smeggy wrote:
Came across
this on PH:Peter Ward wrote:
On Saturday I wrote to Michael Ives. He just phoned me up!
He was on Radio Scotland yesterday. He's on R4 tomorrow at about 9:30am. He's amazed at the amount of interest worldwide in his case -- he's getting calls from journalists globally.
The basis of his defence was this. He obtained the camera calibration certificate via FOI. It shows that calibration checks were done at 25, 75 and 100m. He read out what it says on the back, something like "this instrument has been calibrated and calibration verified and complies with manufacturer's specification at the measured points". His defence was therefore that it has not been calibrated beyond 100m. He has not claimed it is inaccurate, simply that it has not been calibrated beyond 100m and therefore cannot be relied on for prosecution.
He also pointed out that in his case the CPS withheld evidence from him that would weaken their case. He has raised a complaint with the CC and is awaiting a response. He said he would let me know what happens.
I was aware of that claim. While I have no doubt that the defendent believes it to be the reason, I don't believe it. The CPS dropped the case either:
a) because they were too dumb to knock down a pathetic defence
b) because there was a strong defence that made them think they would lose and they didn't want coming out.
I'll place my bet on b).
It remains
possible (no more than that) that some specific wording somewhere does happen to suggest that such normal usage is 'outside calibration'.
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