Criminal Justice System

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Thanks James. My experience was very different from what you write. The solicitor was clearly a buddy of the Cps barrister and the police.

I have been nearly killed and £2m loss through police actions and I am left permanently disabled  and suicidal.

I believe I was used as an example by the Cps to scare people from internet use as they knew they had a weak case and I was vulnerable. The police officer even wrote in his summary he was very concerned about the effects of prosecution for what I was found not guilty of unanimously.

I was caught in an internet trap as I keep writing on here and have been convicted for following national guidance for saving lives when suicidal. The police made out this was malicious communication.

• I desperately want help but see my survival prospects diminishing 

Hi Dave

I'm sorry to hear that you've had a bad experience. I cannot comment on your case as I don't know the full facts but I can provide insight into the points you've raised. I'm making an assumption that you are based in England or Wales as these are the laws I work to being baser in London. Apologies if this isn't the case.

You mention that you were asked to sign a statement. I take it this was a prepared statement prepared by your solicitor in conjunction with yourself? If you are suspected of a criminal offence then police will not take a statement but you will be interviewed under caution as per the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. The police would have had no part in this and would purely have been legal advice from your solicitor.

It's a common misconception that duty solicitors work with the police. This is simply not true. Duty solicitors work for independent legal firms that participate in the government duty scheme that provides free legal advice to people being investigated by police. The firms also are paid by clients as well as being in the scheme. The solicitor you had one day could be working for the scheme and the next day could be being paid privately. There are not a pool of solicitors that solely work for the scheme. Solicitors, like police officers, are not all the same and some will provide different advice to others. You are under no obligation to take that advice. It is simply advice. I agree that anyone being questioned should have sufficient time beforehand with a solicitor. There is no time limit to this. I have dealt with people who have had over an hour with their solicitor before I have interviewed them. Before a solicitor speaks to their client, I as the investigating officer must provide the solicitor sufficient information with which to advise their client. This will include the offence being investigated and why we think that person is involved. We will not provide likely questions as this simply is not realistic. Questions are never set in stone and will change depending on the responses in interview.

Your autism should have been noted by a custody sergeant if you were held at a police station. I'm sorry if this didn't happen. If myself or someone in my department is interviewing someone with autism we will contact the appropriate adult service. This is to make sure that the interview we conduct is fair, legal and will stand up in court. I personally feel that this is my duty as a professional and that I have a duty of care towards the person being interviewed. I stand nothing to gain from tricking that person or treating them unfairly.

I cannot comment on court processes as my area of expertise is the police part of the process. The mens rea that you mention raises a very interesting point that could be debated for hours. The problem we have as a society is we attempt to create one size fits all systems but this simply is not feasible. I'm genuinely sorry if you were treated badly and I hope some of what I've written helps around understanding the other side of the legal system.

All the best

In my case I was asked to sign a statement that gave no context and was incomplete , so could be used in court to indicate something completely different to what happened. In my view this is a trick.

The police certainly did lots to intimidate and wrong foot me.

At no time was I offered any appropriate adult. I was dissuaded from speaking to a solicitor and when I insisted was only allowed 2 or 3 minutes alone with him. I was only offered the duty solicitor and not informed I could see any other solicitor 

www.olliers.com/.../

the duty solicitor was friendly with the police and did not advise me appropriately. the solicitor had no understanding of autism

I believe no one should be questioned without being allowed an amount of time with a truely independent solicitor , for at least 20 minutes. The important facts should be given including, the potential maximum sentence, the likely questions, the significance of refusing to answer questions etc

i feel I was tricked and trapped by police questions, for an horrendous charge which I was found not guilty of.

nowhere in the system was my autism ever noted. Particularly with regard to my Mens Rea, which was unusual and made out to be falsehood 

most people on the asd spectrum are unaware and there are no screening questions done

Then in court the techniques are to withhold certain vital evidence and get the judge and jury to disregard aspects of the defence story. 

I might regret this but I'm going to stick my head above the parapet here. I'm a police detective and am currently waiting for my autism assessment. I've taken a lot of interest in this particular post for obvious reasons and wanted to share my experience. Firstly, not all police are the same. I agree that we do not receive proper training around ASD and that many officers will not recognise this and not act sympathetically. However I will say that whenever I have interviewed someone with ASD I utilise the Appropriate Adult Service and they always send a representative who will talk to the person before interview and sit with them throughout to make sure they understand and that the interview is conducted fairly. This is standard practice when dealing with ASD, mental health or under 18s and not only me but all my colleagues follow the same approach. I did notice in this conversation that no one mentioned the Appropriate Adult Service. In relation to solicitors, in my experience, they themselves will request an appropriate adult if the person detained has any issues with ASD and some, although not trained, are very good at identifying when it would not be appropriate to interview without one. With interviewing I have been trained to interview suspects and victims. We are NOT trained to trick people or put words in their mouth and I'm really saddened that this has been suggested. My job is not only to prove an offence but also to disprove if there is clear lack of involvement. It would be morally wrong and unethical of me to "put words in someone's mouth" to make them look guilty. I do not do this and none of my colleagues do either. I gather evidence and present it to the CPS. I do not manipulate or fabricate evidence. I have no reason to do this and would not benefit from doing so.

I agree that the justice system has many flaws and the way in which mental health is perceived does need a lot of work through training and funding. There is not one organisation at fault and it is a problem with the entire system. I welcome any questions around police involvement and ASD but will not respond to abuse. Take care everyone. 

Did you try to appeal? And do you know how long you have to wait before being able to appeal?

I'm willing to join you in creating a campaign. The guidance that exists is not enough. It only applies to the court but what about the stages before it gets to court? My husband went through the court process and it was horrific how badly everything was handled from start to finish. Luckily he only got a sentence of a few months but I think the jail sentence could have been because of how badly things were handled. He really needed therapy. Jail has made things worse.

I totally agree with what you say, i find it difficult to put into words, however I feel the in justice  system should be held accountable to the damage and demoralisation on society vulnerable people. it needs to change, support not punishment.

u clearly like writing. which makes me think this is where u should focus. i mean writing/researching for newspapers and magazines 

Have you thought of sending a description of what's happened to you to a liberal newspaper like The Guardian? They might run a story on it. I think you're good at explaining the shortcomings of the justice system and how it runs against the public interest.

My case was basically "online trolling" to someone who had done the same to me. My lawyer described it as being a nuisance but not neccessarily criminal. I think in a logical way, so I was thinking along the lines of; this person won't leave me alone so if I react by demonstarting similar behaviour to what they have done to me, then I have logical reasoning and if I do upset her with messages then I will receive some sort of warning, that it wouldn't make sense for the CJS to spend tens of thousands prosecuting me for something so petty without warning when the complainer has done the exact same to me, and then costing the public tens of thousands more in the tax I now do not pay. The government invested a huge amount in my education to receive a masters in engineering but now the public will never see the benefit of me using this to contribute to the economy.

I realise now that my thinking was wrong. The politicians are there to come up with pet project new laws to look like they are solving the countries problems to collect their paycheck, in my case "online trolling". The CPS and Police must abide by these laws and in some cases are not left much professional judgement because they need to make examples out of people. Having autism and poor social awareness (to not notice I upset someone), I was an easy target. I live in a rural area where not much happens in terms of crime. My case kept them busy and spent a lot of public funds to ensure that they will maintain their funding from the government and be able to keep themselves in a job. There are no winners, certainly not the public interest or economy in which the whole point of them is, the only winner is those employed in the public sectors fufilling their selfish agendas to look like they are needed and keep their job to pay their mortgage.

The CJS itself is very one-sided and twisted in the favor of the prosecution where logical explanations are ignored and everything is used against you, more simple and cost-effective solutions such as a social worker referral or police warning are not used. In my opinion the pyschologist which prepared my report was too scared to testify that autism could explain all of my behaviour despite it being fairly obvious this was the cause, and the judge was too scared to throw the case out or pass a miminal sentence for fear of being ridiculed in the newspapers.

Lets get  our priorities here; shops and most public places do not cause a lot of harm, and in schools there is now legal requirements, but the police are consistently very cruel and can be life threateningly bad to autistic people as I know. This post was about the criminal justice system.

Most shop workers are on minimum wage and I doubt they'd be interested in being trained to deal with every possible combination of strange people they'll meet - from aggressive people, drunks, fraudsters, deaf people, oldies with dementia  etc.    Auties only make up 1% of the population - other difficult groups are much more prevalent.

hi

tbh its not just them. shops and other places that are busy with ppl should have training too. as talked to like stupid and lack of unstanding leads to cruel assumptions and remarks!

That sounds all wrong and a feature of neurotypical legal people not understanding these distress and thinking of autism. It’s all about our lack of “theory of mind” which means we miss spotting things which others see as obvious, even though we have no malicious intent. 

The law is very cruel to autistic people. Hopefully something will change . It certainly needs to. Many of the story’s here are terrible. The police and cps are supposed to be under strain but spend time on these inappropriate cases where they harm us with autism 

I'm really sorry this has happened to you!

The stigma attached to a criminal record is difficult. It must be really hard for you when you've worked so hard at university and earned a degree and now this has come along.

There are some employers that will overlook a criminal record but there is of course a stigma, there is research that proves it. The entertainment industry is one in which it matters a lot less. Self-employment is probably the best option too, if you  think you can work that way.

I hope there's some way forward for you. Perhaps in time, a new opportunity will arise from what has been something terrible.

Update I was convicted of offending the complainer on Facebook and given community service and a social worker for 2 years so it is impossible for me to work an an engineer and deal with all of this and the criminal record. I am now looking into claiming ESA from the taxpayer and will not be contributing to the country, paying my £30k student loan or any income tax back to the public

I was arrested and charged, over 20 electronic devices taken from my house basically for online harassment to girl who wouldn't leave me alone and stalked me for years. She manipulated me into reacting by sending lots of messages and when her husband found out she was messaging me she made a cover story that it was me that wouldn't leave her alone. Almost 3 years later (its taken the police hundreds of hours to go through my devices) the court case is still pending and I haven't been to get on with my life so I have been unemployed or I would have over £10k in legal, technical and psychiatric bills to pay for. I just graduated uni and my career has been ruined. I made a counter complaint showing how this girl had messaged me 50 times in a row previously and had followed me and even showed her driving past my house but the police keep hiding this and only focus on what I did back to her. The psychologist said that autism is not a defence for sending lots of messages or going on to her emails after she gave me the password and that I ought to have known better. BTW the whole case has cost taxpayers over £100k but I'm an easy target to the police and CPS who want to bump their statistics up