abolish the CPS tests, and prosecute if there's a prima facie case.
Authoritarianism: less free, less safe.
The CPS require in part a realistic prospect of conviction. Unless you want resources pissed away on lawyers on cases that are going to fail once they hit the Court that is a pretty sensible stance to take. The real challenge is gathering the evidence to make the chance of conviction realistic. It requires resources and the correct attitude, commitment, from the Police. Detection o f crime is not a straightforward, easy results process with many of these offences.
Huntley would not pass a modern enhanced crb check based on what had occurred previously. His case is one of the reasons enhanced CRB's were introduced.
Rapes are notoriously difficult to prove, even if forensic evidence is gathered it is difficult to convince a jury that the sex was non-consensual.
There are no such problems in most paedo crimes. Where photographs are on beasts PC's they can easily be proven to be in breach of the law. If victims are willing to speak out, they are, for the most part, believed.
Being someone who has been subjected to an enhanced CRB check I know of the difficulties that it can cause. I have a very old caution for cannabis on my record that I have to mention every time I apply for a job due to the nature of what I do. When the police stop me it is something that shows up on their radios. But I am quite happy to accept this inconvenience if it stops one Huntley, or one Sidney Cooke from being able to make contact and gain a position of trust in order to kill or abuse one child.
And if a sick user of child pornography is identified in public, causing him some problems in the local community I feel that that is a price well worth paying if it protects a child from possible abuse.
Crime statistics from a country the size of the US with the gun laws and culture that they have can not be transposed to the UK. It is absurd. All I know is that when I grew up we were aware of a few paedo filth and to stay well clear of them because of the size of the town. It turned out there were even more than we knew of, but that gave us some modicum of safety. We still went out and played despite the knowledge that there were some monsters to avoid.
Children should be able to speak confidently with adults, sure of the knowledge that if paedo scum are caught they will be imprisoned for life, or fully identified to their communities.
I was in Canterbury a few weeks ago with my family and a man was behind me taking photographs. I looked over and he started saying, "Oh, its just for a project, I am taking pictures of shadows, shadows." I couldn't give a toss what he was doing but he then said to my wife , "look, look it is just of shadows," and he showed us what was on his camera. He then took a photo of my children's shadows. I had said absolutely nothing to him that I was suspicious of his behaviour but he seemed to assume that I thought he was a beast. He had a strange scraggly beard, and was wearing some fucking hippy rainbow coloured clothes. Anyway, because of his weird behaviour I googled Canterbury and Paedophile when I got home and found out that it is another cluster for these filth. Not surprisingly as it has a large tourist flow and they can hide amongst the crowds.
My point is that if there was a register of convicted paedo scum I would have been able to check whether this character was as innocent as he probably is or whether he was building a shadow portfolio to use to build a sick photoshop library. If he was a convicted paedo then I could contact his local Police and let them know that the beast was up to his old tricks. Alternatively, I could rest in the knowledge that he is exactly as he I treated him, an innocent man with a strange habit and a regrettable taste in facial hair and clothes.
