Deceased/Not Found UK - April Jones, 5, Machynlleth, Wales, 1 Oct 2012 #2 *M. Bridger guilty*

[Why why why]

I think what the police need to assume operationally is sometimes going to have to be different from absolute known facts. Even the police would probably acknowledge that unless a body is found there is always room for 0.1% possibility the person is alive and well somewhere.

Even when it comes to the trial itself, the jury only have to decide "beyond all *reasonable* doubt" not "with 100% cast iron indisputable factual proof". Ie at this stage it is pretty reasonably to assume the child is dead, but also reasonable to hope that your own child is one of the small percent who do indeed turn up alive against all probability.

Actually something like this just happened to a friend of mine. Her brother suddenly disappeared, at a time in his life when he would have been in a state of distress over a personal matter. For many months police checked hospital and other records, passport control, and watched for signs of bank accounts being accessed, telephone, anything. The man did not touch any money or have any of his belongings with him. They assumed he had committed suicide and searched for a body without finding anything. A death certificate was issued and the family dealt with his possessions etc.

Well over a year later, he was spotted by a mutual aquaintance. He had become mentally ill and lost his sense of who he was. He was being looked after like a homeless person by some charity who had no idea who he was.

Obviously it's very different for an adult and a tiny child, but I just wanted to illustrate how sometimes the authorities have to take an operational decision to officially assume someone dead, in order to deal with what the next most practical step is.

Hello, was this in USA? As in UK it usually takes 7 years to get a death certificate for a missing person - unless authorities have other convincing proof of death. This causes many legal problems for the family dealing with the missing persons estate.

IMO the police must have very firm evidence that little April is no longer alive (which they are obviously not telling us) in order to charge MB with her murder.

 

[Inge Jones]

Hello, was this in USA? As in UK it usually takes 7 years to get a death certificate for a missing person - unless authorities have other convincing proof of death. This causes many legal problems for the family dealing with the missing persons estate.

IMO the police must have very firm evidence that little April is no longer alive (which they are obviously not telling us) in order to charge MB with her murder.

It was Sweden. I am not sure of the time scale - it seemed to be quite a while between her telling me he had vanished and when he turned up - it was over a year could have been far longer - it was ages after she'd stopped bothering to talk about it lol. But setting aside laws about death certificates, I was actually focussing on police operational decisions, for example the point at which they switched from trying to find him alive to trying to find a body. The jury are going to be asked to decide what it is reasonable to assume - and I think we all think it's reasonable to assume she's dead, don't we? So if the jury is made of people like us, then they're not going to be saying "nope, we're not doing him for murder cos they never found her body"

So it's reasonable for the crown prosecution to think that there is a good chance of a successful charge and conviction.

 

[Why why why]

Clutchbag, I already put up a warning to stop this line of discussion. You have a right to your opinion as does everyone here. We will just have to agree to disagree on this one.

Hopefully we will know that they know soon.

Ima

Bumped up as a reminder.

 

[Clutchbag]

OK bye for now peoples, no harm meant I was after what evidence the police have and hoping they got it right and not bungled >>>>>>>

 

[marlywings]

Bumped up as a reminder.

Thankyou why why why...everyone please be mindful of imamaze's post. Also, if you have a problem with a post, don't reply to it, instead, please use the alert button. Thankyou all

 

[josie1986]

OK bye for now peoples, no harm meant I was after what evidence the police have and hoping they got it right and not bungled >>>>>>>

Emotions run high in cases like this, it's always better to take a step back and re group.

I wasn't offended or anything by your posts just difficult to understand where you were coming from but let's leave it at that.

I hope you come back and join us.WS is an amazing place.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Clio]

Generally police and other groups do searches as long as they have an idea of where to search. Usually they do stop after 10 days or two weeks and then only search based on any tips or new information. A sad fact, but they can't just search every corner of the world, they have to have something to go on.

As far as not releasing info, the UK is stronger about that than the USA; we hear a lot about cases prior to trial and are allowed on a jury as long as we agree to base the verdict only on what we hear in court. I think the great fear in the UK is that lots of publicity will tend toward a "guilty" verdict no matter what.

I am not sure if UK has jurors from the citizens?Or is it a panel of professional jurors?

I tend to think that most people, once it comes down to the realities of a trial can pay attention and base their decision on what is heard in court, but some countries have less faith in that belief, I guess.

From what I gather, not being in UK, we will not hear much at all until trial time, which could be a year or more away. Any UK person, please correct me.

BIB In the UK jurors are randomly selected from the electoral role. You must be aged between 18 and 70 and have lived in the UK for at least 5 years from the age of 13 or over. Certain people are exempt from being called e.g if you have mental health problems or have been in prision during the last 10 years.

It's pot luck whether you are called for jury service. Some people never get called, others get called more than once. I've been called 6 times which I think is unusually high.

If you are called, you are told which dates you are expected to attend. You are allowed to defer your attendance if the dates are inconvenient but you can do this only once in any one selection. If you have done jury service, you can still be called again but there is at least a two year gap before you have to do it again.

Normal jury service is two weeks. The majority of trials only last a few days so on average, you might sit on 2-3 trials during the fortnight. You are asked if it would cause you problems if your service were to extend beyond two weeks. If so, the court will try not to select you for a lengthy trial if possible but there are no guarantees.

UK jurors don't have to fill in questionnaires and are not questioned by the judge or lawyers prior to being sworn in.

 

[Sarahlou]

Arrggh. Sorry but I had to get that out.

Moving on, I hope today is the day little April is found so she can be laid to rest. I hate the idea of her just being out there somewhere.

 

[josie1986]

BIB In the UK jurors are randomly selected from the electoral role. You must be aged between 18 and 70 and have lived in the UK for at least 5 years from the age of 13 or over. Certain people are exempt from being called e.g if you have mental health problems or have been in prision during the last 10 years.

It's pot luck whether you are called for jury service. Some people never get called, others get called more than once. I've been called 6 times which I think is unusually high.

If you are called, you are told which dates you are expected to attend. You are allowed to defer your attendance if the dates are inconvenient but you can do this only once in any one selection. If you have done jury service, you can still be called again but there is at least a two year gap before you have to do it again.

Normal jury service is two weeks. The majority of trials only last a few days so on average, you might sit on 2-3 trials during the fortnight. You are asked if it would cause you problems if your service were to extend beyond two weeks. If so, the court will try not to select you for a lengthy trial if possible but there are no guarantees.

UK jurors don't have to fill in questionnaires and are not questioned by the judge or lawyers prior to being sworn in.

I'm in the uk and I don't even know the answer to this one...

Say I was chosen to be on the jury of this trial,I know for a certain fact I could not go in there with an open mind in the respect that he didn't do it...what happens then?

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Inge Jones]

I have to admit I am not clear in my own mind whether I feel April is dead or not. On the one hand it's easier to conceal a living person who is being guarded carefully than a dead one who is just sitting in one spot waiting to be found. On the other hand, anyone holding a living child over about the age of 5 is running a high risk that eventually that child will manage to blurt out who they really are to someone else. Of course, she could be out at sea now, but then bodies at sea almost always return to shore sooner or later, but it can be weeks.

 

[Sarah]

Thank you for the welcome WhyWhyWhy.

And my apologies to the mods if my first post in any way contributed to following posts overstepping the boundaries. That was absolutely in no way my intention :frown:

. . . I hope today is the day little April is found so she can be laid to rest. I hate the idea of her just being out there somewhere.

So do I Sarah.
I just don't know how much longer that level of tension and searching can carry on and the town deserves an end to this so that it can start to heal.

 

[Amber34]

The service in honour of April is available live on sky news right now if anyone would like to watch

http://news.sky.com/uk

It is being conducted in both English and Welsh.

 

[Clio]

I'm in the uk and I don't even know the answer to this one...

Say I was chosen to be on the jury of this trial,I know for a certain fact I could not go in there with an open mind in the respect that he didn't do it...what happens then?

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

In my experience, you don't know what trial you are going to sit on until you are called into court. 15 people go into court and 12 names are called to be sworn in. The extra 3 are there in case there is an issue with any of the 12 selected, e.g. one of the 12 knows the defendant. In which case, you give the court usher a note which he gives to the judge who then decides what to do. I guess if you were one of the 12 selected and you didn't feel that you could be impartial, you'd put that in a note to the judge for him to decide what to do.

All that said, I've never served on a high profile murder trial jury so it might be different.

 

[marlywings]

There's quite a lot of info on the following link if anyone's interested...

Jury service

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/CrimeJusticeAndTheLaw/Juryservice/DG_196118

 

[TxLady2]

Hello, was this in USA? As in UK it usually takes 7 years to get a death certificate for a missing person - unless authorities have other convincing proof of death. This causes many legal problems for the family dealing with the missing persons estate.

IMO the police must have very firm evidence that little April is no longer alive (which they are obviously not telling us) in order to charge MB with her murder.

It's the same here, 7 years to have someone declared dead, UNLESS they find clear evidence to indicate a person had no hope of survival.
Although now that I think about it, I believe Natalee Holloway's parents were successful in having her declared dead after 5 years. But that was after the entire island of Aruba had been searched over and over again and after Joran van der Sloot had "confessed" to killing her. He later retracted that confession.

 

[Clio]

Apologies if this has already been posted

On Saturday, 10 specialist search teams carried out a systematic and methodical search in and around the town.

But on Sunday, Dyfed-Powys Police Supt Ian John said that it was likely that the mountain rescue searches would be scaled down within the next day or so with the focus becoming more police led.
.....
"The mountain rescue team are here with us today but it is fair to say they will be scaling down their search in the next day or so but the police search intensifies.

"It is very much focusing in and around the Machynlleth area and we'll see more focused, smaller scale searches in and around the town," he said.

Speaking of the scaling down of the mountain rescue searches, he added: "Logistically that's likely to be scaled down... and moving more towards the police search teams which are going to increase - almost double in number to what we had just a couple of days ago."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-19860998

 

[TxLady2]

If MB was hiding April somewhere, we better hope he had an accomplice who will feed her, otherwise with all the time he's been held in jail, she would be dead by now of starvation and dehydration anyway. I suppose even a child that young might be able to escape if she were not tied up, but that's pretty young, she would have likely worn herself out crying for her mommy.
Sorry to be so graphic, but I see no hope that she would still be alive this long.. unless he handed her over to someone else and those consequences are unbearable to think about.
As for his looks having anything to do with the probability that he is a child predator/killer, we've seen countless pictures of men who were arrested for such crimes who look mean and evil. But we've also seen a few who look normal as well. One's looks are not what convicts them, thank goodness.

 

[go997]

"April Jones Family
Bryn-y-Gog
Machynlleth
Powys
United Kingdom
SY20 8AE"

Between "April Jones Family" and "Bryn-y-Gog" do you have the street name and house number? Also are you sure the postcode is correct, because that bit's important?

If you like, you could send it to April's school, because the address will be easier to find. If you do, just put "April Jones Family C/O (mean's "care of")" and then the school's name and address.

It's nice to be sending them your wishes, I'm sure they'll appreciate it

You won't need it. The postman will be a local man and will know where it has to go. He will be delivering hundreds of letters there, over the coming weeks.

To be honest, If you just addressed it April's Mum, Machynlleth, UK, it would probably get there!

 

[go997]

This is a bit gruesome but if the body had been dumped in the river and somehow made it past the estuary and out to sea, what would be likely to happen then? Would it float, or be under the surface. I don't understand tides and sea movement well. What direction would it be likely to take and where wouldit be expected to wash up, eventually?

Or, is there no chance of it flowing into the sea?

 

[summer_breeze]

http://www.lep.co.uk/news/local/troll-arrested-over-april-posting-1-5002096

Sunday 7 October 2012
By David Coates
Published on Sunday 7 October 2012 12:46

An internet ‘troll’ who made a sick joke about missing youngster April Jones will appear in court on Monday.