4 ms·

Ok, but the police cleared him of the charges. Then he hired a solicitor and thanks to him the mistake was made clear, and he got a totally justified, and very

by Udik 10y ago

Ok, but the police cleared him of the charges. Then he hired a solicitor and thanks to him the mistake was made clear, and he got a totally justified, and very handsome, compensation. One would think that this should be enough to put at rest any possible suspicion. Three weeks are not such a long ordeal, especially when you know from the start it's all a mistake.

Jabanga 10y ago
What happened to him was terrible, but I tend to agree that he received adequate compensation. My armchair judge verdict: calls for further compensation should be strongly discouraged, but the lesson this story teaches of how devastating a sex crime charge, particularly a child sex crime charge, is, should be spread far and wide, and anyone who goes through ordeal similar to Nigel's should be similarly exonerated in a very public way.
- mjevans 10y ago
  I agree with no further direct monetary compensation... but I can see how this would literally 'break' him. He is no longer the calm, re-assuring, blissfully ignorant individual he once was. He should probably be re-evaluated for current aptitude and skills, receive refining education towards a promising related career field and live a reborn life. I don't know, does the UK actually do the right thing (unlike the US)?
  - Jabanga 10y ago
    He may subconsciously sabotage his own rehabilitation because doing so could net him even more compensation. I strongly believe that now that he's received compensation and full public exoneration, he should be expected to return to supporting himself. There are a lot of people who are in much more difficult circumstances than him. We cannot provide unlimited aid to every person who's been wronged or suffered trauma. It has to be proportionate and within society's ability ability to support.
nikanj 10y ago
If you pay any attention to the news, there's been numerous cases where innocent people spent years or even decades in jails before they were found not guilty.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- emodendroket 10y ago
  I guess this is related to the thread where a bunch of HN users said they stopped reading news altogether.
greghatch 10y ago
> One would think that this should be enough to put at rest any possible suspicion. But, it wasn't. People were still suspicious - and in his working with kids it doesn't make sense to "take a risk" on an allegedly exonerated pedophile. What should happen and what did happen as a result of his three weeks of suspicion was starkly different. Certainly we don't need to blame anything or anyone in particular to understand how awful something like false charges can be regardless of how awful they ought to be. > Three weeks are not such a long ordeal, especially when you know from the start it's all a mistake. He didn't know it was three weeks at the time, he didn't know if he would be able to exonerate himself or if he was being framed or whatever - it's not like he's just sleeping it off when law enforcement already got one thing wrong enough to falsely arrest.
- DanBC 10y ago
  > People were still suspicious - and in his working with kids it doesn't make sense to "take a risk" on an allegedly exonerated pedophile. England has a "Disclosure and Barring Service". People who work with children and vulnerable people will apply for a DBS. It will return information about arrests and convictions. Some people need an enhanced DBS, and that will sometimes return police intel. https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/disclosure-and-barring-service https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/disclosure-and-b... https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/disclosure-and-barring-service/about https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/disclosure-and-b... This is likely to affect his employment for some jobs until it got fixed.
zkms 10y ago
> Ok, but the police cleared him of the charges. To be clear -- the police exonerating him took three years ("5 April 2014 he received a letter from Hertfordshire constabulary"), which is rather a long ordeal, especially because he had no idea why he was targeted until then. The "three weeks" just refers to how long it took for the police's forensics people to search his laptop and find nothing. After those three weeks the police was like "oh we can't find proof of those illegal images on your laptop, welp, gotta let you go", not "we typoed an IP address and kicked down the wrong door, you are completely innocent and utterly unconnected to this".

by Udik 10y ago

Jabanga 10y ago

What happened to him was terrible, but I tend to agree that he received adequate compensation. My armchair judge verdict: calls for further compensation should be strongly discouraged, but the lesson this story teaches of how devastating a sex crime charge, particularly a child sex crime charge, is, should be spread far and wide, and anyone who goes through ordeal similar to Nigel's should be similarly exonerated in a very public way.

mjevans 10y ago
I agree with no further direct monetary compensation... but I can see how this would literally 'break' him. He is no longer the calm, re-assuring, blissfully ignorant individual he once was. He should probably be re-evaluated for current aptitude and skills, receive refining education towards a promising related career field and live a reborn life. I don't know, does the UK actually do the right thing (unlike the US)?
- Jabanga 10y ago
  He may subconsciously sabotage his own rehabilitation because doing so could net him even more compensation. I strongly believe that now that he's received compensation and full public exoneration, he should be expected to return to supporting himself. There are a lot of people who are in much more difficult circumstances than him. We cannot provide unlimited aid to every person who's been wronged or suffered trauma. It has to be proportionate and within society's ability ability to support.

nikanj 10y ago

If you pay any attention to the news, there's been numerous cases where innocent people spent years or even decades in jails before they were found not guilty.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
emodendroket 10y ago
I guess this is related to the thread where a bunch of HN users said they stopped reading news altogether.

greghatch 10y ago

> One would think that this should be enough to put at rest any possible suspicion. But, it wasn't. People were still suspicious - and in his working with kids it doesn't make sense to "take a risk" on an allegedly exonerated pedophile. What should happen and what did happen as a result of his three weeks of suspicion was starkly different. Certainly we don't need to blame anything or anyone in particular to understand how awful something like false charges can be regardless of how awful they ought to be. > Three weeks are not such a long ordeal, especially when you know from the start it's all a mistake. He didn't know it was three weeks at the time, he didn't know if he would be able to exonerate himself or if he was being framed or whatever - it's not like he's just sleeping it off when law enforcement already got one thing wrong enough to falsely arrest.

DanBC 10y ago
> People were still suspicious - and in his working with kids it doesn't make sense to "take a risk" on an allegedly exonerated pedophile. England has a "Disclosure and Barring Service". People who work with children and vulnerable people will apply for a DBS. It will return information about arrests and convictions. Some people need an enhanced DBS, and that will sometimes return police intel. https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/disclosure-and-barring-service https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/disclosure-and-b... https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/disclosure-and-barring-service/about https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/disclosure-and-b... This is likely to affect his employment for some jobs until it got fixed.

zkms 10y ago

> Ok, but the police cleared him of the charges. To be clear -- the police exonerating him took three years ("5 April 2014 he received a letter from Hertfordshire constabulary"), which is rather a long ordeal, especially because he had no idea why he was targeted until then. The "three weeks" just refers to how long it took for the police's forensics people to search his laptop and find nothing. After those three weeks the police was like "oh we can't find proof of those illegal images on your laptop, welp, gotta let you go", not "we typoed an IP address and kicked down the wrong door, you are completely innocent and utterly unconnected to this".