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Allegations of rape: Why are police asking victims for their phones?

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1 hour ago, Cyclone said:

 


So the stated reason sounds like a smokescreen to me.

It's pretty intrusive to demand a victim hand over their phone.  Phones contain all kinds of personal information, private messages in all kinds of format, potentially they contain intimate photos, drunken conversations or confessions, all kinds of things that are nothing to do with the reported crime and extremely personal.

 

Exactly  !!    Phones contain all kinds of personal information which the victim might consider irrelevent but in reality could make or break a conviction.    

Simple ......    don't put photo's etc. on your phone which you wouldn't want others seeing.

There's nothing on my phone that I'm not happy to share with anybody.

 

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Guest makapaka
1 hour ago, Cyclone said:

It's an odd one.  They're claiming it's because they've recently had a bunch of cases collapse because the police and CPS failed to share relevant information with the defence.

But that wasn't due to a lack of the victims phones, it was due to the police and cps thinking they could get a conviction if they buried some evidence that exonerated the accused.


So the stated reason sounds like a smokescreen to me.

It's pretty intrusive to demand a victim hand over their phone.  Phones contain all kinds of personal information, private messages in all kinds of format, potentially they contain intimate photos, drunken conversations or confessions, all kinds of things that are nothing to do with the reported crime and extremely personal.

The fact was that the police had this information anyway and it was a police/cps decision to try to hide it from the defence.  It was nothing to do with having access to the alleged victims phone.

That doesn't sound remotely balanced, the victim isn't supposed to be on trial.

It's only the same for the person on trial? Would you apply the same rationale to the defendant even if it potentiall incriminated them.

 

All information should be made available to establish the correct verdict.

 

The use of that information in determining the correct verdict is what needs to be administered correctly and not exploited i.e.  using previous sexual history which is obviously wrong.

 

 

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Perhaps the phone is used as a locator? To verify if the person was in the area of the attack at the time?

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2 hours ago, alchresearch said:

Perhaps the phone is used as a locator? To verify if the person was in the area of the attack at the time?

That's how I see it . On the news it said on one occasion a man accused of rape was proven to be in a different city at the time of the offence 

 

 

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10 minutes ago, hackey lad said:

That's how I see it . On the news it said on one occasion a man accused of rape was proven to be in a different city at the time of the offence 

 

 

The accused have their phones taken as a matter of course during the investigation.  

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In the real world people lie - if there's nothing incriminating on the phone hand it over. Or would you rather waste millions on court cases which collapse when the defendant proves that the accuser is lying .

The accused has to hand over phones,laptops and personal information to prove themselves innocent why shouldn't the accuser have to do the same ?

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10 minutes ago, willman said:

In the real world people lie - if there's nothing incriminating on the phone hand it over. Or would you rather waste millions on court cases which collapse when the defendant proves that the accuser is lying .

The accused has to hand over phones,laptops and personal information to prove themselves innocent why shouldn't the accuser have to do the same ?

I agree with this post.

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3 hours ago, alchresearch said:

Perhaps the phone is used as a locator? To verify if the person was in the area of the attack at the time?

Phones don't necessarily keep a record of where they've been and if they do it can always be deleted. A more reliable source of location would be from phone company records but then the police would actually have to go to the trouble of issuing an RIPA request to the phone company.

Edited by altus

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3 hours ago, alchresearch said:

Perhaps the phone is used as a locator? To verify if the person was in the area of the attack at the time?

Can that not be done without going through someone's phone though? 

 

I know Google et al know where I've been, but I still see my phone and contents as private. I don't want some barrister taking apart my browsing history(and then reported in the news potentially) when I'm the victim. We've already got rape victims getting hammered for what they were wearing or drinking, do we need nude selfies taken 5yearsback being shaken out in court as well? If we are going down this route there must strict oversight.

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36 minutes ago, tinfoilhat said:

Can that not be done without going through someone's phone though? 

 

I know Google et al know where I've been, but I still see my phone and contents as private. I don't want some barrister taking apart my browsing history(and then reported in the news potentially) when I'm the victim. We've already got rape victims getting hammered for what they were wearing or drinking, do we need nude selfies taken 5yearsback being shaken out in court as well? If we are going down this route there must strict oversight.

No we don't - but perhaps we need those sent to the defendant after the offence has occurred and before it was reported or any other time in between  or during the alleged offence.

 

My OH is working on a case where a lady has claimed rape by a 65 year old man - they were in bed together(she's 40+) and had sex frequently - although this time she was that hammered she didn't think she'd agreed to it. 10 days before trial when the old guy was preparing for a bad future - pictures were shown that she had  taken during the offence and with texts the following day about how good he was for his age.

Even worse it transpires now that this is the third man she's done it too in three different towns.

Edited by willman
typo

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This has comes about after a rape prosecution was dropped at the last moment because it was disclosed that the police knew that the alleged victim has been sending texts to the alleged perp that called the accusation into question.

 

What was never explained at the time was that regardless of whether the police disclosed that certain text messages and social media content existed, why didn't the defendant make this information known to his defence who would then require the police to disclose it and enter it into evidence? If a defendant claims that the person accusing them sent them certain text messages, posted stuff on facebook or rang their mobile 27 times a day then the police don't need to see the victim's phone to get that information. The same goes for GPS location. Only the phone number is needed, not the actual phone.

 

I suspect that this whole thing is a panic reaction to the number of collapsed cases which can be simply solved by the police and prosecution (and defence) actually doing their job properly.

 

All this will do is cause even greater under reporting of certain crimes. 

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4 minutes ago, Top Cats Hat said:

This has comes about after a rape prosecution was dropped at the last moment because it was disclosed that the police knew that the alleged victim has been sending texts to the alleged perp that called the accusation into question.

 

What was never explained at the time was that regardless of whether the police disclosed that certain text messages and social media content existed, why didn't the defendant make this information known to his defence who would then require the police to disclose it and enter it into evidence? If a defendant claims that the person accusing them sent them certain text messages, posted stuff on facebook or rang their mobile 27 times a day then the police don't need to see the victim's phone to get that information. The same goes for GPS location. Only the phone number is needed, not the actual phone.

 

I suspect that this whole thing is a panic reaction to the number of collapsed cases which can be simply solved by the police and prosecution (and defence) actually doing their job properly.

 

All this will do is cause even greater under reporting of certain crimes. 

My thoughts entirely

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