Yet another rape case disgrace
A MAN who spent more than two years in jail for a rape he did not commit had his conviction quashed after a relative took only a minute to uncover a series of bombshell Facebook messages – missed by police – that proved his innocence.
In the latest rape case to highlight failings in the criminal justice system, The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the jury at Danny Kay’s 2013 trial was only shown doctored transcripts of crucial Facebook chats between Mr Kay and his accuser.
In an exclusive interview with the MoS, Mr Kay said archived versions of the original messages – proving he had consensual sex with his accuser – were found by his sister- i n- l aw, Sarah Maddison. When she showed the Facebook exchange to the officer in charge of the investigation, he said: ‘How did you know how to find the messages and we didn’t?’
By then, Mr Kay had spent three months in jail. It would be another two years before his conviction was overturned. The Appeal Court heard earlier this month that police relied on an ‘edited and misleading’ account of the Facebook conversation that was given to them by the complainant in the weeks after she claimed she was raped by Mr Kay.
Earlier his month, The Mail on Sunday reported that a rape case against student Liam Allan collapsed after it was revealed that police had withheld vital phone messages from his accuser.
Mr Kay, 26, said: ‘Even now, with the conviction quashed, I still can’t believe that it took years of pain and stress for this nightmare to end. And the terrifying thought is that if the police and justice system could fail me like this, it could happen to anyone.
‘Why didn’t the police check my Facebook account when they had my laptop and login details right from the start? Why did it take my sister-in-law to find the evidence? This isn’t some small matter, this is my life and for the police not to do those basic checks is horrendous.’
Mr Kay said he owed his liberty to a chance conversation with a fellow inmate, who convinced him the Facebook messages he thought were lost were recoverable.
Mr Kay asked Ms Maddison to log in to his account. ‘I couldn’t bel i eve how easy it was to find the messages,’ she said. ‘ I’ve just worked in admin all my life and am no social media expert. It only took me a minute to find them so how trained police couldn’t is beyond me.’
While he waited for his appeal, Mr Kay remained locked up with sex offende r s . He was a l s o made to see a psychiatrist because he was judged to be ‘in denial’ because of his protestations of innocence.
At his trial at Derby Crown Court, Mr Kay’s accuser said there had been little contact between them after sex. The jury was given a misleading impression of a message reading ‘sorry’, which was construed as being about the alleged rape. In fact, it was a response to the woman asking him why he was ignoring her. Also omitted from the version presented to the jury was her response: ‘Dnt [sic] be.’
Another message suggested Mr Kay had lied about his age during their first Facebook conversation. He asks t he girl how old she is, to which she replies: ‘Nearly 17.’ He then asks if she’s single and she replies ‘yep’.He says: ‘Same here.’ Yet in the messages shown to the jury, it appears his reply ‘Same here’ is a response to her revealing her age.
More damning are the numerous messages sent after the alleged rape that were deleted by his accuser. In one, Mr Kay asks for her number because he’d lost it. Not only does she readily supply it, she accompanies it with four kisses.
The accuser says: ‘im still here for ya!’ And in a separate message, after the pair had split up, she says: ‘I thought u woulda at least tried to get me back.’
When the new messages were shown to the Appeal Court, the judges ruled that the exchange
‘I lost all faith in the system, and all hope’ DANNY’S SISTER-IN-LAW FOUND TEXTS THAT CLEARED HIM IN 60 SECONDS... WHY DIDN’T POLICE? Sarah Maddison (below) turned detective to free Danny Kay after two years in jail