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Letzgo hunting paedos

Dandred said:
In the eyes of the pedophiles they were not over 16, that is the same thing the police do as mentioned in the documentary. :facepalm:
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Fucking hell! Nobody is disputing that the police do the same, and nobody is disputing that it can result in convictions for attempted s.15. All Dwyer was saying is that the decoys were over 16, which they were. That is a matter of fact, and it remains true notwithstanding what the targets believed. You claimed that the decoys were not over 16. You were wrong. That's all.
 
phildwyer said:
Depends what you mean by "his ilk." As I've said, I suspect that all of them depend on confessions, even if they are usually obtained by the police.

In fact, this is true of a huge number of crimes. Never talk to the cops is the lesson.
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There's no reason for there to be a confession to secure a conviction for this offence. I don't know why you keep claiming that there is.
 
The decoys didn't even exist! They only existed in the minds of the people who wanted to believe they did exist. I only claimed that. The context of the documentary would make that clear, wouldn't it?
 
I imagine the guy that got three years had previous, his sentence was way more than the others. I imagine the constabulary take a close look at computers/phones of the ones they nick too.
 
8ball said:
More specifically, a fictional character created by Stinson was the decoy.
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The legislation doesn't mention decoys, though. It talks about the person with whom the suspect has communicated; in this case that is Stinson. He is over 16. Neither of those facts is altered by the suspect's mistaken belief that he was communicating with an under-age girl.
 
Athos said:
The legislation doesn't mention decoys, though. It talks about the person with whom the suspect has communicated; in this case that is Stinson. He is over 16. Neither of those facts is altered by the suspect's mistaken belief that he was communicating with an under-age girl.
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So why have the police managed to do the same thing with many convictions? The police officers replying to nonces aren't under 16.
 
Dandred said:
So why have the police managed to do the same thing with many convictions? The police officers replying to nonces aren't under 16.
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They don't get convictions for s.15 when they pose as kids; in those circumstances, they can only get convictions for attempt to breach s.15. As I've said. More than once. If you still don't understand, then I don't know how to make it any simpler. Sorry.
 
Athos said:
There's no reason for there to be a confession to secure a conviction for this offence. I don't know why you keep claiming that there is.
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Because in the absence of a confession, the accused can say "she was in an adults only chatroom, so it was reasonable for me to assume she was an adult."

If I'm understanding the law correctly, a conviction requires proof that the defendent cannot reasonably have believed the victim to be above the age of consent. How could that be proved without a confession?
 
phildwyer said:
Because in the absence of a confession, the accused can say "she was in an adults only chatroom, so it was reasonable for me to assume she was an adult."

If I'm understanding the law correctly, a conviction requires proof that the defendent cannot reasonably have believed the victim to be above the age of consent. How could that be proved without a confession?
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Like any other offence: from all of the evidence.
 
Athos said:
Like any other offence: from all of the evidence.
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But other offences are defined by what somebody has done.

This one is defined by what somebody believed.

It's very hard--arguably impossible--to prove what someone is thinking. Unless they tell you.
 
phildwyer said:
But other offences are defined by what somebody has done.

This one is defined by what somebody believed.

It's very hard--arguably impossible--to prove what someone is thinking. Unless they tell you.
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No. Very, very many crimes require a particular mens rea.
 
Athos said:
So does s.15. The action required is specified in the section (which I posted earlier).
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But the actions in themselves cannot win a conviction. They must be carried out with a particular belief in mind.

I know that's true of many crimes with regard to intention, but I can't think of another example where the defendant must believe a particular fact for a crime to have taken place. Can you?

Let's say that somebody attempts to murder a fictional character--Batman for example. They take a big knife, and they lurk down a dark alley. The police find them and ask what they're doing. They reply: "I'm trying to murder Batman."

Are they guilty of attempted murder? Surely not.

Isn't it the same in this case? The men were trying to meet a fictional character after all. What's the difference?
 
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phildwyer said:
But the actions in themselves cannot win a conviction. They must be carried out with a particular belief in mind.

I know that's true of many crimes with regard to intention, but I can't think of another example where the defendant must believe a particular fact for a crime to have taken place. Can you?
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For instance sections 44 to 46 of the Serious Crime Act 2007, section 19 Terrorism Act 2000, parts of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002...
 
phildwyer said:
But the actions in themselves cannot win a conviction. They must be carried out with a particular belief in mind.

I know that's true of many crimes with regard to intention, but I can't think of another example where the defendant must believe a particular fact for a crime to have taken place. Can you?

Let's say that somebody attempts to murder a fictional character--Batman for example. They take a big knife, and they lurk down a dark alley. The police find them and ask what they're doing. They reply: "I'm trying to murder Batman."

Are they guilty of attempted murder? Surely not.

Isn't it the same in this case? The men were trying to meet a fictional character after all. What's the difference?
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From the CPS website:

Attempting the Impossible

A person may fail to carry through the offence because it is not possible for her/him to do so. It is necessary to ascertain why the attempt has not succeeded in order to determine if s/he can still be prosecuted for attempting to commit an offence. There is a crucial distinction between what is factually impossible and what is legally impossible (see further Archbold 33-129).

Even if it may not be possible to commit the full offence because the factual basis is not present, if the facts had been as the defendant believed them to be, s/he can be charged with attempting to commit the offence in question (see R v Shivpuri [1986] 2 All ER 334).

The House of Lords in Shivpuri made it clear that the only kind of impossibility which is relevant to liability is true legal impossibility. Even if the facts were such as the accused believed them to be, then the defendant would still not be committing any offence, having made a mistake about what the law was. If the defendant for example, believed it was an offence to import snuff and does import it, s/he does not commit the offence of attempting to supply a controlled drug, as the importation of snuff is not a crime.

And, in this case, what he's attempting is to do is meet a child for sex; so, yes, can be done for attempt (but not the substantive offence, becasue the person with whom he communicated - the other required ingredient - was not a minor).
 
Athos said:
And, in this case, what he's attempting is to do is meet a child for sex; so, yes, can be done for attempt (but not the substantive offence, becasue the person with whom he communicated - the other required ingredient - was not a minor).
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Again though, if he insists that he is attempting to meet an adult, it is very hard to refute him. He is after all the person best-placed to know his own intentions.

When they do this in the USA, they always ask the guys to bring condoms with them, because that proves that they intended to have sex.
 
phildwyer said:
When they do this in the USA, they always ask the guys to bring condoms with them, because that proves that they intended to have sex.
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I'm not sure whether you have condoms on your person at a given moment is a reliable gauge that you intend to have sex with whomever you are meeting at that moment.
 
phildwyer said:
Again though, if he insists that he is attempting to meet an adult, it is very hard to refute him. He is after all the person best-placed to know his own intentions.

When they do this in the USA, they always ask the guys to bring condoms with them, because that proves that they intended to have sex.
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It's not at all difficult to infer intention from all the other evidence; that happens in respect of thousands of crimes.

We're just going round in circles, now. You insist that a conviction is almost impossible without a confession; I refute that. Let's agree to disagree.
 
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