George provides a comprehensive overview of some of the failings of Association of Chief Police Officer's (ACPO) handbook for Senior Investigating Officers concerned with the investigation of historical child abuse in institutions.
In this article George provides an overview of the Crown Prosecution Service's (CPS) Code of Practice and its report on the Policy for the Prosecution of Rape Cases. In it he highlights the mismatch of the Crown rhetoric and what is actually 'on the ground', by reference to known cases.
George offers a critique of the Government’s reply to the Home Affairs Select Committee Report on Investigations Into Past Abuse in Children's Homes report. In doing so George challenges the widely held view that the vast majority of historical abuse allegations are correct and were committed by staff in the residential setting.
George examines relevant sections of this Welsh Office Circular pointing out its strengths and weaknesses.
George asks what is happening to our justice system -the ability to differentiate between reliable evidence and what is, in many instances, nothing more than ‘make believe’, appears to have been completely lost. “Evidence”, which contains little, if any, reliable source material and which, not many years ago would have been consigned to the waste bin, is nowadays presented before juries. The result is justice is now more likely to miscarry than ever before.
An article in The Daily Mail, (Thursday, September 22nd 2005) tells of American Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania, who have refined a version of the type of brain scanners used in hospitals to detect brain tumours and have produced a lie detector which they claim is 99% accurate.
The equipment is called functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, (fMRI), and they claim that it is accurate enough to expose terrorists and other criminals. In this light hearted article article George looks to the future when such a machine might be used routinely in the Courts. [Pdf version]