Is A Fair Trail Possible After So Long ?

[mikey4444]

I don't want to get into a debate about whether this man is guilty or not but the 60's are a long time ago. After the passage of over 50 years, is it possible for anybody to remember exactly where he was on a certain day ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22806885

[sara3]

Sqad, if you had *never* put your hand up a girl's skirt, you'd remember.

[emmie]

mikey, no one is a sister, making some kind of feminist point, it isn't, it's just that some children, even adults don't report assaults for fear of not being believed, but it can live with you for a lifetime. Whether he can remember, or the girls/women involved, someone must have made a complaint, otherwise how would the law know to pick him up.

[emmie]

tambo, he would have been an adult then, had he done this now, he would be in prison.

[Sqad]

sara 3 ......right.

[jackthehat]

Stuart Hall seemed prepared to accept/remember what he was accused of..........

[hc4361]

Bedding a thousand women doesn't mean he is interested in 12 year old girls.
He has been in Coronation St since 1960 but I really don't think the soap appealed to teenagers then - it was considered a show for the old fogeys.

I don't think he ever appealed to teen girls in the way a pop star of the day would have. In the 60s he would have been a mature man in his 30s.

[chrisgel]

Is there a sliding scale of some sort I wonder? Surely women in there 50's and 60's have not "kept quiet" for all that lenght of time. I can well understand a young girl or boy keeping quiet for any one of many reasons: shame, fear etc. but surely there must come a time when they are adult enough to realise what has been done to them is wrong.
To leave reporting a crime for 40 or 50 years strikes me as odd.
Do the courts take the lenght of time into account?

[New Judge]

Indeed they do, em.

The CPS apply two tests to determine whether to authorise charges: (1) Is there sufficient evidence to see a realistic chance of a prosecution? (b) Is it in the public interest to prosecute?

If these alleged victims have made statements to support their allegations and the CPS believe they can provide good enough evidence in court to back up their statements and withstand cross-examination then they will authorise the charges. The question of “fairness” does not enter into that decision - that is for the court to deal with.

In my view the strength of evidence from the alleged victims will be severely tested in view of the time factor. The defence will certainly make great play of this. Mr Roache may well not be able to remember where he was on a given day fifty years ago (and probably neither can the victims) but I’m quite sure that will not be his defence. Considerable detail of precisely what happened will be required to secure a conviction and I believe that neither the victim nor the perpetrator will be able to provide that detail after so long. It is most unlikely that there will be any other evidence to support the allegations and the case will be decided on the testimony of the victims and the defendant alone.

A conviction may be secured (stranger things have happened) but I believe the whole matter is unfair.

[Sqad]

Well........back in the 50's and 60's it was no big deal to put your hand on a girl's thigh and then slip it up OR undo a couple of buttons and slipp your hand in a blouse..........it was called "courting" no big deal and nothing illegal and it was expected that the girl MIGHT resist.

Today, this would be assault.

How were men to know that things would be looked at differently 50 years ahead?

[sara3]

so what difference does it make if it was 50 years ago, or 10 years ago, or 6 months ago? you rarely get solid evidence or impartial witnesses.

[sara3]

I guess it's down to respect, Sqad

[jackthehat]

For heaven's sake.........are you completely incapable of understanding the difference between 'wanted' and 'unwanted' physical contact, sqad?

If you were *courting* a girl she was probably prepared for your advances and either accepted or rebuffed them.

None of these girls/children were *courting* these individuals, or were of an age to do so, it seems......

[bibblebub]

The CPS have made blunders in the past but it would be a big surprise if they haven't considered all the factors mentioned here before deciding to go ahead with the prosecution.

[hc4361]

Sqad, those were the days when an aggrieved girl could give a chap a good slap for taking liberties without being charged with assault herself.

The good days for feisty young women able to stand up for themselves, a nightmare for the insecure, vulnerable or shy.

[askyourgran]

That was called heavy petting then sqad. A decent girl would stop him on the first button.

[sandyRoe]

However his trail goes, and in my view he'll be acquited, he'll have been tried at the bar of public opinion. I think that's all the women who have come forward with statements should reasonably expect.

[jim360]

Ah, I see -- so it was the girls' faults for not being resistive enough? Interesting logic.

As regards the original question -- we'll have to wait and see but I doubt it. After all, I've spent time elsewhere demonstrating that I find it hard to trust just personal accounts as evidence. And if there's nothing beyond that then the passage of time makes it even harder to trust the witnesses and the accused beyond reasonable doubt.

I'll have to hope that the CPS knows what it's doing.

[Sqad]

\\\\For heaven's sake.........are you completely incapable of understanding the difference between 'wanted' and 'unwanted' physical contact, sqad? \\

Not was never straightforward in the 50's and 60's as a certain amount of resistance was expected............there was no going to Magaluf to get "laid" in those days.

\\\\\None of these girls/children were *courting* these individuals, or were of an age to do so, it seems.....\\\

I like the "children" emphasis.....and i appreciate that you ended your sentence with "it seems."

[hc4361]

I bet there are very few men who hasn't had to make a quick exit on finding out that the very flirty girl is under age.
I know I've been horrified a couple of times, thankfully before things out of hand

[friedgreentomato]

//Not was never straightforward in the 50's and 60's as a certain amount of resistance was expected............there was no going to Magaluf to get "laid" in those days//

So what you are saying is that possibly you could have had unwanted sexual intercourse with a young woman but because it was normal to resist you went ahead!!

That is despicable!