Chaps,
John awaits my comment but will, I fear, find my response necessarily equivocal (and unnecessarily long-winded)
Please let me raise one or two points for you to ponder.
The Police don't charge independently any more. Before they can do so they are obliged to present the facts to a CPS prosecutor who then allows the charge or not. Therefore, the Police wouldn't bother preparing a case unless they thought they could get it approved by the CPS.
In addition, the prosecutor has a statutory obligation to ensure that such a prosecution passes the "public interest test" ie, is it in the public interest to prosecute the case.
The CPS advisor will make a decision based upon the case presented but the decision will be influenced by the likelihood of a positive outcome, the CPS being, overall, a risk-averse organization.
So the prosecutor will have to see if a prima facie case can be presented to the Court. By that I mean, can the prosecutor present the evidence in such a way that the Court can decide that there is a case to answer, otherwise running the risk of being roundly and robustly told to go forth and multiply by an irascible old git on the Bench
.
The facts are heard by people like me, and I hope those of you who know me will accept that I, amongst others, hear a great many such presentations and be assured that unless there IS a prima facie case, then the CPS, or Procurator Fiscal in Scottish jurisprudence, will be bounced out of the Court.
In the real world, the decision on a case isn't made by a faceless political bureaucrat but by people who have a solid grounding in common sense, and, if I say it myself, a great deal of experience in seeing the wood from the trees as it were
My point being, that if the charge has been laid, then it will have been measured against the yardstick I've tried to explain here and that makes me think that there probably is a case to answer. I put it no more strongly. That is to say, there seems to be sufficient evidence to suggest that an assault might well have been carried out. If that is the situation, it doesn't matters not whether there was mitigation, the case MUST be tried before the Court. How, in a civilised democratic society could it be otherwise?
I don't know, any more than any other member of the public at large, what actually happened, although I've heard suggestions and speculation and seen the video which, in my view, raises more questions than it answers. Carl (Zeb), I think, made a valid point, when he suggests that the full facts are not in the public domain yet.
What I can say though, with absolute confidence, is that if a charge has been laid, then the Procurator Fiscal is satisfied that, in the real world, there is sufficient evidence of an alleged assault to put before a Court.
Please bear in mind guys, that I'm not expressing an opinion, either way, because I don't believe that I have sufficient information upon which to base an opinion, but I will, along with many others, be following the case with interest and will endeavour to obtain the transcript of any judgement or sentence which results
I hope I'm not "stating the bleedin' obvious", but that's my view as things stand at the moment
