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[Colin Bowman]

With hindsight, it could be argued that the most effective weapon in the prosecution armoury, is what it has proved possible to say about and around the alibi of LM being at home.
Again with hindsight, it might be argued that in the absence of furore around this alibi, a critique of the prosecution argument and the police investigation, would see us closer to an overturning of the verdict than we currently are.
WKJJ are majoring on what they can argue around this alibi. What else they offer proves straightforward to discredit.

Was Findlay wrong to offer a defense across this alibi? Did he have alternatives, at the time? Has defense around this alibi somewhat hobbled advocacy on LM's behalf? Can the problematical weight of the legacy of this defense strategy be lessened; and if so, just how?

colin

[nugnug]

really im sure a defence of albi was needed when you look most of the people mentioned in this case dont have albis

[Toth]

Alibi means at another place at the time the crime was committed. Obviously the time of the murder is not precisely known. I think Scottish law requires a formal notification of an intent to utilize a defense of alibi. I do know that the newspapers and prosecution seemed to have scored points but it seems the alibi statement was truthful and the witnesses were honest if not exactly helpful as far as the jury was concerned.

I would see no reason to waive any right to present as accurate a timeline of LM's activities that evening and I surely see no reason to not have called the brother as a witness. I doubt Findlay did any pretrial witness preparation or had any drawings of the house though. I doubt he was really prepared since his whole style seems to be to "wing it" and focus more on the judge than the jury anyway.

[nugnug]

well you only have one albi you can ethere offer it or not but you cant offer a diffrent one.

[gordo30]

I have always felt that the alibi although discredited has never been proven to be false beyond any doubt. That  has however created a problem for the defense as so much cannot be accounted for because once the defense of alibi was dropped by the defense then much of what was claimed by the prosecution could not be argued against because he was in the house that evening.Does that make sense?

[nugnug]

well the thing you cant change to it diffrent albi.

if you telling the truth you only have one albi.

you cant come up with a diffrent one later and epect to be believed.

[nugnug]

if your telling the truth your albi will stay the same.

[HaveHope]

My opinion is that if a mother was deliberately covering for her son, and his brother was also trying to help by giving him an alibi for the times surrounding a murder, then they would have came up with a story entirely different in content to the account they gave.

[nugnug]

and though not a perfect alibi at least he has one unlike most of the people inolved in this case.

[HaveHope]

and though not a perfect alibi at least he has one unlike most of the people inolved in this case.

It's far from perfect but regardless of how ridiculous Lukes alibi sounds to some people I would tend to believe, burnt pie, porn sites, dodgy brocolli etc, before I would believe dont know, cant remember  that others expect us to believe as there alibi.

I am a mother, I am also protective of my kids.  My kids are my world.  Always have been always will be.  We live in the real world. I would say we are a normal ish family, others may say dysfunctional, depending on who would be making the judgement.  Would I give my sons an alibi for a brutal murder, not a hope in hell.  Would I keep up the pretence my son was innocent of a murder when I knew he had actually done what he was being accused of?  Never in a million years.  Would I try and convince others he was innocent when I knew full well he was guilty, Never. Do I think CM has done any of the above, absolutely not therefore I give her my full support and believe LM to be innocent of the crime that he has been convicted of.

I am far from niave, I am well aware of how innocent people can be fitted up, I also have the memories of how the appeal system works, (and fails the innocent), but I am confident that Luke Mitchell will one day walk free, proved to be an innocent man.

I am neither brainwashed, dillusional, impressed by others, blah blah blah, but I can see when it is blatantly obvious when someone has been shafted left right and centre. (My apologies, but I cant think of any other way to describe it).

[corinne mitchell]

You have hit the nail on the head there HaveHope with" regardless of how ridiculous Lukes alibi sounds".

You can come at this from 2 angles:

First. If I was faced with a situation that I had to give my son a fullproof alibi I would make damn sure it was foolproof and left no doubt whatsover that Luke was in  the house, at a certain time, with witnesses.

Second. Reality check!!!!! Your son asks you to give him an alibi because he has just murdered his girlfriend............WHAT? this isn't a movie! this is real!.........you would simply go to pieces, loose all rational thinking and certainly not be able to "keep up the pretence", and calmly give a statement to the police.

We were a normal, everyday, family. We didn't do anything extraordinary. It was a normal, mundane Monday. No~one, no~one, lives their lives thinking, "Oh! I must make sure I have a foolproof alibi for every day in my life......in case I need one.......

[Colin Bowman]

My sense of Donald Findlay, largely come to before the LM case, but reinforced by cases he has since been involved in, is that he advances defense alibis for accused persons who one imagines are actually guilty as charged. That is Donald Findlay advancing a defense of alibi for an accused, can carry an association of "yeah, he would say that wouldn't he, that's his job; I bet the guy's actually guilty though". This has nothing to do with the honesty of the testimony provided by LM, SM. CM, and others around this alibi. It has to rather do with any public perception, however slight or latent, that can eventually becomes part of a jury's thinking and feeling.
Donald Findlay then has a responsibility to make any such alibis as cast-iron as possible, for trial purposes. As others have suggested, he appears to have singularly failed in this regard in this case; perhaps because of inadequate preparation. The suggestion that CM is a mother lying to protect her son, around this alibi, was allowed to take root. I still struggle to fully understand what took place around SM's testimony in court.
In many ways, much of Findlay's trial activity was astute: he did seem to focus on most of the weaknesses of the prosecution case; albeit he ends seeming to have adopted an old school approach, which simply failed to deal with Turnbull's new school conviction-at-all-costs (rather American) approach.

If we did actually have a presumption of innocence where the burden of proof was on the prosecution to prove implication and guilt as charged; then it seems to me tha a defense of alibi would not be necessary. It has then been pointed out in this case, that alibi has been treated as rather inconsequential; in as much as so many strategic others have been allowed to escape incrimination across "I don't remember" testimony. These persons haven't had to provide themselves with an alibi (that is a non-incriminating account) in these moments.
It then seems to me, that when prosecution is to be had across a modern genre of circumstantial implication, that a defense might be advised to remain reactive, that is only offering defense to the specific prosecuting arguments offered. I don't know how feasible that would be in practise, but it would seem to be an approach which would begin to level up the prosecution/defense adversarial field.
So, for example, if the WKJJ type of ongoing public prosecution of the LM case (where they are currently focusing on this alibi) has any significance, then although such reflection may have most importance going foward into dealing with cases still being tried, it may offer a ground with which to deal with such WKJJ-type 'argument'. It just seems something of a plank in striving to remind all that there should be a presumption of innocence, and the burden of proof should remain with accusers and prosecutors. The accused should not have to prove they are innocent (an often impossible task, given how some accusing and prosecution is carried through); and instead the accuser/prosecutor having to prove guilt should be clearly restated as the basis of our legal and judicial process.

colin

[Sandra Lean]

The treatment of Shane throughout the "investigation" and trial was a disgrace. It's no wonder he ended up totally confused - here are a few excerpts from his evidence on the stand:

Of DC Lindsay taking the first statement: "It was only a few days after the murder. I was extremely shaken up, my mind was all over the place.....when she was asking me questions, every point in this (statement) was prompted by a different question she is asking. I told her i couldn't remember, I couldn't remember, and she kept telling me, well that's not an acceptable answer, you're going to have to tell me something."

The introduction of the tatties: "when I was giving this statement to Michelle Lindsay, I honestly couldn't remember, I was still shaken up. And she was prompting me - she says, right shane, you had tatties for dinner. How did the tatties get there? Picture it in your mind's eye. can you see your brother.... and I said, I don't remember, Luke made the tea all the time, she says, think back to the night. Can you picture Luke making tatties, and I said yes I can picture Luke making tatties, then she wrote down that Luke was makig tatties."

"But when i signed that statement, I'd been questioned for over 5 hours, I was tired, confused, hungry I wanted to go home, I wanted to get out of there, I didn't have the energy left to do anything further about it."

I'll post more later, when I have more time - the manner of Shane's arrest,  further interrogations of him, the lies he was told by the police - all designed to completely confuse and confound.

But the one thing that stands out for me - Shane says he was "all over the place" in the first statement (and given the hostility shown by DC Lindsay I'm not surprised) but when he came home and started to think about it, he realised his statement was wrong. He had a discussion with his mum, instigated by him. But far, far more important in the big picture is that he had gone to a friend's on the way home from work, but had forgotten that when he gave his first statement. Why was that friend not also charged with perverting the course of justice for reminding Shane that he'd visited him on the way home from work? After all, that was the first change to Shane's statement.

It's always been portrayed that there was only one change to Shane's statement, prompted by one thing told to him by his mother. But that's just not the case. Shane went back to the police voluntarily to correct his statement as soon as he realised it was wrong.

The predictable response will be that I'm saying it's OK for Shane to change his story but not Jodi's family. My point is that Shane went to the police straight away and said, I've made some mistakes, the same thing he said on the stand 19 months later. He did not wait several weeks, and change his story without any explanation, and he did not tell a different story on the stand to what he said all the way through - I made some mistakes in my first statement and corrected them straight away.

When Kelly was asked why he had described the dog standing up against the wall, pulling Luke over to it, and scrabbling with her paws (even down to the detail of her size - "it's a big dog - when she was standing against the V her head was level with the bottom of it") if the dog had not done anything of the sort, he could not explain it. That's just one example - you get the picture.

[fishy]

No~one, no~one, lives their lives thinking, "Oh! I must make sure I have a foolproof alibi for every day in my life......in case I need one.......

What? You mean you weren't all sat on the sofa like the Waltons, holding hands and listening to old folks' pop classics, or making unverified and apparently random car trips to visit graves? Or ordering pizza, to go with your lasagne?
Some people!

[Colin Bowman]

You have hit the nail on the head there HaveHope with" regardless of how ridiculous Lukes alibi sounds". / You can come at this from 2 angles: / First. If I was faced with a situation that I had to give my son a fullproof alibi I would make damn sure it was foolproof and left no doubt whatsover that Luke was in  the house, at a certain time, with witnesses. / Second. Reality check!!!!! Your son asks you to give him an alibi because he has just murdered his girlfriend............WHAT? this isn't a movie! this is real!.........you would simply go to pieces, loose all rational thinking and certainly not be able to "keep up the pretence", and calmly give a statement to the police. / We were a normal, everyday, family. We didn't do anything extraordinary. It was a normal, mundane Monday. No~one, no~one, lives their lives thinking, "Oh! I must make sure I have a foolproof alibi for every day in my life......in case I need one.......

Its always seemed, to me, that this matter that you (all of you) were living a normal and everyday life, has been airbrushed out of this case. That you were living that life, means that this life was the frame of reference to what you did and said, this the context to that. The effect of the prosecution of Luke (and as part of that, yourself), has been to strip out that normal and everyday frame of reference, and leave only the prosecution frame of reference which makes everything seem implicating and cause for suspicion.

Given that you become subject to such a prosecution, I wonder just what defense becomes required. For example, given how things did develop, did you need a Max Clifford on your side, and by your side, from moment one.

colin