Family and Friends Forum

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Hi, we have plead guilty, the pictures where there, can't fight that. But we are going for mittagating currcumstances.



these are

age

disability (autism)

vunarable adult

being sexually explored hisself when he was under 18 online (this is how it started, looking for connection under 18, he was arrested 10 weeks after his 18th) .

I think it's very personal case by case as although we are in the same storm we are in different boats as all our people and stories are different.

I actually think you have a point, I wonder if my son was in front of a jury that they would actually find him not guilty? But yes the stigma. His got the rest of his life in front of him, the money (we went private solicitor and barrister that had experience of f IIOC and vunrable adults).

I think that some people plead guilty because the charge is true even though some of the detail behind the charge is untrue. At plea hearing my person was told that if he pleaded guilty he would get a 33% reduction in his sentence and if he pleaded not guilty he would go to trial and if found guilty would receive a prison sentence. He pleaded guilty. The prosecution read out details some of which weren't true and these details were then printed by the media.

I'm so sorry this happened Ocean. That's terrible. What a world we find ourselves in.

We have pled not guilty it is 5 images our expert has given us a 5 page report, there is no search for the images its a thumbnail that wasn't downloaded from kik, the charge is he iwas attempting to destroy evidence by having the app crap cleaner, the expert can also prove the crap cleaner was on phone long before thus happened, evidence states kik was last visited the day after they seized the phone also which couldn't be possible, we have trial end of month

My husband has had numerous court appearances over the last year continuing to plead not guilty to extreme porn however, I suppose you could say the crown scaremongered us into a change to guilty. At the last court appearance the judge actually listened and didn't place my husband onto the register and asked for social work reports to be competed. The social worker was completely judgemental and said she had never heard of someone comming before her who wasn't already on the register. She's really made us feel very down. Hope you get the best possible outcome xx

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My husband plead not guilty. He was advised by the solictor that the adult decoy conversation was akin to entrapment in its content. Then further down the line they changed tact and gave him the option of continuing with a not guilty plea and going before a jury who they said 'would most probably find him guilty due to 'bias' in these cases' or change plea to guilty. He changed his plea and was advised that defence and prosecution were advising non custodial sentencing. He's 10 months into his custodial sentence. You never really know what the best decision is x

These are all very valid and interesting points. I think the police and crown think they are the best and cannot put a foot wrong. Earlier this year I was called for jury duty. It was a very interesting case nothing like what we discuss on here however, the accused walked on each and every charge it was very clear the crown had got it wrong. The crown bully people. The whole system needs an overhaul

Ladies x

An interesting thread

While my son did wrong, he was open and honest, yes it took the knock for it to come out, he has never been involved with the police before, so told them everything, plead guilty the chance you will get a suspended sentence

Yet here we are, his sentance was not suspended, a long Road ahead x

Life feels over, I'm sorry for your outcome, you are right in that you will never know if he made the right decision or not. There is definitely a lot of pressure to plead guilty.

Upset mum, I feel for you and your son, i doubt that prison is appropriate for many men in this situation.

My OH has pled not guilty, honestly, we are now stuck waiting for a trial date, with no way of knowing how that will go. The impression I get is that a jury may have certain prejudices, or may just go with the police/cps opinion. So I feel he is up against it. Even if he is found not guilty, I fear people will think he 'got away with it'. Had he pled guilty he would have got a reduction on his sentence and it would have been over 6 months ago. We could be moving on not treading water with no conclusion in sight.

Bettyboo,

I believe you should never plead guilty to something you haven't done. But the process is so long, and I am probably in a depressed state of mind. I try not to catastrophise, but thinking the worse seems to be my default setting.

My OH case is a communication offence, with a police decoy. For legitimate reasons he knew he was talking to an adult, the content of the conversation is 'suggestive' according to the police (not according to him). But who knows what a jury will make of it. The solicitor has been pragmatic about his options, he had the choice of plea. Who knows what will happen.

I should add, had he been advised to plead guilty he would have done so. Also, he has a specialist solicitor, the duty solicitor just assumed he would plead guilty without having actually discussed anything or having looked at any evidence.

Yes Bettyboo, I agree. It seems to be the path of least resistance. And just hope and pray people don't find out!

I also think many believe that police evidence cannot be questioned.

My son is a beautiful person who had such low esteem of himself, I had no idea until the knock, prison is not the answer, he has to live with this for the rest of his life as do we the whole system needs to be looked at, yes he did wrong, but he deserves a second chance x

Yes, the cost of legal representation is so expensive! And I also agree, that by going not guilty we are challenging the police decoy process and the way in which they conduct themselves online 'to catch' these 'offenders'. I think it would surprise alot of people if they knew what the decoys do. I was always led to believe that the police set up decoy profiles and wait for men to contact them. That is very much not the case! There is definitely an argument that the decoys are encouraging offences to take place that might not have happened otherwise. I just wish that there were more safety procedures online to protect children, which in turn would hopefully avoid other families going through what we are going through.

Upset mum, I am so sorry for your son. I desperately agree everyone should have a second chance. Mental health seems to be a factor that is very common. Xx

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Always hopeful can I ask what the outcome was for your person

My oh pleased not guilty had 400 pages of mitigating evidence sent to the solicitors only 10 were submitted to the cps .. furious doesn't cut it . Had official paperwork to prove an extension wasn't even built at the time of the complainants story yet still found guilty.. devastated doesn't cut it.. I'm a couple of weeks without him home and don't know where to turn

My husband pleaded not guilty from the start. I believe him and still do. The images were attributed tk him although they were on a shared pc. However the profile was his name, although we all all used the same profile.
Naively we hoped the defence would be meticulous in fighting to prove all that. No chance of that, I am not even sure you can even call it defending. He told my husband to plead guilty otherwise he would go to prison. We maintained his innocence but the defence said unless you are going to tell me it's you then I don't see who could have done it, unless you have someone hiding in your loft and using your computer. We were in a pokey room in court with a usher rushing us. The biggest decision of your life and this is how it plays out. Didn't meet the defence barrister until the day of the trial. It was all a shambles.

I was furious and to this day am appalled by the justice system.




Cornish Tea x

Cornish Tea, we were the same everything is all rushed and last minute meetings in the corridor

Inside the courtroom. We have spent about £9,000 and the service from the solicitors has been

Very dissapoinyimg. Thank you for this post Betty its really interesting. When I was on jury duty

The crown thought they would be getting a win but the evidence was very weak.

Hi, so not sure if you know our story, but my OH has pled not guilty. The original charge was 8 counts of making, possessing and distribution of Iioc A,B and C, possession of a prohibited image and possession of extreme pornography. This was all over the local papers when he first appeared in the magistrates courts, along with his bail conditions, not allowed to live at home and not to be around any u18s unsupervised..

That was April last year. We challenged everything and when it first went to Crown the judge even questioned the images and said they needed to be examined. We paid for an independent inspection, it supported us and said that the images were not Iioc, but more crude jokes or blue humour. The CPS dismissed our specialist report and said he wasn't an expert. Case adjourned.

We returned to court (3rd time at crown) for trial in October, when we got there we found out CPS had dropped all the making charges and dropped the cat C iioc dropped the possession of iioc charges and dropped the prohibited image charge. This left us with 2 charges of distribution and 1 possession of extreme pornography.

Unfortunately the case was adjourned until next April. Which will be 2 years since the knock.

All of his bail conditions were removed after the first Crown Court appearance.

It's cost about £12,000 so far, but we won't give in.

X

My partner pleaded not guilty and was acquitted. The main factor in this whole conversation is that everyone's circumstances will be completely different. I just wanted to add some perspective from a legal sense.

Some cases will be open and shut, they did what they did, the evidence is there and there's no possibility of proving the defendent not guilty, also, morally we should admit guilt and accept punishment. I understand the impact of this on us and our families and it's easier said than done, the fallout and pain is huge. - this sounds rather harsh but I hope people understand I don't mean it harshly!

There will be some cases which aren't so straight forward - like Clarkestaffe's and myself as well as others I have encountered on here. It can be very difficult to get solid legal advice in cases like this because some solicitors do have personal prejudice for cases like these or aren't very experienced in them. I was quite shocked to see on this thread that a solicitor advised a conversation with a decoy would be considered entrapment because even though many of the conversations involving decoys can appear to be leading, they don't meet the criteria for entrapment or abuse of process, it just highlights the sad but true reality that many of us receive incorrect advice and this may mean many people plead guilty incorrectly.

One of the worst parts of the journey for me was being unsure whether the advice we were being given was appropriate or correct, the law is complex and the advice you can be given on the same issue can vary from solicitor to solicitor. It makes you feel helpless and it feels like nobody can help you. The best thing anyone can do is go through the entire evidence repeatedly with a fine toothcomb and find the legislation relating to the charges to see if there appear to be any mistakes made but I appreciate this is difficult in more ways than one.

baffled B again so many intresting

things you have said there. Our solicitor had said that the law Is outdated and that there really aren't laws in place to support online offences. At the end of my husbands charge the year is 1980. Our solicitor has actually said that as we are going along he is learning new things every day

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I completely agree, many of the crimes associated with our people tend to fall within a 2003 Act, I think the reason these kinds of crimes are overlooked when it comes to potentially reforming the laws is due to stigma, it's unlikely any politicians would want to front a suggestion of amending the law unless it is to make them harsher and less tolerant because of what the media and society would say. It's hard to have conversations about managing these crimes because people lack critical thinking skills and would rather look towards punishment than prevention.

The biggest problem with these offences is most certainly the stigma, once someone is convicted or known to be awaiting potential conviction all offenders are tarred with one brush, which is unreasonable. It's the same for any crime, there are levels of every crime, different motives, different personal situations that put them there, etc. There needs to be a better way of managing some of these offences and most definitely more education for both children and adults around the dangers of online offending.

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You don't need to plead not guilty to bring in mitigating evidence. Mitigating evidence only comes into play if you do plead guilty.



Whatever someone's reason for commiting a crime is (poor mental health, trauma, addiction etc), the person is still guilty. Mitigating circumstances just mean that the person might be entitled to a more lenient sentence.

When one commits a crime, they need to take responsibility as this is the only way to rehabilitation. If the evidence is blatantly wrong, obviously challenge it but there is no point pleading not guilty because you had an excuse for committing the crime.

Now, whether the sentencing guidelines are fair is a different story. As is the treatment of family members, social services involvement etc ..