CV-19: Woman wrongfully convicted in shambolic case

[JGD]

In The Indie today, a piece that shows police and courts rapidly backtracking after desperately attempting to have a high profile prosecution case against a woman make headlines in the news and provide an example of how "offenders" would be treated. The conviction is to be quashed.

Yes - we know the police have a difficult job here. There are so few of them.

Yes - most of us would agree that we need our communities to observe the constraints of social separation and thankfully, most do conform to the restrictions under the new rules. They are all essential and all are to the common good.

We live in a nation governed by rule of law and policing is by consent. Many Police Services have deployed policies which provide maximum encouragement to comply and where that fails to take an enforcement route as an absolute last resort. Some have demonstrably made no attempt to charge anyone.

So hopefully, this case, where police did not establish whether the woman could speak or understand English and the court could not know if she had any mental health issues, is an isolated example. But bad practice it undoubtedly is. And serves to undermine people's' confidence in what they perceive to be a Police Service that protects them by consent.

Her conviction is to be quashed after police admitted that the wrong law was used to prosecute her, and the case “shouldn’t have happened”.

The Independent has learned that Ms Dinou was not even in the courtroom when a judge found the offence proven after reading statements from British Transport Police (BTP) on Monday.

The court made to [sic] formal effort to confirm that she spoke English.

“Defendant refuses to identify herself, sent back to cells and proved in absence,” read a short official account of the hearing.

“Having explored all options, Ms Dinou was arrested on suspicion of breaching the restrictions imposed under the Coronavirus Act 2020.”

But official guidance issued to officers by the College of Policing and National Police Chiefs’ Council states that “there is no power to ‘stop and account’” under the new laws.

Frankly and retrospectively, the police explored no options whatsoever. Confronted by what they thought was a person who would not speak to them, they reached a conclusion she was "refusing" to co-operate and moved to arrest her without establishing whether she understood what they were saying to her.

Then this following caveat is revealed. Can this be right ?

But the law can only apply to “potentially infectious persons” and is separate to the newer Health Protection Regulations that allow police to enforce the UK lockdown.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/c ... 44311.html

[IsraelMartinez]

France itlay and spain r giving big fines, gonna happen here too

[JGD]

It would appear that our police services in England and Wales have been put in a position where they have been directed to take action and prosecute people based on the Corona Virus Act where it is not competent in law and thereby not fit for the intended purpose.

If I am reading this Indie piece correctly NONE of the cases is valid.

All prosecutions under the new Coronavirus Act have been unlawful, a review has found.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) revealed that all 44 charges it had so far checked had been withdrawn or overturned.

Those wrongly convicted include a woman who was fined £660 after being stopped while “loitering” at a railway station in Newcastle.

Several Coronavirus Act cases, including some against children, are ongoing and the number of dropped cases is expected to rise.

The CPS launched a review of all prosecutions under coronavirus laws after several miscarriages of justice were highlighted by the media.

Greg McGill, the CPS director of legal services, said all the wrongful charges had been brought by police in England and Wales.

“Under the Coronavirus Act all 44 charges were incorrect,” he told a remote press conference on Friday.

“The main problem was that they didn’t relate to potentially infectious people who refused to cooperate with police or public health officers requiring them to be screened for Covid-19. That was the reason for the incorrect charges.”

Six of the people prosecuted were only charged under the Coronavirus Act, while 38 were accused of other offences including assault, theft and burglary.

Of the 44 wrongful charges, 31 were withdrawn in court and 13 cases were relisted following convictions.

Eleven people were charged under the separate Health Protection Regulations instead, which enforce restrictions on movement and gatherings.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/h ... 16566.html