Any defendant, even if they have substantial income and/or assets, is well advised to apply for legal aid in any event. They may be granted legal aid but required to pay a large financial contribution (2012 to Jan 2014); or they may be formally refused legal aid (Jan 2014 onwards). In either event, if they are acquitted they will get back their costs, at legal aid rates (which may be less than the total they have actually paid out). However if a defendant does not apply for legal aid at all, but simply bears the costs of their defence themselves, they would not be entitled to anything back, even if acquitted. It has to be said that the position before 2012 was more generous to wealthy defendants. It was a political decision of the current ConDem coalition government to make legal aid much more restricted in several ways, including in this way.
Thats all well and good but what about the Bill Roach or Michael Le Vell case . They were proven innocent yet whats happened to the accuser are they paying the millions it cost for the trial . Or is the cost coming out of the pockets of the innocents . I dont think millions should be spent on court cases but I do think that if someone is proved innocent then the total cost should lie with the accuser .
I have a , deceased , friend that married a woman with a young daughter of about 15 . When she reached 17 she went a bit wild and he was despatched by mrs to keep an eye on her . She didnt like this and eventually went to the police and accused him of raping her since she was 15 . He ended up locked up and in court . Said girl broke down during the court case and admitted she made it all up . He died at about 55 from cancer but was and still is referred to as the rapist when his name is brought up by the ignorant .
Any victim should be free to come forward at any time. Circumstances and society changes such that people feel able to comes forward often many years after a crime. This should not be discouraged. It is true that some alleged victims may be falling accusing someone for financial gain, this is also a crime and if hope is punished as well if proven.
My view is that post the Savile thing, any celebrity is now considered fair game for sexual accusations. In some respects, this is a good thing, because if the celebrities were previously "untouchable" now they aren't - society has moved on. But in many other ways, it is a bad thing. The Savile case was different. For a start, he was dead when all this came to light, which already separates this case from others. Secondly, there were just so many people who came forward - it wasn't a couple of isolated incidents. Thirdly, his charity work put him into contact with a lot of vulnerable people, from whom, it seems, he took advantage, which makes the accusations all the more credible. The other accused celebrities are different. They are alive, so the question of proving their guilt rather than just suspecting it, is important. If there is no evidence at all, the proof is going to be very hard to muster. If you can't prove your accusations, it is better that they don't even surface into the public domain, because the reputation of the accused will never be the same again, whether he is innocent of the charges or not. If the accusers cannot prove guilt, it is equally true that the accused cannot prove innocence, so they are irredeemably tarred, in the eyes of the general public. This is manifestly unfair. The only winners in all this are going to be the media. Lots of paper-selling, internet-clicking juicy stories to peddle. I have no view whatsoever on Stuart Hall, DLT, or the one who must not be mentioned. It is not possible to have a view, in the light of no evidence. People who do have views are entirely influenced by how much they liked or disliked the accused as an entertainer. I doubt anyone on here knows any of them personally. Sadly for them, whatever their entertainment skills, they have no bearing on the likelihood of the accusations being true.
