Hi Greenpalm,
The laws in the UK are different from those in the states. In the UK it is considered contempt of court to discuss any criminal history of the accused, print his name or show his picture. UK media is very limited in what they can say about the accused. That's why we won't know what the evidence against him is, until he goes to trial.
Normally, he would be very sleuthable. But we try to respect the laws of other countries because we want justice to take place and we don't want to add anything to an argument that would allow justice to be denied.
Thanks for asking. If you have further questions, please pm a Mod and one of us will be happey to answer.
Salem
Ah ha! That was the missing piece of information I needed. I was well aware of the UK law,
and I saw Imamaze's & Salem's posts about the rules on this thread. What I hadn't seen, until now, was the law being given as the reason for the policy. I've read all the posts in this thread, or at least tried to, so I must have overlooked it, if the two things were ever posted side by side as cause and effect.
Websleuth's, and myself in particular, are not beholden to the laws of the UK. However I do see the wisdom of respecting the UK law, there's no reason we really
must do so, but Websleuth's has chosen to make that a policy, which I happily respect.
In the case you quote above, the person of suspicion had not been charged, in this case a man HAS been charged, once charged the person the matter is 'sub judice' - under justice or before the courts. It is then considered contempt of court to discuss any matter which could affect a fair trial.
'Sub judice contempt is the common law offence of publishing material which has a tendency to interfere with the administration of justice while proceedings are sub judice; that is, ‘under a judge’. The rationale for the offence is to avoid a ‘trial by media’ by prohibiting the publication of material which might prejudge issues at stake in particular proceedings, or which might influence or place pressure on persons involved in the proceedings, including jurors, witnesses or potential witnesses, and parties to the proceedings. In deciding whether material is prejudicial, the court will attempt to balance the public interest in free speech with the public interest in ensuring a fair trial.
Generally speaking, in criminal proceedings the sub judice period begins at the time of arrest or charge, whichever occurs first. It also possible that proceedings may be regarded as pending once a summons or warrant for arrest has been issued, an information or complaint has been laid, notice has been given of an intention to prefer a presentment, or extradition proceedings have been commenced.
Criminal proceedings are completed when charges are withdrawn or the accused is acquitted or sentenced, or the time for lodging an appeal has passed, or all possible appeals have been heard. Hence, proceedings will still be sub judice following a hung jury, between verdict or a guilty plea and sentencing, between sentence and the time for lodging notice of an appeal, during any appeal, and before or during any retrial ordered on appeal.'
http://www.vgso.vic.gov.au/node/333
LegallyBrunnete - thanks. I knew every bit of that. What I didn't know was that Websleuth's policy was to respect it, given that they are not UK based. That's why I specifically asked the mods to answer. I was interested in
Websleuth's reasoning. Salem has helped me with that.
That's what I've been saying too in the previous thread. Nobody seemed to have picked much on it.
I absolutely noticed Elainera, and I bet you'd see my "thanks" on those posts where you said so. And I'll thank you again here. It seems logical to me that understanding and exploring the personality and habits of MB might help us ponder where April is. Which is, I believe what posters are doing when we try to make sense of his motive for doing it. If I were in Wales right now, and given the task of choosing places to send the search teams, I definitely would start with understanding and exploring MB.
As to the how's it going, that is a typical British greeting. "Hi, how's it going?" is just like "Ca va?" the French greeting.
respectfully snipped
He asked the searcher 'how it was going' i.e. the search, not asking the searcher how he or she was going.:banghead:
Bang your head, and I'll bang mine too. I believe the point Inge Jones was making is that we don't know what he actually said. We know what the media said, but it could be interpreted two ways 1. he was specifically inquiring about how the actual search was going, or perhaps, 2. as Inge Jones hypothesized, he was oblivious to the search and just greeting the search team with, "hey! how's it going?" He theoretically was puzzled by what the searchers were doing, if he had been tuned out from the media for a number of hours overnight and into the next day.
Of course if he's guilty, he could have been poking around trying to figure out what was happening with the search, or he cold be trying to look normal (which is what I believe)
The point is, with the limited information we have, either is possible, we can't dismiss either out of hand.
I am among those that think it's most likely that he did it, because something very significant was found to result in murder charges. However, I still absolutely appreciate the value of offering alternate explanations that also fit the information we have.
He had one, police said they were getting positional fixes from the phone.
This is new to me too. I must have missed that link, do you still have it? It makes sense that they'd triangulate on his phone data. That would be a VERY good way to narrow down the search areas. (although any smart criminal knows you leave the phone behind when you go to hide the body - in baby Lisa Irwin's case, it has made her parents highly suspicious that her alleged kidnappers also took the cellphones.)
Edited to add: this link was posted as I wrote this. Thank you.
And re-edited to retract. I still don't see a link mentioning cellphone triangulation.
Sorry for the long post, that's how I roll.
I hope April is found and that finding her helps achieve justice for her.
She disappeared on my birthday.
