The Lurker Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 37 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said: Again we don't know the details, but as a general point, I think anyone under the age of 13 is deemed unable to give consent, so in such a case it's possible no force was involved, the charges would still be the same. But of course we don't know the age of the victim and hopefully it won't be given. One of the problems with the Courts and reporting on the Island is that it is sometimes possible to work out the identity of anonymous victims when the circumstances, details and age etc mean that it could only be one person. Apologies; perhaps 'forces' was a poor choice of words, maybe 'has sex with someone without their full legal consent' would be a better phrase? I agree that reporting in these cases is problematic and that it's time that consideration was given to amending the relevant rules to prevent prurient speculation that can be catastrophic for victims and acquitted defendants alike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LightBulb Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 3 hours ago, The Lurker said: Apologies; perhaps 'forces' was a poor choice of words, maybe 'has sex with someone without their full legal consent' would be a better phrase? I agree that reporting in these cases is problematic and that it's time that consideration was given to amending the relevant rules to prevent prurient speculation that can be catastrophic for victims and acquitted defendants alike. "their full legal consent " but would someone of that age be aware of that phrase, i don`t think i would have at 10 years old, ( i had never even heard of sex at that age ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thesultanofsheight Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 Perhaps this now explains ?? https://www.three.fm/news/isle-of-man-news/child-sex-charges-withdrawn/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Non-Believer Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 Sounds like an inability to prosecute due to a lot of technicalities? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WTF Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 21 minutes ago, Non-Believer said: Sounds like an inability to prosecute due to a lot of technicalities? flinty will be on shortly to tell you it's the law. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dilligaf Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 22 minutes ago, Non-Believer said: Sounds like an inability to prosecute due to a lot of technicalities? Like common sense getting in the way Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Down Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 Time to put the pitchforks away... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Power Posted March 9, 2019 Author Share Posted March 9, 2019 Does this mean that our age of criminal responsibility is from the dark ages, like many of our little foibles? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Mexico Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 6 hours ago, thesultanofsheight said: Perhaps this now explains ?? https://www.three.fm/news/isle-of-man-news/child-sex-charges-withdrawn/ If anything it just makes it even odder. Which I wouldn't have thought possible: Quote A man accused of multiple rapes and indecent assault on a child has had all charges against him withdrawn. Anthony Robert Collis of Mona Street in Douglas appeared before magistrates at Douglas Courthouse. The 22 year old, who’s currently serving a prison term for other offences, was charged with a total of five offences allegedly committed between January 2008 and September 2010. The court heard two of the crimes had been committed in Malta and Spain - but Manx law says if they can’t be prosecuted there, they can’t be prosecuted here. As Spain’s age of criminal responsibility is 14 and Collis was 13, he can’t be tried on the Island. Similarly, he was under the age of Malta’s criminal responsibility. Prosecution advocate Roger Cain said under the circumstances he was offering no evidence on any of the five counts. All of the charges were dismissed by the bench. I pointed out earlier that these cases where someone was prosecuted for a rape committed that young were very rare and invariably the prosecution was carried out soon after the offence. So this was already a very strange case and one that raised all sorts of problems - what penalties could you impose, given that they should have been the ones relevant to the age the defendant would have been at the time? Now it turns out that the alleged offences were committed abroad in two different jurisdictions, which adds a whole other layer of complexity, even assuming the laws exist in the Island to prosecute people for such offences committed off Island. How the AG Office ever imagined that it would be possible to get a conviction, even without the issues of the ages of criminal responsibility[1] is a mystery to me. [1] The age was raised in Malta from 12 to 14 in 2014, so, depending on when the offence took place that might technically not apply, though it would be seen as 'not right' to do such a retrospective prosecution normally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dilligaf Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 No matter if he was a compete twat or not. You cannot convict a child of rape. FFS, think back to when we were 10 years old. Were we capable of knowing right from wrong ? Were we also capable of raping somebody ? I am not I even sure I knew the difference between boys and girls at that age. This guys life is now ruined. For what ? because he shares a surname with some fool ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WTF Posted March 10, 2019 Share Posted March 10, 2019 11 hours ago, Max Power said: Does this mean that our age of criminal responsibility is from the dark ages, like many of our little foibles? yes. and if dinosaurs could write they would be from back then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Augustus Posted March 10, 2019 Share Posted March 10, 2019 11 hours ago, dilligaf said: No matter if he was a compete twat or not. You cannot convict a child of rape. FFS, think back to when we were 10 years old. Were we capable of knowing right from wrong ? Were we also capable of raping somebody ? I am not I even sure I knew the difference between boys and girls at that age. This guys life is now ruined. For what ? because he shares a surname with some fool ? Er, there's nothing in any of these articles to suggest this chap (currently in prison) did not do any of the things he is accused of. OK, so they apparently happened when he was young (13). Everyone knows early developers. However, most young people don't rape other young people. I suspect he has benefitted from legal technicalities. That is all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2112 Posted March 10, 2019 Share Posted March 10, 2019 15 hours ago, WTF said: flinty will be on shortly to tell you it's the law. Let’s not have a go at Derek, in all fairness this case has been a farce from start to finish. In my humble opinion (lowly, inexperienced and inexpensive) this farce eminents from the powers that be that draw up the charges. What’s the explanation from the AGs office - some highly experienced, professional and finest brains in the island work there! ALEGEDLLY!!. As you can imagine this case has been to court a couple of times and no doubt will cost some money - and to think Alfie Cannon wants to do away with Legal Aid and create one big Public Defendant Unit. If you look at the facts of the case which were reproduced on the Nations Mouthpiece quite clearly, its blatantly obvious that it shouldn’t have got as far as it’s gone - highly professional people incapable of using thought processes and disseminating facts, checking over facts before coming to logical conclusions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thesultanofsheight Posted March 10, 2019 Share Posted March 10, 2019 14 hours ago, Roger Mexico said: If anything it just makes it even odder. Which I wouldn't have thought possible: I pointed out earlier that these cases where someone was prosecuted for a rape committed that young were very rare and invariably the prosecution was carried out soon after the offence. So this was already a very strange case and one that raised all sorts of problems - what penalties could you impose, given that they should have been the ones relevant to the age the defendant would have been at the time? Now it turns out that the alleged offences were committed abroad in two different jurisdictions, which adds a whole other layer of complexity, even assuming the laws exist in the Island to prosecute people for such offences committed off Island. How the AG Office ever imagined that it would be possible to get a conviction, even without the issues of the ages of criminal responsibility[1] is a mystery to me. [1] The age was raised in Malta from 12 to 14 in 2014, so, depending on when the offence took place that might technically not apply, though it would be seen as 'not right' to do such a retrospective prosecution normally. Thanks. Well and truly clutching at straws then. However, the guy does seem to be inside already for other offences so I wonder if they were just pushing it to see if they could get anything else to stick? Looks very tenuous though I agree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Mexico Posted March 10, 2019 Share Posted March 10, 2019 There's also an immediately post-court piece on 3FM, from Jason Roberts repeating the statement made in Court, that confuses the issues even more. It says that Collis was 13 at the time of the alleged attack in Malta (presumably in Summer 2010) and that the age of criminal responsibility was 10 then[1] as he would have to be prosecuted under Maltese Law in the Manx Courts. The decision to prosecute just gets weirder and weirder. It's like they decided to take all the possible factors that make it difficult to get a successful prosecution and decided to combine them into one case. Maybe there's some sort of international competition for the most stupid prosecution decision. They should run away with it. (It's also worth pointing to how, yet again, the Courts are releasing and the media reporting enough information about a sexual offences case that people are able to make guesses about the identity of the alleged victim - which is what I presume Dilligaf's comment was about). [1] As above I'm fairly certain it wasn't. In the Maltese system younger children can be brought before the Courts but not prosecuted, though presumably Court orders can be made for protection etc, which would be irrelevant here with an adult defendant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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