Regardless Of The Evidence

10 January 2014

Bias has ‘significant’ effect on verdicts, jury research says

"Jurors should be tested before trials to reduce the effect of prejudices on their understanding of the burden of proof, according to the authors of a study suggesting bias has a ‘significant’ impact on verdicts.

A study, published in the British Psychological Society’s Legal and Criminological Psychology journal, found that pre-trial bias and jurors' understanding of the concept of beyond reasonable doubt have a ‘significant’ impact on the verdict they are likely to deliver in court.

Researchers from Anglia Ruskin University, University of Cambridge and University of Manchester sampled a group of 118 people aged between 19-63 employed by a pharmaceutical company in Cambridge.

Participants were asked to imagine they were serving on a jury in a ficticious burglary trial. They were given details of the charge, the prosecution and defence cases and the judge's instructions on the presumption of innocence.

Looking at the criminal standard of proof to convict - beyond reasonable doubt - the study found that the average threshold required to find someone guilty was a probability of 95%.

It also found that pre-trial attitudes combined with interpretations of beyond reasonable doubt accounted for 37% of the variability in the verdicts, so are an important predictor of how a juror will decide, regardless of the evidence."

http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/practice/bias-has-significant-effect-on-verdicts-jury-research-says/5039295.article

Not Fit And Proper

18 December 2012 Last updated at 11:53

Freed sex case teacher JB 'not fit to teach'

"JB was found unfit to teach by the General Teaching Council

A man who was cleared of rape and sexual assault charges after serving five years of a 12-year jail term has failed in a bid to return to teaching.

JB, 56, was convicted in 2005 of the alleged offences which were said to have dated back to the 1970s.

After a retrial in 2010, the jury found the charges relating to children aged seven, eight and 13, to be not proven.

The General Teaching Council refused his bid to rejoin the teaching register after finding him unfit to teach.

Mr B taught English and History at a Glasgow secondary school before his conviction in 2005.

His teacher registration lapsed after this and he had applied to have it renewed."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-20769477

Ex-teacher cleared of rape and sex abuse banned from the classroom

http://local.stv.tv/glasgow/206463-ex-teacher-cleared-of-rape-and-sex-abuse-fails-to-return-to-schools/