Just under three months ago, I posted this item, in which I wrote of my disdain for those who suggested that Steven Gerrard should not be selected to play for his country, or his club, because he had been arrested and charged with both assault occasioning actual bodily harm and affray following an incident in a Southport nightclub.
As I wrote then, there is a golden thread in English law called the presumption of innocence. For the benefit of the uninitiated, that means that any person (including famous ones) accused of a crime in this country, however serious, is presumed to be innocent of that crime until he or she is proved to be guilty of it by due process of law.
Three months on and we learn that the assault charge has been formally discontinued against Gerrard and his six co-accused due to there being insufficient evidence to justify the matter being taken to trial.
And whilst I appreciate that he still faces the affray charge, I wonder if the people - especially those journalists who really ought to have known better - who were calling for his exclusion from the England team when he was charged now realise how premature and downright unfair they were to do so.
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2 comments:
It has crossed my mind, as I am sure it will have done yours, that the C.P.S. may have ditched a messy s47 in order to strengthen a more nailed on affray.
Or, as Mrs RToK cynically observed as I was pompously declaiming on the subject: "He probably paid off the witnesses!"
On the whole, I favour your theory...
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