Is this justice?

[mariner2]

PC Harwood beats to the ground an innocent passer by who later dies, and gets aquitted. Then we find out there's been 10 previous complaints for violent conduct against him, BUT the jury nor anyone one else, weren't allowed to know this.
Why is that then? Surely it provides a pretty accurate pointer to the sort of bloke he is and would have almost certainly prevented the miscarriage of justice that has occurred here.
What, he deserves a clean slate? No he doesn't. One previous complaint, maybe, but 10? Not a chance.

[sandyRoe]

Someone in the police might now like to explain why it was he was allowed to resign from another force,and in doing so avoid disciplinary action, and then rejoin the Met.

[mariner2]

Good point. I am not in the least anti-police, in fact more the other way in most cases, but this stinks.

[mariner2]

Someone will no doubt come on and explain why we can't have something as ridiculous as the jury actually KNOWING anything detrimental about the accused, but they will be missing the point, which is that its a classic case of the law getting in the way of justice.

[Dee-M-See]

I agree it does seem wrong that the jury were not in possession of any of the facts of previous acts of violent conduct, but had they been then the P.C. would then complain that he didn't have a fair trial as the jury could be predjudiced aganst him, he would then appeal to the court of human rights and would probably have got off Scot free anyway,This is one of the penaltys of living in a country where everyone is entitled to fair trial

[New Judge]

He would not have to appeal to the “court of human rights”. An appeal to our own Appeal Court would almost certainly be successful. Although there are provisions in UK law for the admission of “bad character” evidence, the conditions under which such evidence may be introduced are strict and limited. The judge in this case obviously ruled against such evidence being allowed. Generally a jury is expected to judge a matter solely on the evidence relating to that matter.

[EDDIE51]

As I have said on another thread I never though a murder charge would be proved , but PC Harwood should never have been in the police force let alone in the anti riot squad. Reading more about him , he resigned from the Met on 'medical grounds' so as to avoid being charged for a violent assult in a 'road rage' incident while off duty. Then he joined the Surrey police as a civilian just 3 days later ! That has to be a 'cover up' he should never have been allowed to get the job! Then he transfered to the uniform branch of Surrey police and again was the subject of disciplinary action for using undue force. Unbelievably he transfered back the the Met as a police officer and no mention of his previous record was made.
I can make only one conclusion from this and that is that the Met actually encourage violent officers to continue in the service , by turning a 'blind eye' .
I am pretty certain a civil action will succeed as the burden of proof is lower.
But can there be a civil action for murder ? I think not it will have to be for something else possibly New Judge will let us know.

[mariner2]

If every case is to be judged on its own merits, how come defendants are allowed 'character witnesses' then? Its the same thing in reverse, they make sure the jury is allowed to know what a good chap he really is, but they are not allowed to know what a total ****** he is, if that should be the case. As I said - the law getting in the way of justice.

[EDDIE51]

Intresting point mariner2 and one I had not thought of . Are the jury allowed to ask if there are previous convictions for similar offences ? again I don't know and possibly New Judge would advise us.

[jake-the-peg]

There was a solicitor explaining this on Radio 4 the other day.

As I recall it's a matter of whether the bad character evidence is relevant to the main issue of the case.

Here the charge was manslaughter not murder - there was no question of intent that had to be proved.

Therefore his character was not relevant.

The judge would have looked at this and come to this conclusion and disallowed charcter evidence.

Had it have been a charge of Murder or assault with intent or something like that then he'd almost certainly have admitted the character evidence.

That is my recollection of the explanation.

As to why an officer with his record was still in the Police - that's another question