I’ve been on both sides of the fence at one time or another.
The Defence opening about being a disgusting individual doesn’t make someone a murderer is right & something I think fair-minded people are aware of.
In fact, I was so aware of this at the beginning that I tried to divorce his previous offences from every piece of evidence presented & come up with an alternative explanation.
Euphemistically referring to his various Paraphilic behaviours as a (singular) “problem” and appearing to equate it to liking sex coupled with the incessant lying have lead me believe that his actions, or inactions, must be viewed through the prism of predatory sex offender.
Even if submissions about his previous offences hadn’t been allowed, I cannot see that his intentions in picking up Libby were in any way honourable. Why wait until the Romanians left Haworth Street until you get Libby into your car, particularly if she’s being subjected to jeering?
The evidence of penetrative sex is unequivocal proof of rape in my opinion as she could not give informed consent.
PR has relied on absence of evidence to back up his story that he never entered the park. We have to remember that absence of evidence isn’t the same as evidence of absence.
Even if Sam Alford didn’t positively ID the man he saw as PR, what are the chances that a man wearing fitted trousers being in the park at the same time screams were heard? Remember that that park isn’t a cut-through from anywhere else, it’s boundaried on three sides by fences & river.
If PR’s return visit was prompted by a sudden attack of conscience about Libby’s welfare, why lie about getting out of his car? How likely is it that a freezing, drunk & upset young woman would remain in the immediate vicinity of where she was supposedly left? If you didn’t want to report to the police for fear of your wife finding out, wouldn’t you check out the areas inaccessible by car like the pedestrian-only bit of Oak Road or the park if you were motivated by concern? He spends 4 minutes there, probably equivalent to the time spent looking for the condom discarded on Alexandra Road!
We’ve become used to forensics providing a “smoking gun” to prove crime e.g. the chances of DNA belonging to someone else other than a defendant is a billion to one. The risk of it belonging to someone else is quantified as being so small that we accept it as 100% proof.
Although we can’t quantify behaviour in quite the same way, we can use logic to think “is this scenario more likely than that scenario?” but we have to use the behaviour demonstrated by the defendant previously to arrive at that likelihood. Again, even if I exclude knowledge about the nature of previous offences, I’m left with PR having bad intentions. I’m left with repeated lying with self-preservation at its heart. We are meant to believe he has accepted his deviancy and therefore he no longer has the same motivation to lie.
In my opinion, he has been forced to acknowledge that a “problem” exists because of bad character evidence. It’s glossed over, like it’s a slight inconvenience and detached from him, minimised with little remorse or regard for the victims. I don’t see true acceptance, I see expediency with self-interest the dominant driver.
Inferring motivations and thoughts from outward behaviour seems much more subjective than a forensic test & why I’ve tried to resist but behaviour patterns do exist & allow us to weigh up likely & less likely. Despite an unascertained cause of death, I’d have to find him guilty.
Edited to apologise for length-should have probably opened a word document to document the wrangling of my mind rather than inflict it here!
