Consider this scenario - Would a guilty person keep their case alive for many years?

[ShiningInLuz]

Excellent summation Alfie. This has been pointed out many times but for some reason people choose not to see the logic.
How people can think that relatively normal people could turn into devious child killers or cover up a fatal accident, hide a body in an unfamiliar place in a short space of time is hard to grasp.

How someone with a wife and five kids, fame, fortune and a knighthood could turn out to be a serial paedophile is hard to grasp, but we are being asked to do exactly that.  Should we reject the allegations merely because they seem unlikely?

By the way, Alfie's hypothetical scenario does not stipulate they are relatively normal people.  It does not exclude that they may be a variation of Fred and Rose West, does it?

And that is the problem with this hypothetical scenario.  By not being grounded in the laws re defamation, it is simply a Pandora's Box.  Once opened, the demons can never be put back in again.

[ShiningInLuz]

I strongly disagree that S-I-L's suggestion is plausible and logical, in fact it had already been mooted by someone else and I have already given my reasons why I think that.

So where is it hidden?

And if you did it once, why when I raised it did you say you couldn't discuss it?

[Mr Gray]

How someone with a wife and five kids, fame, fortune and a knighthood could turn out to be a serial paedophile is hard to grasp, but we are being asked to do exactly that.  Should we reject the allegations merely because they seem unlikely?

By the way, Alfie's hypothetical scenario does not stipulate they are relatively normal people.  It does not exclude that they may be a variation of Fred and Rose West, does it?

And that is the problem with this hypothetical scenario.  By not being grounded in the laws re defamation, it is simply a Pandora's Box.  Once opened, the demons can never be put back in again.

we dont reject allegations because they seem unlikely we reject or accept them based on the evidence. The fact that this person was a paedophile does not give carte blanche to people to make any accusations they like purely because unlikely things happen.

Alfies scenario does imply normal people because he states anyone who would do this would have to be"f**king mad"


as far as the pandoras's box I think you are getting more than a little carried away.....no demons here at the moment and I don't expect any...perhaps you could expand

[Alfie]

How someone with a wife and five kids, fame, fortune and a knighthood could turn out to be a serial paedophile is hard to grasp, but we are being asked to do exactly that.  Should we reject the allegations merely because they seem unlikely?

By the way, Alfie's hypothetical scenario does not stipulate they are relatively normal people.  It does not exclude that they may be a variation of Fred and Rose West, does it?

And that is the problem with this hypothetical scenario.  By not being grounded in the laws re defamation, it is simply a Pandora's Box.  Once opened, the demons can never be put back in again.

OK.  Let's say they are Fred and Rosemary West, or a couple with a similar mindset, and their child has gone missing.  They have been thoroughly investigated and the case against them is shelved because of an almost complete lack of evidence.  Yet, despite this they continue to maintain as a high a profile as possible, and 4 years after the case was shelved go so far as asking the PM to instruct the country's best police force to review all the evidence amassed as part of the initial investigation.  What possible motives can they have for doing so?  A pathological, uncontrollable desire for attention or insanity I could just about accept, but anything other reasons?  You have mooted one convoluted motive which involves some sort of conspiracy between themselves and the media which I will revisit later when less busy.

[ShiningInLuz]

we dont reject allegations because they seem unlikely we reject or accept them based on the evidence. The fact that this person was a paedophile does not give carte blanche to people to make any accusations they like purely because unlikely things happen.

Alfies scenario does imply normal people because he states anyone who would do this would have to be"f**king mad"


as far as the pandoras's box I think you are getting more than a little carried away.....no demons here at the moment and I don't expect any...perhaps you could expand

To be honest, I should have taken that epithet out when I approved the thread

But it happens to be yet another simple explanation, one of many, for Alfie's hypothetical scenario, is it not?  The miscreants are not normal.  They are mad.

I do not wish to make negative associations with mentally ill people, because in most cases mental illness does not = evil-doer, despite the number of people trotting out mental illness as a defence.

And there is the Pandora's box.  As this is a hypothetical scenario, I am not bound by the laws of defamation.  It is merely a creative thinking exercise.  Any solution that satisfies it can be raised, given that one cannot defame hypothetical people.

[ShiningInLuz]

OK.  Let's say they are Fred and Rosemary West, or a couple with a similar mindset, and their child has gone missing.  They have been thoroughly investigated and the case against them is shelved because of an almost complete lack of evidence.  Yet, despite this they continue to maintain as a high a profile as possible, and 4 years after the case was shelved go so far as asking the PM to instruct the country's best police force to review all the evidence amassed as part of the initial investigation.  What possible motives can they have for doing so?  A pathological, uncontrollable desire for attention or insanity I could just about accept, but anything other reasons?  You have mooted one convoluted motive which involves some sort of conspiracy between themselves and the media which I will revisit later when less busy.

And there is yet another solution to your hypothetical case, a desire to be in the public limelight, to mix with the rich and famous, to enjoy a lavish lifestyle funded by others, to be a someone.

Jolly easy, this creative thinking, isn't it?

And if you actually are going to revisit what I said, please do so properly.  It is neither convoluted nor does it involve a conspiracy theory, so I hope you will get your facts right.

[Alfie]

I have already explained a credible and plausible alternative, but I believe you totally ignored it.  Here it is again.

You commit a crime.  You immediately plant stories in the media to show someone else did it.  You get away with the crime.  But the problem is the media, and the world has now turned against you, and your reputation is getting shredded.

Having got away with it once, in a foreign country, you decide that a review in your homeland has zero chance of catching you.  So you do some PR and request a review you are confident will find diddly squat.

It really is that simple.

On what basis do you decide that a review in your homeland has zero chance of uncovering some previously missed shreds of evidence that will end up putting you back in the frame again? 

Why would you risk stirring this all up again 4 years later?  The media would have surely moved on by now anyway, especially if you'd chosen to keep a low profile after the case had been shelved. 

What do you ultimately gain by doing what you have described above?  There is no chance of you being "properly cleared" as a result so - why do you do it?

[Alfie]

And there is yet another solution to your hypothetical case, a desire to be in the public limelight, to mix with the rich and famous, to enjoy a lavish lifestyle funded by others, to be a someone.

Jolly easy, this creative thinking, isn't it?

And if you actually are going to revisit what I said, please do so properly.  It is neither convoluted nor does it involve a conspiracy theory, so I hope you will get your facts right.

All of the above in bold could be achieved without demanding a police review into your own misdeeds, do you not agree?

[John]

It is the different attitudes to everyday things which interest me, Sadie.

I don't think that you and I are by any means the only Northerners who assumed that once the shutters were down ... that was it ... security!

I think the assumption is perfectly illustrated by the commonly held belief accompanied by insistence that the shutters absolutely could not be raised from the outside. We now know that to be false.  Probably as most Southerners already did for the simple reason shutters were a part of their daily lives for generations.

I believe that modern times have necessitated that the security aspect is now given more attention.

The shutters are certainly multi purpose ie security, to protect curtains and blinds etc from bright sunlight and to prevent the ingress of excessive heat.  What most northerners don't realise however is that there is usually a locking mechanism on the shutters which prevents them being raised from the outside.  Usually this consists of a simple barrel bolt located at the bottom of each corner.

[ShiningInLuz]

On what basis do you decide that a review in your homeland has zero chance of uncovering some previously missed shreds of evidence that will end up putting you back in the frame again? 

Why would you risk stirring this all up again 4 years later?  The media would have surely moved on by now anyway, especially if you'd chosen to keep a low profile after the case had been shelved. 

What do you ultimately gain by doing what you have described above?  There is no chance of you being "properly cleared" as a result so - why do you do it?

I never mentioned anything about being properly cleared in the solution I described, since no amount of investigation can result in proper clearing.  The best your hypothetical couple could do was to insist the investigation included them, so the public could be assured they had been investigated by a 'proper' investigation by a 'competent' police force, not by slap-dash corrupt Johnny foreigner.  And in turn, any negative media attention could be met with a response of - it has been investigated by authorities where the incident happened - it has been investigated by homeland authorities - we have been thoroughly checked - and nothing has been found.

As to getting away with it, the issue is getting away with what?  If your hypothetical couple had disposed of the body in a rubbish bin, checked the bin to find it was empty, and not felt the police bearing down on them in the next few days, they could be supremely confident that no homeland enquiry years later was going to do better.

[ShiningInLuz]

All of the above in bold could be achieved without demanding a police review into your own misdeeds, do you not agree?

The bold bit was "And there is yet another solution to your hypothetical case, a desire to be in the public limelight, to mix with the rich and famous, to enjoy a lavish lifestyle funded by others, to be a someone."

No, I don't. Celebrities don't remain as celebrities without replenishing their celebrity status.  The media loses interest unless there is something fresh to tell.

Your hypothetical couple would fade into the background unless something mega happened.  One example of mega is a further investigation of the case by homeland police.  You might get a further kindly interview on national television, to explain how cruelly fate has treated you.  Another 15 minutes of fame in this hypothetical scenario.

[G-Unit]

Alfie thinks it would be plausible and logical for his hypothetical guilty people to fade into obscurity thanking their lucky stars they got away with it, but is it?

There's no living in peace because their guilty knowledge is with them every minute of every day. Others can forget all about it but they can't. They live each day waiting to see if there's a piece of the jigsaw out there somewhere which will incriminate them. Every knock on the door, every phone call could be the one that brings everything crashing down.

They've already had years of living like that and they want it to end. They want everyone to accept that they're innocent and to stop speculating about them. A review of the original investigation could work for them. It could demonstrate that the suspicions raised by that investigation were completely unfounded. It could highlight all the mistakes that were made and discredit those who made them once and for all. The jigsaw piece could emerge, but they've searched for it for years themselves and haven't found it. Quite possibly it doesn't exist.

It's a gamble to ask for a review but the alternative is a lifetime of looking over your shoulder, being constantly on your guard, not being in control. Having control is very important to some people.

[Alfie]

I never mentioned anything about being properly cleared in the solution I described, since no amount of investigation can result in proper clearing.  The best your hypothetical couple could do was to insist the investigation included them, so the public could be assured they had been investigated by a 'proper' investigation by a 'competent' police force, not by slap-dash corrupt Johnny foreigner.  And in turn, any negative media attention could be met with a response of - it has been investigated by authorities where the incident happened - it has been investigated by homeland authorities - we have been thoroughly checked - and nothing has been found.

As to getting away with it, the issue is getting away with what?  If your hypothetical couple had disposed of the body in a rubbish bin, checked the bin to find it was empty, and not felt the police bearing down on them in the next few days, they could be supremely confident that no homeland enquiry years later was going to do better.

This scenario obviously makes sense to you, it makes very little sense to me for all the reasons I have previously stated.  Anyone supremely confident that they have gotten away with it can happily get on their lives without a backward glance.  As I said before, the media furore surrounding the case, which our protagonist had continually stoked with interviews, book serializations, crimewatch appearances, etc - none of that would have been necessary from the moment the case had been shelved.  The protagonist would, a decade after the event have been a footnote in the public's and media's collective consciousness.  I don't of course expect you to agree but my opinion is at least as valid as yours, so that'll do me.  

[Alfie]

The bold bit was "And there is yet another solution to your hypothetical case, a desire to be in the public limelight, to mix with the rich and famous, to enjoy a lavish lifestyle funded by others, to be a someone."

No, I don't. Celebrities don't remain as celebrities without replenishing their celebrity status.  The media loses interest unless there is something fresh to tell.

Your hypothetical couple would fade into the background unless something mega happened.  One example of mega is a further investigation of the case by homeland police.  You might get a further kindly interview on national television, to explain how cruelly fate has treated you.  Another 15 minutes of fame in this hypothetical scenario.

There are all sorts of ways to draw attention to yourself and maintaining your C-List celeb status without involving Scotland Yard.  Katie Hopkins manages it! 

[Alfie]

Alfie thinks it would be plausible and logical for his hypothetical guilty people to fade into obscurity thanking their lucky stars they got away with it, but is it?

There's no living in peace because their guilty knowledge is with them every minute of every day. Others can forget all about it but they can't. They live each day waiting to see if there's a piece of the jigsaw out there somewhere which will incriminate them. Every knock on the door, every phone call could be the one that brings everything crashing down.

They've already had years of living like that and they want it to end. They want everyone to accept that they're innocent and to stop speculating about them. A review of the original investigation could work for them. It could demonstrate that the suspicions raised by that investigation were completely unfounded. It could highlight all the mistakes that were made and discredit those who made them once and for all. The jigsaw piece could emerge, but they've searched for it for years themselves and haven't found it. Quite possibly it doesn't exist.

It's a gamble to ask for a review but the alternative is a lifetime of looking over your shoulder, being constantly on your guard, not being in control. Having control is very important to some people.

Explain how a review conducted by the Met gives the protagonist control again...? &%+((£  Surely a comprehensive and thorough review of all the evidence by the country's leading police force is the most likely way of getting yourself back under the spotlight of suspicion.  The stress of a review, followed by a renewed investigation would be utterly magnified not diminished.  Nah, you'd have to be a masochist to put yourself through that.  If the guilt really was that bad then I guess we can dispense with the notion that our protagonist is a psychopath.  A confession would be a less stressful option to adressing that guilt IMO, than putting yourself through yet more years of police scrutiny.