If she hadn't written "innocent face" after her question, would she still have committed a libel?

Absolute not, no.

This is completely the point the law is making.  If you genuinely don't know why X is trending you say 'Why is X trending?'  If you want to appear all knowy winky to your 'fans' then you at some passive pretentious BS on the end which you think wouldn't stop you from backing out of your statement if someone calls you on it.

Excellent verdict IMO.

You're late    

How is what these people did different to the 10´s of thousands of people killed in Afghanistan and Iraq? Totally legitimate military target, it´s the same war, they fought back.

I was taking the piss out of Boshi with that comment just for banter purposes as we do on here.

Your need to tell me exactly what your on about just so I understand.

We kill enormous numbers of people all over the world, on their doorstep.Then we go crazy when the same is revisited. I´m devastated by what happened, it´s horrendous and uspets me and those people close to me but we killed 100,000´s of people´s in their country´s so please be reasonable.

Ha been wanting to say it for a while now....

We are at 'war' thankfully for us this war has been taking place thousands of miles away far out of sight. Many thousands of enemy soldiers have been killed, we have lost over 400 in Afghanistan. Yesterday this war was brought a lot closer to home, a member of the armed services was singled out and killed. This is no doubt a tragedy, the manner in which it happened is appalling, the reality of what we are fortunate to not have to see was realised for a lot of people yesterday.

My point i guess though is that if what we call over there is a war, and justified, then so this must be as well, no?

If you carry the logic through that this is an act of aggression as part of an active war then do you hold the two men as POWs or do you have a trial treating them as spys?  From what I remember one definition of a spy is a person giving information of their country and committing acts in their country for the benefit of another.  If you consider them the later then I believe it could end with the firing squad.  However I am thoroughly against the death penalty.  (Also against the present wars in the Middle East).  There is a chance to find out the motivation of these men and discover how they were 'radicalised.'  If we could use this information in the future to prevent people being easily manipulated by those pulling the strings (in a variety of organisations, not just extremists or the like) then surely some good can come out of this tragedy.

Played nicely up to the river.

Firstly never ever shoving the river.  The conflict arises from the fact a tiny turn bet into an overbet on the river is so nutted in general it's scary.  On the other side of the coin Pleno is completely correct that in the low Scoops people do things which defy any sense of logic so staring at a betting pattern really doesn't matter.

I think it is a fold, the only thing that really makes sense from how he has bet it is T9 hearts (maybe J9hh or Tx9h although I think the later especially would be less likely).  But I've seen them turn up with all sorts in these spots so in game I'd end up flicking it in but it's just the nuts too much of the time to be technically correct imo.

I love staffies, they must be the most misunderstood dogs out there. They are friendly and fun, and its just a small percentage of the morons who own them who give them a bad name.

Completely this.

The owner makes the dog.  You'll get the odd one who is a mean spirited so and so, but it's up to the owner to install discipline in such a dog to correct their attitude.  Staffies sadly have been bought by an incredible number of idiots in recent times as they are viewed as a 'hard man's dog.'  These owners generally lose interest in them within a month and that's why so many Staffies are abused and abandoned.  The vast majority of dogs including Staffies, which are absolutely lovely, are a true joy and fabulous companion.

Not going to put any spoilers in here for those who have not caught it yet, however..


Just bravo.  Tremendous finale, IMO the strongest one of the modern series.  Roll on the 50th.

I will never get the T in this.

Looking forward to the show though, i.e. hoping it won't just be wannabes looking for a TV career again.

Regards

t

some interesting (and saddening) rape data
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/rape-a-lack-of-conviction/

Great find and very interesting website.  I think this'll do for the supporting data I mentioned before.

"The amount of rape and sexual offences reported compared to committed is shocking"

To be devil's advocate how can you make this statement?  To do this you have to assume when anything is not reported then the guy is guilty.  And how can you get numbers for non reported crimes?

Not saying it isn't true, but it's impossible to make this as a statement and have it hold any water.

Fair comment.  I'll try to find the relevant documents and reports online later on to back my statement up.

There are three key areas.  Offences committed, offences reported and offences convicted.

Numbers from non reported crimes come from reports from Crisis centres and other non-police organisations who deal with helping the victims of sexual crime while not having the power or authority to make the victims report the crime.  This may also be the case for hospitals and health care professionals treating Adults (I'm not 100% on this but I believe they cannot act without the victim's consent if the person is of Adult age and not likely to injure themselves or others).  Like I said before, I will try to find the hard facts on these later on.

We do have records of reported compared to convicted.  I've had a brief look through the Home Office website but nothing obvious has sprung to view just now.  Will do a proper look later.

For now here's an article from the BBC written in 2008:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2008/07/rape_a_complex_crime.html

And here's the quote from Wiki which referenced the above source material, for those who just want the key point.


'Of women aged 16 to 59 in England & Wales interviewed for the 2006/07 British Crime Survey, 0.5% (1 in every 200) reported that they had suffered rape or attempted rape in the previous year, equating to approximately 85,000 nationally. In the same year, less than 800 persons were convicted of rape'

Taken from the 'Sexual offences in the United Kingdom' page on Wikipedia

How many common or garden, non famous people are guilty?

Banging up a few celebs is like removing a dog turd from the steps of Buckingham Palace. It looks like you're doing a good job, but there are thousands more in the bushes.

You're completely right.  However what I hope this'll do is renew the public's faith that sexual offenders and rapists can and will be caught, can and will be prosecuted.  The amount of rape and sexual offences reported compared to committed is shocking, one of the main reasons is that victims think they'll never get justice so why put themselves through more pain and harassment to only be called wrong or a liar at the end of it.  There needs to be public cases like this to encourage victims to report these crimes.

If he spent 2 actual years in jail id be completely astonished. Guilty pleas instantly reduces sentence by 1/3, no-one does more than half their time. For him to do 2 actual years in jail its the equivalent to a 6 year+ sentence if went to trial, which just aint happening imo

Most likely outcome is he has pled guilty to lesser chargers to avoid a trial for harder stuff. Probably get 2 years, do 9 months in jail

Pretty much agree, but everything hangs one of the cases.  Sorry to be blunt, but concerning the assault of hand up a nine year old girl's skirt, how far that hand went, what he touched and how he touched could literally change his sentence by years.  The evidence on that charge is key to how long his prison term will be.

How does it work?  Did he plead guilty on the proviso of the more serious (but hard to prove) charge being dropped?  That seems odd that an accused can negotiate that?  Or are they treated completely seperate?

I very much doubt the accused led the negotiations.  It'll also be nothing like L.A. Law or CIS or anything like that when the police/lawyers shout deals at people in handcuffs in dingy rooms.  Most of the stuff that goes on is unofficial, lawyers on one side let lawyers on the other side know the ways a the thing could go, lawyer's inform clients of the likely outcome of each of their actions.

I 've been reading the sentencing guidelines (been a while since I had to do that).  We might well be jumping the gun implying he's going to get a long jail term.  It could easily be weeks and months rather than years.  It depends on the more specific details of what he did and in what way he assaulted these girls.  While Tal is quite right that the CPS in this country can't cut deals as to which sort of jail an offender can go to, unofficial deals are done.  Remember, they've put the rape case and another serious allegation 'on file.'  Which means they won't be actively pursuing it (however they reserve the right to go back to it, particularly if some clearer evidence comes up).  He's pleaded guilty to these offences, the much harder to prove in court rape case goes on the back burner.

From the guidelines, guilty pleas and from what I have read of the offences from the BBC reporting, I wouldn't be surprised if he's in and out in under two years.

general question

will they send an 84 year old man away to "hard" prison?

I think he'll have some sort of 'illness' very soon into his jail term and need to go to a prison hospice or the like.

Deal probably done or hinted at.  The CPS/police need a very public win, they want this to go through as soon and as publically as possible.  Probably showed him what they had and offered soft prison if he pleaded guilty considering his age.

I used to tune in to the Radio 5 Live's match reports just for his one, normally a Championship game in recent years, I thought they were wonderful.  Now this comes to light and you think to yourself 'You spent that much time going out of your way to listen to this kind of person?'  Shocked and appalled.

Current police officers are investigating cases that were dealt with by people who are long since retired/dead. If they're righting wrongs, then I'm all for it.

Those who are rapists/sex abusers now need to know that there's never a time when they'll have 'got away with it'.

Completely agree with this.  However still don't think the names should be released by the media and the circus that brings pre-charges, but that's probably another discussion.