Empowering the Innocent (ETI) neither assumes, nor works on the basis, that the alleged innocent victims in the cases that feature in its publications or public discourses are innocent victims of false allegations and/or wrongful conviction and/or imprisonment.

 

Rather, ETI was established because innocent people are routinely falsely accused, wrongly convicted and/or imprisoned in England and Wales due to police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) failings, and the way that the appeal courts and the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) are structured and deal with claims of innocence by appellants or applicants means that innocent victims of wrongful conviction may not be able to overturn their convictions.

 

Overall, ETI does not believe that justice is served to victims and/or families of victims of crime, nor to society as a whole, when innocent victims are falsely accused or wrongly convicted for crimes that did not occur or they did not commit, with the latter leaving guilty offenders at wrongful liberty with the potential (and reality as shown in research) to commit further crimes.

 

It is from this standpoint that the ETI calls for widespread reforms of the criminal justice system, appeals system and the CCRC so that the emphasis is on the pursuit of truth in alleged cases of wrongful conviction.

 

Only then can true justice prevail for victims of crime and victims of false allegations and wrongful convictions alike.

 

Finally, if it is found that an alleged innocent victim of a false allegation or wrongful conviction in a case featured by ETI is not innocent, ETI will cease involvement with the case and any information about the case will deleted from its websites and social media platforms