McAlpine to take legal action

[Gentile]

Our legal "experts" seem to be totally ignorant fools at times, it's why I'm totally against DNA collection. Who wants to be falsely matched to some rape or whatever and for nobody to know enough about the subject to point out that these theoretical blanket figure of 10 milion to one do not apply to all cases and, even if it did, that does not mean that only 6 people in the UK could possibly have done it? Even assuming the idiots haven't mixed up the samples or made some other stupid cockup.

Yup, DNA on its own is a very dodgy piece of evidence to rely upon. There was a guy recently that spent months on remand for murdering a woman, despite no evidence other than out-of-context DNA linking them. He had no previous criminal record: his DNA was only on record because the police had to exclude his DNA from samples taken at his mother's house during a burglary some years before.

It turned out the victim had travelled in his taxi, and he had a medical condition that made him shed a lot of dandruff. A partial DNA match came from a tiny fragment of that dandruff getting caught in the victim's nail polish when she paid her fare. Poor bugger. If his defence hadn't been on the ball, he may well have been convicted. And these types of mix-ups and mis-applications of non-contextually-assessed evidence are threatening to happen more often, as the forensic services are becoming more and more centralised and removed from day-to-day contact with the investigations they're meant to support (as opposed to lead by the nose).

That's why it's important not to break out the pitch forks and torches, or pre-judge any matter that's sub judice.

[Sysman]

When did we become a pitchfork and flaming torch -bearing mob?...........scratch that, I'm forgetting I live in the UK.

FTFY

[Gentile]

When did we become a pitchfork and flaming torch -bearing mob?...........scratch that, I'm forgetting I live in the UK.

FTFY

That's a fair correction.

[EternalOptimist]

I watch a lot of Columbo on the telly, so I am a bit of an expert on forensic science, and detective logic.
What I want to know is this. If he was being bummed by a peer of the realm, surely he had his face in the pillow, or at least he was looking the other way

so THEREFORE, how could he know what the perp looked like ????

It really makes you wonder what journalistic standards are being used these days, when such an obvious error is allowed to slip through the editorial net

[minestrone]

The jury of twitter is out of control, if he is guilty bang him up and cut his nads off as far as I am concerned but let's do this through the courts first.

Not heard the PM thing on ITV from the other day but the girly said the PM dealt with it very well, she strongly dislikes Cameron as well.

[OwlHoot]

Totally agree. Nobody thought to say it was only correct to multiply up the chance of a baby dying ONLY if there was no common cause. Why was her defence quite so ignorant that they did not to point that out? ...

all the more so as the prosecution's case, based on twat Roy Meadow's testimony, hinged on that very fact, a sort of argument by contradiction with the conclusion that the common cause could only be her abuse. All the defence had to do was point out that there could be some _other_ common cause.

PS Another very sane comments Gentile.

WHS - Shame I'm maxxed out Gentile rep wise

[OwlHoot]

I watch a lot of Columbo on the telly, so I am a bit of an expert on forensic science, and detective logic.
What I want to know is this. If he was being bummed by a peer of the realm, surely he had his face in the pillow, or at least he was looking the other way

so THEREFORE, how could he know what the perp looked like ????

It really makes you wonder what journalistic standards are being used these days, when such an obvious error is allowed to slip through the editorial net

Yes, but would you have guessed he was a devil worshipper? It's always the last person one expects.

I can't wait to tell everyone down at the pub

[NotAllThere]

... I'm just adding that sometimes Court-appointed experts are worse and do even more harm to justice than a few internet loud-mouths...

Isn't the legal definition of an expert "someone who knows more about a subject than anyone else in the room".

The Sally Clark case and others are truly terrifying. I'm glad I live in a civilised country.

[centurian]

What was all the more worrying about the Sally Clark case was that there was no-one on the defence team (including Clark herself, who was a solicitor) that had even the basic grasp of statistics to blow apart Meadow's testimony.

[minestrone]

He is saying that he was never at the location but I think we can find out where he was with his mobile phone records. They do it all the time on CSI

"wat! u nvr had mobs in the 80s?!?!? wat did u do brov? 4 like, meetin the crew an that"