Today’s speaker was John Beaumont, a returning speaker, to talk to us about the difficulties and intricacies involved in establishing proof, “Beyond reasonable doubt”, within the British judicial system.
He is/was a lawyer, practicing mainly within the law courts in Nottingham, before delving into the realms of academe, and becoming a science and philosophy consultant.
His previous talk to us had explored the differences between murder and manslaughter, and he followed up today by explaining the difficulties involved in actually obtaining legal proof of criminal activities to enable a trial verdict to be reached.
Each defendant is presumed innocent, and it is down to the prosecution to prove otherwise.
Civil case outcome depends upon the balance of probabilities, but criminal cases must be proven “beyond reasonable doubt”. Current jurisdiction says that juries must be made to “feel sure” that a defendant is guilty. A “nice point!”
After a very detailed explanation of the ways and means by which evidence, case law, hearsay etc. can be manipulated to the benefit of both defendant and prosecutor, we were left wondering how on earth anyone would ever wish to be a judge during complex cases, or more to the point, why any citizen such as ourselves would ever want to be compelled to undertake jury duty!