JAIL HELL OVER POLICE RAPE BLUNDER
Businessman latest victim of justice scandal
A BUSINESSMAN has spent nearly eight months in jail while falsely accused of crimes including rape because police failed to disclose texts that proved his innocence.
Robert Adlington said his life was destroyed and he lost his booming landscape gardening business after he was locked up amid a series of what he insists were fake allegations by a woman.
His solicitor yesterday branded his ordeal “tortuous”.
The shocking case follows in the wake of a series of recent police failures nationwide to disclose vital information that subsequently exonerated men charged with rape.
Following his arrest Mr Adlington, left, who had never previously been in trouble with police, begged officers to check his accuser’s phone,
insisting her messages would completely exonerate him.
Despite he and his lawyer being told that phones had already been seized during his first interview their contents were withheld for months.
In one racy message sent after an encounter which she later claimed had been rape the woman wrote: “Oh darling, that was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. Let’s do it again – only harder.”
In another she begged him to “join me in the shower” while another message said: “I don’t need sleep, I only need you babe XXX”.
Mr Adlington, 53, was convinced that once officers examined the phone the case would be dropped,
He told them he believed that he was being “set up” by the woman and her lover after a car was set on fire near his home, which the man told police he had been sleeping in when the blaze started.
Despair
Mr Adlington, a father of two from Buxton, Derbyshire, was arrested in May last year on suspicion of causing arson with intent to endanger life. Stunned, he was told he would be kept in custody over the Bank Holiday weekend until an appearance before Derby magistrates court where he would be given bail and allowed home.
But in court prosecutors described him as a “serious danger” and his application for bail was refused.
The businessman was sent to Nottingham Prison where he endured a “living hell” among “robbers, rapists, killers and drug addicts” for seven months and 22 days.
As his despair grew to the point of contemplating suicide he was then told he had been charged with four counts of rape. Again his legal team urged Derbyshire officers to check phone records but received no reply until hours before Mr Adlington was due to stand trial at in January.
A CPS request for the evidence was also submitted in November but was not received until January 11. Once the evidence was disclosed the case was immediately dismissed by a judge on January 16.
Mr Adlington said: “It has cost me everything my home, my business, my good name – everything. I’ve sent emails to the police asking for an explanation but I’ve not received a single reply, no apology or anything. Surely a ‘sorry’ is the least I deserve for having my life destroyed?”
Solicitor James Riley said Mr Adlington’s had endured a torturous journey through the criminal justice system branding it “one of the most unique cases” he had ever experienced.
The CPS later ruled it had insufficient evidence to charge the rape allegations or arson but instead charged him with two allegations of making threats to kill.
Mr Riley said: “In my personal view these charges were simply holding charges in order to keep him in custody.”
Mr Adlington made his first appearance before Chesterfield magistrates court on May 26, 2017, where he formally entered not guilty pleas and trial was fixed for July 21. Bail was refused.
On the July 18 the CPS notified Mr Bunting that it was proposing to lay an additional charge of arson with intent to endanger life. This stopped the trial taking place and his custody time limit was extended at a hearing on July 19 when the case was transferred to Derby Crown Court for a hearing on August 16.
At that hearing the CPS offered no evidence in respect of the two allegations of threat to kill and these matters were discontinued.
However, a new charge of harassment was alleged alongside arson with intent to endanger life.
The defence statement was served to the court on October 13 in which a further request was specifically made for copies of the prosecution’s phone evidence.
But instead of receiving the infor-
mation requested on October 26 the CPS announced it was intending to lay three additional counts of rape.
On November 2 Mr Adlington appeared and entered not guilty pleas to each of the new allegations but was again remanded in custody.
Mr Adlington’s legal team finally received some of the phone data on January 11.
On the day of the trial the defence presented the data to the judge who instantly threw out the case.
Mr Riley added: “Phone evidence that significantly undermined the Crown’s case had not been obtained or considered by the CPS until the day of his trial, despite repeated defence requests. As a result the defendant was held in custody for several months when an earlier review of this evidence would have no doubt led to the case being dropped.”
Lessons
Derbyshire Police’s Detective Chief Superintendent Kem Mehmet said: “We have already referred our investigation into this case to an independent regional review team.
“Once the review is complete, we will ensure that any lessons are learned and may then be in a position to comment further.”
A CPS spokesman said: “The CPS stopped this case five days after receiving additional material from the police in January 2018. The material was retrieved from the complainant’s phone at the request of CPS after receiving a defence statement.
“We are content that we complied with our disclosure obligations in this case and that the prosecution was promptly discontinued after we received new material and concluded the evidential test was no longer met.”
WHEN will they learn? It seems hardly believable that yet another rape case has collapsed because key evidence was not examined by the police and consequently not presented to the defence until the eve of the trial. And while this farce was going on, a man lost his liberty for eight months. However many apologies he receives, however much compensation he may be due, those are months that he will never get back. To deprive someone of their liberty by not putting forward the evidence is unforgivable.
The issue of disclosure was supposed to have been sorted out years ago and it is difficult to escape the conclusion that this case was prosecuted because there has been an acknowledged desire to increase rape convictions on the part of the Crown Prosecution Service.
The Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, is stepping down in October and while she maintains it is because she did not want to renew her contract, she has been associated with scandals over disclosure in previous failed rape cases. How many more remain in the pipeline?
On top of the Old Bailey stands a bronze statue of Lady Justice, with a sword in one hand and the scales of justice in the other. This is meant to symbolise the complete fairness of the English courts. There has been nothing fair about this case nor the many others that preceded it. How many more innocent lives are going to be ruined before these lessons are learned?