Anglolawyer's theory

[scipio_usmc]

On page 2 of her 08 Aug statement she says (truthfully) they spoke on the evening of 06 Aug and said (untruthfully) he made no mention of his family other than that he had had dinner with them.   She committed the offence right there.   Further, on the same page of her statement, she refers to the call in the early hours of 07 Aug and failed to mention that he said 'everything's going well'.   IOW she had clear and relevant information concerning his involvement which she concealed by lying.

You purport to be a lawyer.  You should be able to research the material elements of the crime you posted.  Failing to disclose everything you know is not sufficient to constitute an act anymore than it can constitute an act under the perverting justice statute.  Failing to tell everything you know is omitting evidence not making an affirmative untrue statement with the intent of the lie throwing police off.

The classic example of an affirmative statement that is a lie to throw police off is to provide a false alibi so police think someone can't have had the opportunity to commit a crime. 

Not even simple lying will do.  A lie must be material.  It must be calculated to impede the investigation.  A false alibi impedes the investigation by getting police to think that someone can't have done it. 

A classic act beyond simply speaking that constitutes impeding an investigation is helping hide or dispose of evidence.

The only potential lie that she could have told police that could have impeded the investigation and thus actively played a role in misleading police concerns the claim he receive a phone call from Nevill and was worried about it.  If she knew he received no such phone call and was simply making up that he was worried after receiving such call then she impeded justice by intentionally supporting the fiction he received a call from Nevill and was worried.  That would be a material lie intended to throw police off by trying to get them to believe Jeremy was at his home receiving a call from Nevill and thus could not have been at the scene doing the killings.

The prosecution would need to prove that she knew the call was made up and that she knew he wasn't worried about receiving a call and agreed to lie for him about such in order to bolster his fictional alibi. Her testimony is the complete opposite of this though and Jeremy says he really did receive a call from Nevill and really was worried so obviously doesn't claim he told her to support a lie.

Aside from the fact that the lie you allege she told is not material and can't be the basis of a charge you haven't even articulated a lie.

In her September statement she reiterated that he didn't talk about his family beyond saying he had a crappy day on the tractor. What she omitted is that he told her "tonight is the night".  She had no legal duty to tell police he said this to her.  Failing to do so was an omission.

When one is under no legal duty to tell police anything but decides anyway to tell a lie that is aimed at
fooling the police or is under a legal duty to answer a question honestly but lies in order to fool police - like providing a false alibi- that is a statement that is made to impede justice. 

Failing to tell police everything you know is not impeding justice as the term is used in the criminal statutes. A law that required people to inform police of all incriminatory evidence they knew about regarding any and all crimes or such person is guilty of a crime would create an affirmative duty to tell police everything you know but there is no such a statute.  That was the legal scheme in the Soviet Union where you had to worry about family and friends turning you in the government over anything and the West considered such a horror thus would never enact such a scheme.

 

[maggie]

Julie is well aware of what's going on presently and has done over the years,so out of decency and even closure for herself and family,to do the decent thing would have been to tell the world that he's guilty and be done with. Afterall indirectly it's she who's holding things up and who could put an end to this once and for all.
I've heard that she won't commit herself one way or the other.

I think she would keep her head down as low as possible if she was involved because if she starts saying he's definitely guilty and she can prove it once and for all and she does, he may decide to chuck in the towel and tell her part in it all, then she really would be in the sinking sand.

[scipio_usmc]

He had an earlier plan to kill the family and it involved giving them sleeping pills;  so are you saying that Julie gets sleeping pills from her doctor saying she had trouble sleeping but gives them to Jeremy, all without even thinking about his suggested plan? If they were to aid Jeremy with troubled sleeping patterns, why didn't he just get his own pills? Too much of a coincidence and I don't believe it.

Julie had the sleeping pills she didn't rush out to a doctor to get some after he told her about his plan.  Nor did she turn them over to him as soon as he told her about his plan.  He complained about sleeping problems so she gave him pills to take for himself.

There is no evidence to suggest that she gave him the pills so he could use them to knock out the family then set the place on fire. 

 

[scipio_usmc]

Scipio i havent read the whole of your post but just a point i would make is that JB did say on more than several occasions  he couldnt remenber the sequence of phone calls and that he was confused about it but the police kept askibg him over and over,

i was confused by the time id finished reading it. Its all very well to say he lied to the police but the questioning on this subject was very intense. You can hear that he  was tired and days later they were still asking him the same question , im not sure how any of us would react to that intense questioning.

to give an example a politician this week was explaining  her reaction when her son died of cot death but the police were asking her questions and she said her mind went blank. Shd couldn't remember telephone numbers of her family and was nearly paralysed with shock. I would imagine there was some shock in jeremy  dont u agree.

Jeremy's changing stance on the phone call timings:

1) Told police at the scene he called police right away then called Julie
2) Put in his written statement that he called police right away then called Julie
3) In September told Taff Jones he called Julie then police
4) In September when DS Jones confronted Jeremy about his change to claiming he called Julie first he said he wanted to read his written statement to refresh his memory.  he planned to read it then repeat what he had written.  Police refused to show him and told him to go by his memory.  He claimed he could not remember anymore so he deferred to whatever was in his written statement.
5) Testified at trial that he called police then called Julie.

So he only said he was confused in September after he screwed up and admitted the truth.  He spun that as him not admitting the truth but rather just being confused and deferred to his prior lie.

Though he said in September 1985 that he could not remember anymore what had happened and as a result deferred to his written statement, in October 1986 he testified that he remembered calling Julie after calling police.

So his testimony at trial was the lie that he called Julie after police.  We know this is a lie because:

1) he phoned Julie before 3:30
2) he was on the phone with police until after 3:30

Since he got off the phone with police after 3:30 and called Julie before 3:30 this means he had to have phoned Julie before calling the police.   

You can try spinning this however you like but from the position of a lawyer trying to defend Jeremy it is horrible.  A lawyer defending Jeremy would much prefer he admitted he called Julie before police instead of being caught in a lie.  It is damning enough that he called Julie before he called police.  That already is horrible but to lie about it demonstrates he knows it is horrible so decided to lie.

[Caroline]

Julie had the sleeping pills she didn't rush out to a doctor to get some after he told her about his plan.  Nor did she turn them over to him as soon as he told her about his plan.  He complained about sleeping problems so she gave him pills to take for himself.

There is no evidence to suggest that she gave him the pills so he could use them to knock out the family then set the place on fire. 

 

And there is one to show she didn't. She knew the plan and she still gave him the pills. Only she said he had sleeping problems.

[lookout]

There were enough sleeping pills at WHF to choke a goat.If Jeremy had had designs on dropping some in the family drinks he could have helped himself from there rather than get them on prescription.

[lookout]

Why not find out what the " quantity " of pills were that were removed from WHF by EP. Oooops,they won't tell anybody anything,will they ? They could only have been June's.

[Caroline]

There were enough sleeping pills at WHF to choke a goat.If Jeremy had had designs on dropping some in the family drinks he could have helped himself from there rather than get them on prescription.

He didn't get them on prescription, he got them off Julie.

[Caroline]

Why not find out what the " quantity " of pills were that were removed from WHF by EP. Oooops,they won't tell anybody anything,will they ? They could only have been June's.

You don't even know that they took ANY pills from WHF but I guess that;s something else people can claim is hidden under PII.

[Jane]

There were enough sleeping pills at WHF to choke a goat.If Jeremy had had designs on dropping some in the family drinks he could have helped himself from there rather than get them on prescription.

Without going through their medicine cabinet, Lookout, we have no way of knowing that.

[Jane]

Why not find out what the " quantity " of pills were that were removed from WHF by EP. Oooops,they won't tell anybody anything,will they ? They could only have been June's.

If Nevill suffered with back pain, there were likely to have been pain killers.

[Caroline]

Jeremy's changing stance on the phone call timings:

1) Told police at the scene he called police right away then called Julie
2) Put in his written statement that he called police right away then called Julie
3) In September told Taff Jones he called Julie then police
4) In September when DS Jones confronted Jeremy about his change to claiming he called Julie first he said he wanted to read his written statement to refresh his memory.  he planned to read it then repeat what he had written.  Police refused to show him and told him to go by his memory.  He claimed he could not remember anymore so he deferred to whatever was in his written statement.
5) Testified at trial that he called police then called Julie.

So he only said he was confused in September after he screwed up and admitted the truth.  He spun that as him not admitting the truth but rather just being confused and deferred to his prior lie.

Though he said in September 1985 that he could not remember anymore what had happened and as a result deferred to his written statement, in October 1986 he testified that he remembered calling Julie after calling police.

So his testimony at trial was the lie that he called Julie after police.  We know this is a lie because:

1) he phoned Julie before 3:30
2) he was on the phone with police until after 3:30

Since he got off the phone with police after 3:30 and called Julie before 3:30 this means he had to have phoned Julie before calling the police.   

You can try spinning this however you like but from the position of a lawyer trying to defend Jeremy it is horrible.  A lawyer defending Jeremy would much prefer he admitted he called Julie before police instead of being caught in a lie.  It is damning enough that he called Julie before he called police.  That already is horrible but to lie about it demonstrates he knows it is horrible so decided to lie.

For me the phone calls and the way he has chopped and changed really speaks volumes.

[scipio_usmc]

More on Assisting an Offender:

Assisting an Offender - section 4(1) Criminal Law Act 1967
The offence of assisting an offender ("the principal offender") is committed when:

*the principal offender has committed an arrestable offence;

*the accused knows or believes that the principal offender has committed that or some other arrestable offence;

*the accused does any act with intent to impede the apprehension or prosecution of the principal offender; and

*the act is done without lawful authority or reasonable excuse.

It is an offence triable only on indictment unless the principal offence is an either way offence, in which case the offence of assisting a principal offender is also triable either way. The maximum sentence for the offence varies from three to ten years' imprisonment, depending on the punishment applicable to the principal offence: s.4(3).

Proceedings may only be instituted by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions: s.4(4). Consent may be granted after charge but must be before committal proceedings (indictable offences) or mode of trial (either way offences). Consent must be obtained before proceedings are started by way of summons. It is not an offence to attempt to commit an offence under section 4.

Examples of the type of conduct appropriate for a charge of assisting an offender include:

*hiding a principal offender;

*otherwise assisting a principal offender to avoid arrest;

*assisting a principal offender to abscond from bail;

*lying to the police to protect principal offenders from investigation and prosecution;

*hiding the weapon used in an assault/robbery;

*washing clothes worn by a principal offender to obstruct any potential forensic examination.

There may be an overlap between the offence of assisting an offender and obstructing a constable, wasting police time, concealing arrestable offences (s.5(1) Criminal Law Act 1967) and perverting the course of justice .

The courts have made it clear that assisting an offender is a serious offence and, if the statutory offence of assisting an offender can be charged, it should normally be preferred over common law offences.

However, the common law offence of perverting the course of justice should be considered when:

*the assisting is aimed at preventing or hindering the trial process (as opposed to the arrest or apprehension of an accused);

*the facts are so serious that the court's sentencing powers for the statutory offence are considered inadequate;

*admissible evidence of the principle offence is lacking

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/public_justice_offences_incorporating_the_charging_standard/#a26

[scipio_usmc]

You don't even know that they took ANY pills from WHF but I guess that;s something else people can claim is hidden under PII.

Not to defend lookout's claims that WHF was a glorified medicine storage closet, but she is correct about it being said that there sleeping pills at WHF. Julie's claims were that Jeremy contemplated using his mother's sleeping pills:







Her timing of things are as follows:

1) Between July and September 1984, prior to her moving Jeremy had told her he would like to kill everyone so he could inherit all their property and thought about using June's sleeping pills to knock them out, to shoot them and burn the place down.

2) In October she was prescribed sleeping pills because she couldn't sleep.  The weekend after she got them she brought them with her to Goldhanger and complained to Jeremy about how they were big and hard to swallow and didn't help and how she was unhappy with the doctor. 

3) She left them at Goldhanger and Jeremy decided to taste them to see if he could use them and told her they were no good and when he told her they were no good he said the pills she brought him to use on the family was no good so this showed he was under the impression she brought them for him to use on the family though she didn't.

She said in retrospect she should have realized by this he was actually serious about his desire to kill them but she said she didn't want to believe that at the time so closed her eyes to it as a warning sign.

[lookout]

You don't even know that they took ANY pills from WHF but I guess that;s something else people can claim is hidden under PII.

I think that's in Wilkes's book.