Reasons Someone Can Become a

Wrongly Accused Person

Investigation
[General Overview] [Misleading Information] [Experts Part1] [Experts Part2] [The Investigation]

It would be unreasonable to suggest that any one of the previous pages providing information on what can lead to an innocent person becoming wrongly accused could individually create so many miscarriages of justice. After all, a witness wandering around either at the scene of an incident or afterwards making malicious comments would have no bearing on an investigation if they were not taken seriously by those conducting it. They may be guilty of planting the seed of suspicion but they do not then afterwards nurture it to ensure that it blossoms into case of prosecution, they are certainly responsible for misleading an investigation and perverting the course of justice but if the proper steps are taken during an enquiry these erroneous pieces of misinformation can easily be discarded. A check to see if there is any history between the witness and the accused will often give rise to alarm bells as to the reliability of their testimony, particularly if there are any recorded incidents on police file of the witness in actual fact being the perpetrator. Instead, all too often information such as this becomes the basis of the investigation and provides a suspect before any more scientific checks have been carried out, meanwhile information which comes to light which would discredit it is ignored, they've got their man all they need to do now is prove it. A theme which will arise again at a later stage.

In this instance, a person can actually become a suspect before independent expert witnesses have even arrived at the incident scene far less been given the opportunity to make initial observations never mind a detailed inspection. Mind you, we should of course consider just how independent they actually are, who pays their fee? The crown, which in the absence of a suspect is all well and good since they will be looking to the expert to gain information which could assist with their enquiries. But consider the above, if a suspect has already been assumed are they looking for this 'independent' witness to gain information or are they looking to them instead in this case to find any small detail to support their now firm beliefs. Consider again, who is paying their fee but more importantly with regard to how their resulting report is affected think too about who escorts them to the locus which is a secured area. That's right, someone from the investigating team.

However the independent witness does not necessarily have to be in direct contacted to be influenced in a similar way, to demonstrate what I mean, consider that of a handwriting expert. This person is not presented with a scrap of text and asked to tell them who wrote it, this person is presented with A piece of text and a specimen from guess who, the now accused person and asked to find out 'if they are the same'. For this type of test to be anywhere near worthwhile, the "evidence" text would need to be compared not with one individuals provided sample but a range of individuals known to have been in the vicinity of where it was found. If you ask someone to find similarities they will inevitably find some, if you ask them to determine the closest match from a range of specimens it's a whole different story. That said, they are still receiving their fee from the same source. How truly independent is that?

Regardless of any of that, once a suspect is decided upon, the investigation will be tailor made to seek anything which would corroborate that opinion. At best any other information may float around for a while and given it's "due attention" on its way to the eliminated from enquiries file, especially if that information relates to evidence or information which is considered a fundamental part of the case against the accused person.

So, the police have done their job fully and impartially and presented a case to the procurator fiscal who in turn decides whether or not it should proceed any further. Once he/she has decided that the case should go ahead even if based purely on circumstantial evidence, they too have a vested interest in seeing that the charges brought against the accused are successful which is where the precognition phase becomes intrinsically connected to the investigation phase which by all accounts should have been sufficiently complete before hand for it to be necessary. So, during the Procurator Fiscals detailed examination of the evidence presented before him or her, they may start to realise that the case is not as cut and dry as they were led to believe in the original report submitted to them. But the decision to proceed has been made and on that basis must therefore to save face go ahead.

The result of which can mean only one thing, questions by the procurator fiscal to the police seeking "further information" on some points which present a problem, hence the police are now no longer even seen to be open minded but only searching for anything which could further the case. If nothing presents itself related to the case which is any benefit, they then have to broaden their search to include anything which could present the accused to be of a character which suits. Which can then at a time nearer to trial be used by way of adding further charges intended to do nothing more than influence a jury with smear tactics to increase the chances of an otherwise unlikely case of succeeding. The important point in this phase is what information is being sought and what information is of no benefit being found. You won't find what you're not looking for, but if you look hard enough, you might, possibly maybe, just by "chance" find something which 'might' show that the accused is a really terrible person. Doesn't really matter if it can be proved, so long as it can be heard or suggested in a manner which will influence a jury to infer guilt when they otherwise wouldn't. Therefore although there is a legal obligation for any information which proves a persons innocence to be provided to a defence team, in reality it is not likely to appear since it isn't being looked for in the first place. Heaven forbid someone should volunteer such information, what on earth do you think would happen then? I know but I'll leave you to figure it out for yourselves.

[General Overview] [Misleading Information] [Experts Part1] [Experts Part2] [The Investigation]