Nope. Not kidnapping, at least, not to a standard "beyond reasonable doubt" as at the time when the policemen intercept Gerry near the Martyrs Memorial: as per the Law Commission
kidnapping is an attack on or infringement of personal liberty, consisting of the taking or carrying away of one person by another, by force or fraud, without the consent of the person taken or carried away, and without lawful excuse.
The "fraud" element, on which this would have to rest for a prosecution case to get off the ground, is that Uncle Gerry represented to Rose that he was sent by her mother to collect her. That will depend entirely on a conflict of evidence (he said/she said) between Rose and Gerry. Gerry's defence is that he had the lawful excuse of taking Rose to her own home, where she had represented to him that her mother was waiting. Now it's not entirely sensible behaviour on Gerry's part, but bearing in mind his story will be that he thought it was better to give her a lift there and be sure she got there it's certainly a pretty arguable defence.
I think Edwin's trying to get them interested in the kidnapping issue, but that gets trumped by the fact that he's a major murder suspect, but if he gets off the murder charge the Rose abduction is very weak indeed.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
Re: Everything seems convincing except one detail
Date: 2014-12-14 07:35 pm (UTC)The "fraud" element, on which this would have to rest for a prosecution case to get off the ground, is that Uncle Gerry represented to Rose that he was sent by her mother to collect her. That will depend entirely on a conflict of evidence (he said/she said) between Rose and Gerry. Gerry's defence is that he had the lawful excuse of taking Rose to her own home, where she had represented to him that her mother was waiting. Now it's not entirely sensible behaviour on Gerry's part, but bearing in mind his story will be that he thought it was better to give her a lift there and be sure she got there it's certainly a pretty arguable defence.
I think Edwin's trying to get them interested in the kidnapping issue, but that gets trumped by the fact that he's a major murder suspect, but if he gets off the murder charge the Rose abduction is very weak indeed.