More from the 'Britain in Sin' booklet. This time we'll be looking at what Christian Voice/Steven Green has to say about the Ninth Commandment and its relation to British law. The commandment, in case you don't know them by heart, is "
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour".
Green isn't keen on the standard of proof of "beyond reasonable doubt". Apparently, the use of this standard of proof means "that one witness was more plausible than another. It is not a just system at all, and has resulted in unjust convictions". Upon reading this I instantly thought Green was on dubious ground. "Beyond reasonable doubt" is a very high standard. His further comments did little to convince me.
In 1995, a lorry driver convicted of killing his disabled baby step-daughter on flawed forensic evidence from a Home Office pathologist alone was able to prove his innocence, three years after his conviction and imprisonment. (Times 30/03/95) [emphasis added]
I've read the article this comment is based on. In no part of the article is the original forensic evidence described as 'flawed'. Additionally, the article reads: "He was convicted
mainly on the evidence of... a Home Office pathologist [emphasis added]". I'd suggest that that's a distinct discrepancy between the article and Mr. Green's description of it. Of course it's poor that an innocent man was imprisoned for three years but it's impossible to have a system with no miscarriages of justice and he was freed in the end. Onto the next case he describes:
In another case, a father accused of sexually assaulting his daughter after she claimed to recall incidents from her childhood was freed by a court when the prosecution admitted that the memories were fictitious and had emerged during psychiatric counselling. The prosecution had no other evidence at all. The daughter was mentally disturbed and prone to sexual fantasies. The man had to wait 17 months before the case came to court and he was exonerated. With Biblical standards of evidence understood all round he would never have been arrested. (Times 29/03/95)
But the man was exonerated. What's the problem? If you had to prove that someone committed an offence before even arresting them, then what's the point of having a trial? "Beyond reasonable doubt" doesn't even apply to arrest. What is the relevance of this story?
Let it be clear that there could be no re-introduction of the death penalty without sound conviction according to the Law of God. God hates the conviction of the innocent just as much as the acquittal of the guilty. There is a stark contrast here with present liberal judicial practice. By following the principles set out by Almighty God, fewer people would be convicted of capital crimes, but those who were would face the ultimate penalty.
Absolute shite. You simply cannot have a system where it is required that someone's guilt be proved with 100% certainty. Every solitary defendant would be acquitted. If you don't require mathematical certainty and you have capital punishment then sooner or later an innocent person will end up being killed.
Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1976, Criminal Justice Act 1988 S158
The 1976 Act gave both the accuser and the defendant in rape cases anonymity. Section 158 of the 1988 Act abolished the anonymity of defendants. In a number of recent cases, lying women have hidden behind the cloak of anonymity to make false accusations, whilst those they accuse have endured full publicity. Nor have the false accusers been subsequently charged with perjury. Feminist presumption is that all men are born sinful, but all women virtuous. The law should show no such partiality.
Possible fair point, bar the rubbish about feminism.
Section 40 of the [Road Traffic Act 1991] allowed road traffic authorities to set up cameras to trap motorists committing traffic offences. It can be argued that these are an infringement of civil liberty, to which the reply would be that their presence saves lives. What is undeniable is that the vast majority of notices erected along the highway which depict a camera, or warn of "police enforcement cameras," bear false witness. The highly expensive camera in many cases is not there at all. It may be that no camera box is there, or just an empty box, or just the flashing light. The whole of the law is diminished when, by law, the state does evil hoping that good may come.
Oh please.
I should point out in the interest of fairness that I've cherry-picked bits from the section of the booklet, but it's reasonably long, and I simply don't have time to go around researching a load of random bits of law in order to be able to comment properly. Mr. Green does have a shockingly poor knowledge of what he's writing about a good deal of the time though, the "beyond reasonable doubt" examples above displaying a particularly high level of ignorance.
