Drink Throwing / Assault

[d-345]

I recently poured a drink over my ex who had been cheating on me. I am now being pursued by the police for assault. The policeman keeps trying to talk me into taking a caution, saying they can only issue this if I admit to the offence (which I refuse to do claiming I was drunk & don't remember). The police claim to have to 2 indipendant wittnesses & are now threatening to take me to court as I won't take a caution.

Surely if they have wittnesses they could have cautioned me without my own admission? And their double bluffing me into admitting it to get their evidence / conviction stats up? Or if what there saying is true, would the CPS actually bother prosecuting and if so what is the punishment likely to be?

[Buenchico]

Only magistrates and juries are empowered to legally determine whether someone is guilty of an offence or not. The police have no powers to do so. Even if your action had been witnessed by a capacity crowd at Wembley Stadium, and been shown live on national TV, they'd have no right to take any actions based upon a presumption of your guilt. Nothing can happen until either you've admitted your guilt or been you've found guilty by a court.

(If you think about it, that's the only sensible way to do things. Otherwise someone who didn't like you could get together with their mates to say that they'd witnessed you committing an offence while you were drunk, and get you cautioned as a result of it).

So you can only be cautioned if you admit to the offence. If you don't, the matter will be handed to the CPS. It's possible that the CPS might decide that it's not in the public interest to pursue a conviction, but it's still quite likely that they'd would do so. Assuming that you pleaded guilty, a conviction would probably result in a 12 month conditional discharge, plus the payment of costs (perhaps �60) and a 'victim surcharge' of �15. If you pleaded not guilty the conditional discharge would probably be replaced by a fine (of perhaps �80).

Chris

[Drisgirl]

Who got the Police involved?
This type of incident is a daily/nightly occurance Nationwide -surely the Police have more to do than harass you.
If this was seriously all you did then I would call their bluff and let the CPS throw it out.

Its nonsense that they are even wasting Police time haranguing you in order to issue a caution !!

Unless you have previous??

[d-345]

Nope, the police clearly do have nothing better to do!! They've interviewed me, and supposedly several wittnesses as well. Total waste!

It was my ex who got the police involved - probably something to do with the fact her brother is on the force she reported it to.

Thanks for the advice. If nothing else I'll call their bluff out of principle alone.

[Drisgirl]

Good Luck.

I would certainly call their bluff as even a caution would appear on your records should you ever need a Disclosure for employment purposes etc.

Looks like thats what they want -a nice easy way to stitch you up on the fly !!!

[jojojojoanne]

how did you let them double bluff you that doesn't make sense?

[d-345]

I just meant could they be lying about having wittness statements in order to get me to own up, so they don't have drop the case for lack of evidence or have the CPS throw it out.

[Rollo]

The only way to find out whether the CPS would take this to a court case is to refuse to accept a caution.

The only people who know what the police's motives are is the police, and they are not going to tell you.

[Bjohn]

Stick to your guns - these days a caution and conviction both appear on your record. You'll probably find a "no further action" comes your way.

[Gadgetmanx]

Well the thing is that this falls in to the category of domestic violence (as it is an assault) and therefore the Police and CPS have to take this very seriously!

[five2two7]

Well this is a case of domestic violence (as technically it is an assault) and therefore is taken very seriously. I would not bank on the CPS throwing this out.