Germany/Portugal - Christian Brueckner, 27 @ time of 1st crime (2004), charged with sexual assault crimes, Praia de Rocha, Portugal. #4

[Davieson]

Respectfully
She's 40, not 95!

Its not an age thing, its whether she can remember accurately over that time period.
She's making a serious allegation which should be tested.

 

[Mex]

^ I wonder what that means? Who are these failed people? What does 'new appointments' mean? Is it referring to those yet to give evidence?

Illustration of problems not having access to the full picture, so we can only guess.

I think the so called "failed people" may be those who have had to drop out from the trial because of illness or other factors in this long running trial.

I think "new appointments" may be their replacements who one can only hope have been waiting in reserve from day one of the trial and are privy to everything which has gone on in the court since then (similar to the system for jury members available to take over in emergency).
One would suppose there would be such a contingency plan in place for any such emergency. A time consuming trial could have been expected since there are five indictments to be considered let alone allowing for all types of emergency.

All just a guess because I don't know.

 

[Mex]

Its not an age thing, its whether she can remember accurately over that time period.
She's making a serious allegation which should be tested.

There can be none who know better than HB just how serious her rape was. She did not think she was going to survive it at the time and she has the permanent and perhaps debilitating scar tissue behind her knees to remind her of being trussed up like a chicken by the assailant for every day since and for every future day of her life.
We know she will never forget anything from start to finish that was forced on her unwilling body on that horrible night . It affected her mentally and physically and she must have suffered reliving it for CB's trial.

The prosecution could ask for a reciprocal test here; she could subject herself to a cognitive memory test and the conversation from that night in exchange for a few sentences uttered and recorded by the accused.

 

[tedtink]

Its not an age thing, its whether she can remember accurately over that time period.
She's making a serious allegation which should be tested.

She said she recognised his eyes and has testified to that.
She said she recognised them in 2020.
She had an extreme visceral reaction when she saw them.
How much more 'eye recognition' do you require of HaB the female rape and torture victim?
The eye specialist has testified that it IS possible to recognise eyes and yet you persist, now questioning her 'cognitive' abilities.
There are numerous studies that back this up, one I posted around a week ago. Did you read it?
This covert victim shaming must end imo, it's very ugly.

 

[Denis R Tandib]

I suppose it would depend upon her cognitive ability after nearly 20 years.
The test would be to present her with images of a couple of dozen sets of blue eyes to see if she could identify CB. Rather like looking at a book of mugshots.

Considering she has seen CB’s eyes countless times in the media, I don’t think this is an effective test.

 

[Denis R Tandib]

She said she recognised his eyes and has testified to that.
She said she recognised them in 2020.
She had an extreme visceral reaction when she saw them.
How much more 'eye recognition' do you require of HaB the female rape and torture victim?
The eye specialist has testified that it IS possible to recognise eyes and yet you persist, now questioning her 'cognitive' abilities.
There are numerous studies that back this up, one I posted around a week ago. Did you read it?
This covert victim shaming must end imo, it's very ugly.

Victim shaming is taking it too far. Any reasonable person understands that rape is a terrible ordeal for victims. However, does that mean we cannot share our views and question the evidence in such crimes?

From what I can see, @Davieson is asking if a positive identification of an individual by their eyes alone is possible after twenty years. Not if identifying someone by their eyes is possible but if it’s possible after two decades. If you have a source that tests these conditions i.e. identification of strangers by eyes alone over long time periods of time, please share it. In this case, it seems that this is the only way the attacker can be identified.

It’s not victim shaming, it’s a reasonable question which is fair to ask, even if the victim suffered a terrible experience - her experience and an objective analysis of the evidence should be separated. We should be allowed to ask questions without accusations of covert victim blaming or other unconscious fallacies.

 

[Davieson]

Considering she has seen CB’s eyes countless times in the media, I don’t think this is an effective test.

What other object test could be applied ?

 

[tedtink]

Victim shaming is taking it too far. Any reasonable person understands that rape is a terrible ordeal for victims. However, does that mean we cannot share our views and question the evidence in such crimes?

From what I can see, @Davieson is asking if a positive identification of an individual by their eyes alone is possible after twenty years. Not if identifying someone by their eyes is possible but if it’s possible after two decades. If you have a source that tests these conditions i.e. identification of strangers by eyes alone over long time periods of time, please share it. In this case, it seems that this is the only way the attacker can be identified.

It’s not victim shaming, it’s a reasonable question which is fair to ask, even if the victim suffered a terrible experience - her experience and an objective analysis of the evidence should be separated. We should be allowed to ask questions without accusations of covert victim blaming or other unconscious fallacies.

It wasn't after 20 years it was 16 and you have agreed that identifying someone by their eyes is possible. The time lapse is neither here nor there if identification is indeed, evolutionary.
BTW, does CB have an alibi for that night in June 2004?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2622259_Recognizing_Faces_from_the_Eyes_Only

"In the highly emotional contexts, participants made fewer errors in eye shape than in neutral contexts, and made the most errors in regard to nose shape.

https://web.colby.edu/cogblog/2014/05/01/your-eyes-can-give-you-away/

Looking into someone's eyes 'the key to remembering their face'

Looking into someone's eyes is the key to remembering their face, a new study suggests.

www.telegraph.co.uk

Scientists believe that our brains take the information they need to identify a person primarily from their eyes.....

The reason we look where we look, said the researchers, is evolutionary

Face Identification Accuracy is in the Eye (and Brain) of the Beholder, UCSB Researchers Say

Their findings are in a recent issue of the journal Psychological Science.

news.ucsb.edu

 

[Denis R Tandib]

It wasn't after 20 years it was 16 and you have agreed that identifying someone by their eyes is possible. The time lapse is neither here nor there if identification is indeed, evolutionary.
BTW, does CB have an alibi for that night in June 2004?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2622259_Recognizing_Faces_from_the_Eyes_Only

"In the highly emotional contexts, participants made fewer errors in eye shape than in neutral contexts, and made the most errors in regard to nose shape.

https://web.colby.edu/cogblog/2014/05/01/your-eyes-can-give-you-away/

Looking into someone's eyes 'the key to remembering their face'

Looking into someone's eyes is the key to remembering their face, a new study suggests.

www.telegraph.co.uk

Scientists believe that our brains take the information they need to identify a person primarily from their eyes.....

The reason we look where we look, said the researchers, is evolutionary

Face Identification Accuracy is in the Eye (and Brain) of the Beholder, UCSB Researchers Say

Their findings are in a recent issue of the journal Psychological Science.

news.ucsb.edu

The first link is recall of 40 subjects. Time is not a variable. Recognising people from there eyes with this small group and without a time delay is good but not as good as seeing the whole face.

The second link compares the eyes, nose and mouth as the feature most reliable for recognising someone. The eyes are more reliable.

Third link behind paywall.

The argument in the last link is that people who primarily look at the nose or the mouth when trying to identify someone can do so as accurately as those who use the eyes.

These links demonstrate that the eyes are an important feature in identifying someone.

They do not show that the eyes, exclusively, can be used to identify someone after a long period - they don’t come close to doing that.

Based on this, the enquiry from @Davieson is valid: using memory alone, is it possible to accurately identify someone by their eyes alone from a still photograph after 16 years? I am extremely doubtful that it is.

 

[tedtink]

DBM

 

[tedtink]

The first link is recall of 40 subjects. Time is not a variable. Recognising people from there eyes with this small group and without a time delay is good but not as good as seeing the whole face.

The second link compares the eyes, nose and mouth as the feature most reliable for recognising someone. The eyes are more reliable.

Third link behind paywall.

The argument in the last link is that people who primarily look at the nose or the mouth when trying to identify someone can do so as accurately as those who use the eyes.

These links demonstrate that the eyes are an important feature in identifying someone.

They do not show that the eyes, exclusively, can be used to identify someone after a long period - they don’t come close to doing that.

Based on this, the enquiry from @Davieson is valid: using memory alone, is it possible to accurately identify someone by their eyes alone from a still photograph after 16 years? I am extremely doubtful that it is.

The brain's facial identification mechanisms are specialised in eyes.

 

[Davieson]

Doesn't explain how you would determine that HaB was correct in her identification.

 

[Anxala]

It wasn't after 20 years it was 16 and you have agreed that identifying someone by their eyes is possible. The time lapse is neither here nor there if identification is indeed, evolutionary.
BTW, does CB have an alibi for that night in June 2004?

^ I don't think we know ie. I can't recall seeing any reporting of that being asked.

Not sure a lack of an alibi would be significant though. It would only really be significant if someone claimed to have seen him in the vicinity that night and as far as we know, that's not the case.

 

[Mex]

Doesn't explain how you would determine that HaB was correct in her identification.

Back in the day predating pixilation or blurring technology of a photograph to prevent recognition, the chosen method of obscuring a person's identity from recognition was to superimpose a black bar over the eyes.

A tried and tested technique which recognises that the focal point for facial identification is the eyes.

HB described a four hour vicious rape during which she "she “shut off” her feelings ". In court she specifically mentioned his "piercing blue eyes".

Irish woman gives evidence of brutal rape 20 years ago allegedly by chief suspect in Madeleine McCann disappearance

Hazel Behan, from Mullingar, testified on Wednesday at trial of German man Christian Brückner (47) on rape and indecent assault charges in Portugal between 2000 and 2017

www.irishtimes.com

Nowadays a rapist with a predilection for making a movie of his exploits must have an easier time of it than in years gone by.
An iPhone isn't as bulky as a super eight camera and is definitely a lot more accessible, particularly if the rapist of old also had his sharp weapons/rope/whip etc to contend with.
HB's detail of her assailant's eyes is really just a small part of the whole: and another part of the whole and the MO, might be consideration of how many rapes were perpetrated circa 2004 by a rapist who carried a kit including a movie camera with him to a venue with which he is obviously familiar and at ease?

I would venture not too many at all.

 

[Mex]

^ I don't think we know ie. I can't recall seeing any reporting of that being asked.

Not sure a lack of an alibi would be significant though. It would only really be significant if someone claimed to have seen him in the vicinity that night and as far as we know, that's not the case.

The suspect CB, has exercised his right of silence. So unless his legal team has the answer and is prepared to divulge what it is in his defence - we probably won't ever have a clue.

The value of having an alibi is that it tends to indicate it would have been impossible for a suspect to be present at the scene of a crime. Which removes the onus on prosecutors of seeking to prove he was.

The fact the assailant might not have been seen would not be an extraordinary occurrence; the nature of the beast dictates the majority of rapes are perpetrated by those with skills for blending into the background to avoid being seen either when casing the venue or entering or exiting the crime scene.

 

[Anxala]

This covert victim shaming must end imo, it's very ugly.

I think that's an unfair charge at this stage of the trial. And also, respectfully, a subjective and emotion-led one that's unhelpful because it's failing to engage with the court's objective findings as to why all the charges against CB are now at risk of being dismissed.

Based on its current precarious state, people are perfectly entitled to question every last claim that the prosecution has made and that includes those of their witnesses. That's nothing to do with victim shaming or blaming and everything to do with trying to make sense of a trial that's not remotely gone in the direction it was expected to go.

If anyone should be shamed here, it's the prosecution. Both for its failure to deliver and the consequences of that failure.

FWIW, I don't doubt HaB's eye recollection, she was there, she was the one looking directly into the eyes of her attacker, I don't need an ophthalmologist to confirm anything to do with that.

 

[C.greek]

I think that's an unfair charge at this stage of the trial. And also, respectfully, a subjective and emotion-led one that's unhelpful because it's failing to engage with the court's objective findings as to why all the charges against CB are now at risk of being dismissed.

Based on its current precarious state, people are perfectly entitled to question every last claim that the prosecution has made and that includes those of their witnesses. That's nothing to do with victim shaming or blaming and everything to do with trying to make sense of a trial that's not remotely gone in the direction it was expected to go.

If anyone should be shamed here, it's the prosecution. Both for its failure to deliver and the consequences of that failure.

FWIW, I don't doubt HaB's eye recollection, she was there, she was the one looking directly into the eyes of her attacker, I don't need an ophthalmologist to confirm anything to do with that.

Respectfully, the post that led to this comment was doubting HaB's recollection of the eyes of her attacker. This has nothing to do with the prosecution, but the post was doubting HaB's ability to remember what she saw. Jmo

 

[tedtink]

I think that's an unfair charge at this stage of the trial. And also a subjective and emotion-led one that's failing to engage with the court's objective findings as to why all the charges are now at risk of being dismissed.

In the light of that, people are perfectly entitled at this stage to question every claim that the prosecution has made and that includes those of the witnesses.

But, FWIW, I don't doubt HaB's eye recollection, she was there, she was the one looking directly into the eyes of her attacker, I don't need an ophthalmologist to confirm anything to do with that. And I'm surprised that the DM and the unknown video victim MO evidence failed to land in her case.

AFAIK The Courts objective finding was that the ophthalmologist testified that only blue eyes can be seen in the dark and twilight, all other eye colours appear as black.

Engaging with the OP's deliberate or plain obtuseness is plain boring, nothing to do with the charges being dismissed, suggesting the victim does some kind of eye ID parade is ludicrous and degrading IMO and I stand by that.

I agree with your last para.

 

[Mex]

I think that's an unfair charge at this stage of the trial. And also, respectfully, a subjective and emotion-led one that's unhelpful because it's failing to engage with the court's objective findings as to why all the charges against CB are now at risk of being dismissed.

Based on its current precarious state, people are perfectly entitled to question every last claim that the prosecution has made and that includes those of their witnesses. That's nothing to do with victim shaming or blaming and everything to do with trying to make sense of a trial that's not remotely gone in the direction it was expected to go.

If anyone should be shamed here, it's the prosecution. Both for its failure to deliver and the consequences of that failure.

FWIW, I don't doubt HaB's eye recollection, she was there, she was the one looking directly into the eyes of her attacker, I don't need an ophthalmologist to confirm anything to do with that.

Thank you for your recognition that HB is the complainant in this trial having been subject to an horrific rape for which CB is the suspect who stands indicted.

Unfortunately it is difficult to recognise exactly what is happening during this trial as a result of little reporting and that which is is reported not being delivered in sequence and with total confusion.
My opinion

One thing which should be recognised though, is that no-one has suggested that the Braunschweig court did any "victim shaming" either before, during or post HB's testimony.

There is now a legal argument taking place which none of us so far has been able to explain. As I understand it, it is highly unusual either for the judge to interrupt the process in the way she has just as it is highly unusual for the prosecution to make such an objection.

Of course, that may be misguided thinking insofar as my knowledge of procedure is no better or not much worse than anyone else's.

At times there has been a mantra along the lines of allowing the defence to do it's job or the "defence is only doing its job" when making numerous objection of all sorts.
The prosecution has made a complaint. The only objection I can think of them making. It would be appropriate to grant them the respect given to the defence that in doing so they are fulfilling their function and doing their job.
My opinion

 

[Mex]

AFAIK The Courts objective finding was that the ophthalmologist testified that only blue eyes can be seen in the dark and twilight, all other eye colours appear as black.

Engaging with the OP's deliberate or plain obtuseness is plain boring, nothing to do with the charges being dismissed, suggesting the victim does some kind of eye ID parade is ludicrous and degrading IMO and I stand by that.

I agree with your last para.

Down the line I have somehow missed the ophthalmologist's testimony.

That is totally definitive and backs HB's adamant testimony to the hilt; who but an expert in the field could have known that in the dark or twilight all eye colourings are black, with the exception of blue. Wow!