Instapundit links to this story, and quotes a fellow lawyer who alerted him to it that it shows you shouldn’t automatically disbelieve a client who says he doesn’t know how some porn found its way onto his hard drive.
A man accused of storing child pornography on his computer has been cleared after it emerged that his computer had been infected by a Trojan horse, which was responsible for transferring the images onto his PC.
[XXXX XXXX] … was taken into custody last October after police with a search warrant raided his house. He then spent a night in a police cell, nine days in Exeter prison and three months in a bail hostel. During this time, his ex-wife won custody of his seven year old daughter and possession of his house.
In a world where simply being charged with a crime causes millions to presume some degree of guilt, and gives personal enemies their chance straight away to move in for the kill by making use of other bits of the legal system, then the decision merely to prosecute becomes a sentence in its own right.
Given the propensity of the police to inform the press every time they even question someone in highly emotive or high-profile cases, then the damage may be done before a charge is laid, never mind a decision to prosecute.
Ah, yes, trial by media – never mind proving guilt beyond reasonable doubt. They’ve been arrested and it’s in the newspaper ergo, they must be guilty. Recall the rampage of outraged vigilantes following the News of the World’s expose following the Sarah Payne murder a couple of years back? Innocent people were targeted because the News of the World said they were guilty – and they can’t be wrong, can they?
That innocent people who are convicted are subsequently released years later is no compensation – the damage has already been done.
Anne Widdecombe in a rare moment of enlightenment has been saying that rape victims’ identities are kept secret therefore so too should the accused until such time as guilt is proven. She has a point.