Are there any other murder cases...

[TheBrilliantMistake]

Then it's not truth.  It is not an actual truth of the situation. To pretend so is folly. And to place trust in authority to withhold truth, is simply running the risk of tacit acceptance of license to commit distortion of the truth.

Who said it WAS truth?

Who said WHAT was truth?

Seeking the truth and being able to get it aren't the same thing.

There are good reasons for PII and some good uses of it. Sadly there will be some abuses of it too.
Should we scrap it entirely and EVERYTHING is out in the open? The repercussions of that could be shocking.

[Roch]

Then it's not truth.  It is not an actual truth of the situation. To pretend so is folly. And to place trust in authority to withhold truth, is simply running the risk of tacit acceptance of license to commit distortion of the truth.

Who said it WAS truth?

Who said WHAT was truth?

Seeking the truth and being able to get it aren't the same thing.

There are good reasons for PII and some good uses of it. Sadly there will be some abuses of it too.
Should we scrap it entirely and EVERYTHING is out in the open? The repercussions of that could be shocking.

Your answer does not preclude the above from being relevant to this case.  Also TBM, I'd ask why you think whatever is "shocking" should only be known by a select few?

[TheBrilliantMistake]

Then it's not truth.  It is not an actual truth of the situation. To pretend so is folly. And to place trust in authority to withhold truth, is simply running the risk of tacit acceptance of license to commit distortion of the truth.

Who said it WAS truth?

Who said WHAT was truth?

Seeking the truth and being able to get it aren't the same thing.

There are good reasons for PII and some good uses of it. Sadly there will be some abuses of it too.
Should we scrap it entirely and EVERYTHING is out in the open? The repercussions of that could be shocking.

Your answer does not preclude the above from being relevant to this case.  Also TBM, I'd ask why you think whatever is "shocking" should only be known by a select few?

I said the repercussions could be shocking.

For instance...
I have a man working infiltrating a terrorist cell (he's on the inside).
Someone from the public would like to know WHY I shot a man parking up outside a football ground, and I say "he was going to blow it up"
the public ask "well, how could you be sure?"

I don't want to say "because my man helped him build the bomb and warned us"

If I tell the public that - my man and his family die.

Or worse still, he was still working on the inside, and now his cover is blown, so they successfully carry out their bombing and kill hundreds (when it could have been stopped)


Or your child is found dead, and a man is convicted for her murder...
Someone sets up a forum and claims he's innocent and says "no semen was found in her vagina" and I have evidence to prove it, and they post that evidence.

People scream and shout "free him free him" and show us the proof. The police refuse to show you all the proof. Why? because he forced her to have sex with animals before sodomising her and attempting to eat her and they found parts of her in his digestive tract.
Perhaps a court with good taste said "no, we are happy with that evidence" there is no need to hurt the family more.

And even those that say "but we should know"... what then? the photos? the video of it?

It's not ALWAYS the best option to tell everything - we have to place SOME faith in the courts, cos if we don't, it's all pointless anyway. Might at well be lawless.

That doesn't mean people can't abuse it. OF course they can and do.

[Jackiepreece]

I think one case sticks in peoples minds the Guildford four and what happened in that case with the withholding of evidence. That lawyer has made a very good name for herself in the name of justice.  I think a lot of people when you read about miscarriages of justice and people that are later aquitted seem shocked how obvious it seemed they were innocent.  I have read quite a few cases  that people were convicted on circumstantial evidence.  I often feel as well there could almost be a promotion for solving a murder when police have gone after the wrong person (hardly any evidence)just to charge someone with the murder.  If the wrong person is in prison the murderer is still out there.  While people continue to get released after many years in prison after evidence comes to light that was available all the time PII will always be criticised .  It would be interesting  to find out how many  people have won appeals in the last 25 years through PII  information  coming to light

[TheBrilliantMistake]

Have to be careful that miscarriage of justice doesn't always mean someone's innocent, but yet, after the fact when new stuff comes to light, it all looks clearer - obvious in a way, but without that crucial evidence or new testimony, it's very different... AND we often forget 'the times' in which things happen. It shouldn't matter, but it does. Public mood and acceptance of certain crimes changes over time....

I'm certainly not saying withholding of information is always good, but I am saying there are sensible reasons why PII exists. But as soon as you offer a 'shield' to protect good guys information from the bad guys, you also afford the bad guys to hide information from the good guys.

If those guys hiding things convince a court to let them keep it hidden, it's a mess.

On the positive side, the fact that some people DO get acquitted, even if after many years, it gives hope that the justice system can, on occasion accept its fallibility. Although sometimes, the 'system' fails, more often than not, it's the people that fail it... the bad guys cheating the system, and not the system itself.
But still, the system tries to catch those culprits whenever possible.

Sometimes, it can feel like it takes 20 years for the 'old regime' to lose power, and a new regime to come into power (e.g. a police force) that no longer fears dirty laundry... since it wasn't on their watch, and they feel more able to expose the past. IF that happened in EP, then I truly hope people will see fit to reveal the truth after all.

If however, Bamber turns out to be guilty after all, then he may well fall into the same category as Ian Brady, who knowing full well he'll never see freedom, still seeks to withhold the truth from victims and quite possibly took pleasure in that.

[chochokeira]

Have to be careful that miscarriage of justice doesn't always mean someone's innocent, but yet, after the fact when new stuff comes to light, it all looks clearer - obvious in a way, but without that crucial evidence or new testimony, it's very different... AND we often forget 'the times' in which things happen. It shouldn't matter, but it does. Public mood and acceptance of certain crimes changes over time....

I'm certainly not saying withholding of information is always good, but I am saying there are sensible reasons why PII exists. But as soon as you offer a 'shield' to protect good guys information from the bad guys, you also afford the bad guys to hide information from the good guys.

If those guys hiding things convince a court to let them keep it hidden, it's a mess.

On the positive side, the fact that some people DO get acquitted, even if after many years, it gives hope that the justice system can, on occasion accept its fallibility. Although sometimes, the 'system' fails, more often than not, it's the people that fail it... the bad guys cheating the system, and not the system itself.
But still, the system tries to catch those culprits whenever possible.

Sometimes, it can feel like it takes 20 years for the 'old regime' to lose power, and a new regime to come into power (e.g. a police force) that no longer fears dirty laundry... since it wasn't on their watch, and they feel more able to expose the past. IF that happened in EP, then I truly hope people will see fit to reveal the truth after all.

If however, Bamber turns out to be guilty after all, then he may well fall into the same category as Ian Brady, who knowing full well he'll never see freedom, still seeks to withhold the truth from victims and quite possibly took pleasure in that.

However, Brady's off his trolley and on hunger strike, JB's not.

[Roch]

TBM I think we will go round in circles on this one.  I can see its' uses but i can also see its' potential for abuses.  I'd want very strong caveats in place for its' use and I'd want robust indpendent reviews in place in order to sustain its' use also. In an ideal world that is.

[TheBrilliantMistake]

There already are such systems in place.

But still, it seems people get away with abuse of it.

It might be good in the punishment for abuse was considered to be as severe as the crime (or very near)....

i.e. If you help Raul Moat hide from the police, you're effectively a murderer yourself and you get life.
so why not, if you hide evidence with the intention of preventing justice in a murder case, you get life too. It MIGHT make a few coppers think twice.

[mike tesko]

Yes lots....

Where the identity of informants might be an issue, or the techniques used during observations, intimate details of what was carried out, recordings and such like (Lesley Ann Downey being sexually abused on tape).

The more you think about it, the harder it gets... it sounds great for everything to be out in the open until some sick idiots like the idea of putting a photo of your dead child's body on the net etc, or the recordings of her screams....
OR the killer themselves decides to conduct their own defence and would like to see certain pictures....

More obvious ones would be IRA bombing in Brighton... details of the security arrangements might be withheld, or any information that was known beforehand about planned bombings etc.

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I agree...