Lessons I've Learnt along the way

You're fighting for your reputation, your future and potentially your freedom. You need to see this as the most important job you have ever had. You know what happened write it down. 

• Timelines are excellent. Create a table in Word and document everything in sequence by date. Have a different column for each party. One for conversations with the police, one for your solicitor etc. Keep this upto date at all times
• Excel is brilliant for messages. Export all of the messages out of Whatsapp and paste into a spreadsheet. You can quickly search for key phrases and extract key messages
• Create a summary sheet. If you need someone to understand whats been happening this is what you send them. Keep it high level and like the timeline keep it upto date

Give your solicitor all the ammunition he or she might need. Make it as easy as you can to navigate.

You need to do the donkey work. No one cares as much about this as you do 

DO NOT ... I cannot stress this enough DO NOT speak a word to the police until you have been assigned and spoken to a solicitor. The solicitor at the police station is FREE ... you do not have to pay for this service. Refuse to answer questions by the police anywhere in the police station until you have spoken to a solicitor. 

Listen very carefully to your solicitor and their instructions. It's likely that all of this has come as a complete surprise and you're reading this after you've been interviewed. If you've been advised to go no comment in interview by your solicitor follow that instruction to the letter. Don't be fooled by the police as they're likely to try and convince you to talk with something along the lines of "If you've got nothing to hide you shouldn't be worried about telling us what happened" Saying no comment is NOT a sign of guilt and you have the right to remain silent. It's likely that you've been in a cell for a good few hours ... you're going to be tired, anxious and stressed. There is literally nothing you can say in your police interview that can do you any good. In reality you can make things much worse for yourself later on down the line. Charging decisions should be made by the CPS on evidence they have in front of them. If you've not said anything it can't be used as evidence to make a decision to charge you with. IF you're charged you'll have the opportunity to put your side of the story across in whats called a Defence Case Statement (DCS) where you have 14 days to write this if in the magistrates or 28 days in the crown court. If you said nothing in your police interview you won't have to worry about contradicting yourself or having the things you may have said twisted and presented to you at a later date. 

Hard one to fathom this I know. You may not have a choice... your offence might be a summary only offence which means it can only be heard in the magistrates court. If the offence is an either way offence you can choose whether you want a trial in front of a magistrate or in front of a jury. If it's indictable then its crown court only. 

If the process is much faster and the sentences in the magistrates are not as severe then why on earth would anyone CHOOSE to have their case heard infront of a jury where the punishment can be much worse. 

Ok hear me out... I need to find the reference to this statistic but you have a 25% better chance of being acquitted in a crown court. These are the following reasons 

• Magistrates courts are precided over by volunteer members of the community that in most cases have no legal background or training. The place is a breeding ground for people addicted to power. There are terrible miscarriages of justice that happen in the magistrates court because the magistrate got out of the wrong side of bed that morning
• If you've been accused of Domestic Abuse as this website is trying to change people think it's only women who are abused. If two or more of the magistrates that day are female and your false accuser turns on the waterworks and manipulatively tugs on the heart strings actual law, fact and evidence could go out the window and you be landed with a criminal record
• Crown courts are precided over by professional judges who have in most cases had decades of experience in the legal profession and know the law inside and out 
• In the three appearances I have had so far in the crown court I have experienced complete and utter professionalism from three different judges. They made decisions on facts and law. It's the one and only place I have seen the police and the Crown Prosecution Service been put in their place.
• In the crown court your case will be heard infront of 12 members of the public who will make their decision on the evidence presented to them. Your false accuser won't have done a 10th of the preparation you will have done if you follow what I said above about knowing your own case as they're just a witness in proceedings now. Unfortunately and what I'd like to have changed is that there are no adverse consequences for them should all their lies be revealed.

There's a difference between someone giving you advice as a result as their experience and someone intepreting facts. The law is fact, it's written in black and white but it can be intepreted in different ways. The law was not written by the police and seldom are they the experts in intepreting it. If they do interpret it one can pretty much guarantee it's been intepreted to validate their agenda and not yours.

Here's an example "Pre Charge" or "Police" bail. Sounds intimidating already but if you research the law behind it and the powers the police have to enforce it and the consequences to you if you ignore it suddenly it's not as terrifying as the police would like you to believe. 

• You can be arrested for breaching pre charge bail but breaching pre charge bail is NOT an offence
• You either have to be charged or re released on bail under the exact same conditions 
• There is a 3 hour extension to the 24 hour custody clock for each breach of pre charge bail

I was innocent... I knew it, and I also knew there was no evidence to support the police's investigation and I wasn't going to sit around waiting for the CPS to take 9 months to make a charging decision. I wanted this to be decided now so I made the decision to force the CPS to make a charging decision and breached my pre charge bail on two occassions. Just a footnote to this I made this decision completely on my own and based on my own circumstances. I am not suggesting it's the right approach in every case. You need to make your own decision as an educated human being.