Mistadobalina wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2023 9:30 am
BiggsyMalone wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2023 9:08 am
The police can still seek a conviction even if the alleged victim withdraws.
Fair to say the police f*cked it in this case. You have a potential victim of abuse and a controlling relationship who is persistently contacted by the accused, in breach of their bail terms. The potential victim has subsequently gotten back together with that person having dropped their cooperation with the investigation.
From everything we know about abusive relationships, this is the exact sort of situation that the bail conditions were there to avoid, but there was zero consequences to Greenwood for doing this.
I am not sure that it is fair to blame the police.
I accept the rest of your first paragraph may well be what actually happened.
However, what do you expect the police to do? They need evidence to enable a successful prosecution. If the complainant is not prepared to give evidence, then it leaves the police with no evidence to present to the CPS and ultimately to the court.
If the complainant is not prepared to give evidence that Greenwood breached his bail conditions, then how do they prove a breach of bail? There are insufficient resources to have a 24/7 watch on every complainant and suspect of abuse cases to make sure there is no contact. Even then it is difficult to prevent indirect contact.
The bail conditions were imposed by the court not the police
People seem to forget that there needs to be admissible evidence to proceed with a prosecution. Where there is not sufficient admissible evidence there cannot be a successful prosecution.
Also, it was the CPS who chose to discontinue the case, not the police. Post charge, the CPS not the police make the decisions
Blaming the police is an easy knee jerk reaction, and even easier when you cannot say what the police should have done differently