake the peg and demonstated how to play the digeridoo, tomorrow he might do two little boys.

[cee-dee]

I think there's a need to have a drastic re-think on the whole issue of these historical, no evidence, "he said", "she said" trials.

The only people getting anything out of it are the lawyers involved and it's just a complete waste of Court time and a waste of money.

[lambsy_uk]

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@**caution**opinion_ahead wrote:

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@cee-dee wrote:

It also illustrates how lacking the jury are on aspects of evidentiary matters? However, I think the judge waffled on too much and for too long in summing up, problably confusing the jurors rather than helping them?

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I'd agree.  And surely, after over 5 days deliberation and no result, the judge should move towards accepting a majority verdict?  The stress of this past week must have been unimaginable for a man of Rolf's age.

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I'm very wary of majority verdicts; I believe the minority can often be right and you could find that there's one ore two with the integrity or resolve to stick to what they believe is right despite presure from a majority who may well be succombing to the influence of others or who are just plainly getting it all wrong.

If one or more of the jury do not agree with the others then I'd expect there's a good reason for it. I know if I thought a case had not been proven and yet everyone else wanted to convict, I'd like to think I'd hold out against such pressure and would be horrified if a majority verdict was accepted that was in conflict with my judgement!

[cee-dee]

If people have the time (and inclination) have a read of this:-

http://www.filmsite.org/twelve.html

There are several pages and like the film, a bit hard-going but thought provoking?

I don't know whether I saw the film or the TV version but I seem to remember the accused looking out of a window at a yard where the jury were taking a walk out and he saw one juror on his own away from the other 11 and the accused says something like "Thank you little man" as he realises one juror is holding out against the others.

I also seem to remember that the accused was really guilty or has time confused that film with another?

[**caution**opinion_ahead]

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@lambsy_uk wrote:

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@**caution**opinion_ahead wrote:

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@cee-dee wrote:

It also illustrates how lacking the jury are on aspects of evidentiary matters? However, I think the judge waffled on too much and for too long in summing up, problably confusing the jurors rather than helping them?

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I'd agree.  And surely, after over 5 days deliberation and no result, the judge should move towards accepting a majority verdict?  The stress of this past week must have been unimaginable for a man of Rolf's age.

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I'm very wary of majority verdicts; I believe the minority can often be right and you could find that there's one ore two with the integrity or resolve to stick to what they believe is right despite presure from a majority who may well be succombing to the influence of others or who are just plainly getting it all wrong.

If one or more of the jury do not agree with the others then I'd expect there's a good reason for it. I know if I thought a case had not been proven and yet everyone else wanted to convict, I'd like to think I'd hold out against such pressure and would be horrified if a majority verdict was accepted that was in conflict with my judgement!

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Yes, I agree with you re majorities, but I wondered why the judge hadn't gone for it as, after this length of time deliberating, it would seem to be a natural next step.  If I believed someone was not guilty, I would hold out even if everyone else disagreed with me, cos falling in line with my fellow jurors would be much less important to me than helping a person I believed to be innocent.   Not sure what I would do if the situation were reversed and I believed the offence had been commited but the others did not.  Might depend on the type of crime, I suppose, and the likelihood it could be repeated if a person went free when guilty.

CD, I agree these historic cases are very problematic. 

[evoman3957]

Just a short tale, whether relevant or not to this particular case, to demonstrate how juries are just people and some are useless judges of character and can't accept facts; even when they are in their faces............just like in life !!

Some years back, I was on Court duty; escorting a prisoner from the Cells in the Old Bailey, up to the Dock and sitting next to him through the trial. The trial was some weeks long and involved some serious violent and non violent offences. When it was time for the Jury to deliberate their verdict, they could not reach a unanimous decision and were sent back 3 times, by the Judge, to try to resolve the issue. I, along with others in the know, becames aware that the trouble was because of 2 Jurors, who were digging their heels in and were not in agreement with the rest. After three days of deliberation and still no agreement, the Judge told the Jury He would accept a 10 to 2 majority verdict. The Jury duly returned with a verdict of Guilty and at that stage the defendants previous convictions were read out. It took 20 minutes to read out his previous convictions, for all sorts of offences; some exremely serious and for exactly the same thing as He was on trial for in this instance. From My position, next to the prisoner, I could see clearly who the two Jurors were; who had caused so many problems, by refusing to believe he was Guilty. It was evident, from the glares given to them by the other Jurors.

[cee-dee]

Thin ice here but each case should be decided on the assessment of the evidence presented? It shouldn't be determined by anything else.

Having said that, some criminals will never change their ways and that's particularly so with violent offenders and those who see good in everyone and think all offenders can be reformed are sadly mistaken.

[bankhaunter]

It's an unfortunate fact that whilst it would be nice if such cases were determined purely on an objective look at the evidence, it is not that simple.

For example studies using simulated cases, show that the best jury member a young man accused of **bleep** can hope to see, is a middle aged, middle class woman who is much less likely to think them guilty.

[sir_arthur_strebe-grebling]

On majority verdicts.

Some twenty years ago my wife was a juror on a murder trial. Two of the twelve jurors (one being her) had taken notes during the trial and wanted to go through the evidence, while the other ten said words to the effect of "it's obvious he's guilty, nothing to discuss". After a while the judge said he would accept a majority verdict so he was found guilty, 10-2.

[upthecreekyetagain]

I am at a loss to understand how someone can be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt if it's taken five days to come to that conclusion.

Surely the simple fact that it's taken that long indicates there is a doubt, at least amongst some of the jurors.

[sir_arthur_strebe-grebling]

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@upthecreekyetagain wrote:

I am at a loss to understand how someone can be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt if it's taken five days to come to that conclusion.

Surely the simple fact that it's taken that long indicates there is a doubt, at least amongst some of the jurors.

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In principle I think you're right, but I think Rolf Harris has been charged with 12 counts and the jury is supposed to consider each one separately so they have probably taken only a few hours per charge (so far).

That raises another of the problems with these historical cases against 'celebrities': the CPS likes to pile lots of charges together to make it more likely that they'll get at least one conviction.

[tommy.irene]

Even the Police can lie....                     www.u.tv/News/Ex-RUC-men-accused-of-faking-evidence/751f8b72-c7fa-42f1-9166-d821790599d6

[kiss*my*pixel]

the CPS likes to pile lots of charges together to make it more likely that they'll get at least one conviction

Would that be a case of the CPS "liking" to pile lots of charges together, or more the possibilityt that there are lots of charges to be made, I wonder?

[evoman3957]

I just remember ( in My time working for the Justice system ) police use to like it, when people arrested for a crime; pleaded guilty to several other crimes, which they wanted taken into account at the same time. Two reasons for that 1. The criminal would almost always get a concurrent sentence for the other crimes ( so they'd regard them as Freebies ) 2. The police liked it, because it looked good on their crimes solved statistics.

[**caution**opinion_ahead]

It's slightly different in cases like this though.  If Rolf did not commit the offences, the police don't have to go looking for anyone else, so the unsolved crime stats don't come into it.

I think all the identical charges could be rolled into one.  If an accuser says she was touched inappropriately on 4 separate occasions, the jury can't really know if the defendent did it on 3, but not the 4th, for example.  If the charges are different (one inappropriate touching and one where things went further than this, or the same charge but by two different accusers), then these need to be considered individually, IMO.

[evoman3957]

I agree in this particular case, I was just commenting on previous posts; regarding the Police's penchant  to clump charges together in other cases, to make detection rates look better.

[i-am-legion-too]

Rolf Harris has been found guilty of all charges.

[saasher2012]

He has to wait till the 10th of July for sentencing but has been told to expect a custodial sentence , which could mean anything up to 10yrs!.

[rose2008-2008]

OMG,,OMG,,, and yes im going to say it... I KNEW IT WOULD TURN OUT GUILTY!!!.

[**caution**opinion_ahead]

Well ... I must say I'm very surprised.  I can't see why the jury were out so long if there was no element of doubt.

As I understand it, there was no evidence apart from the accusers' complaints.  No one else had seen any of the assaults, even though some of them happened in crowded places.  None of the accusers told anyone that anything had happened, either at the time or later, until the police started investigating other famous people.  None of them recorded events in diaries they kept at the time.  No evidence was put forward that others close to them noticed anything was amiss. 

The police are heralding it "the biggest scalp yet".  That misses the point, surely, if it is really about justice for victims.

[cee-dee]

I told ya didn't I?

They were determined to nail him but the summing up by the judge seemed biased to me.