There has been considerable news coverage of the dangers of buying high value items for cash from websites like Ebay and Gumtree. The advice is to travel during daylight hours, arrange to meet in a mutually convenient and safe place, try to get to know as much as possible about the seller and take a friend. The obvious danger was highlighted in this case where the victim turned up by himself at night with £3,000 cash hoping to buy a car that he had seen advertised on the internet. He was surrounded by a group of people wearing bandanas over their faces and robbed of the money.
Mr L had the misfortune of living in the area and the police arrested him and his brother and seized the computer from their family home. Both brothers were adamant that they had nothing to do with the car and the computer was not used for any communication regarding the car. The police instructed a computer expert who suggested a forensic link to the advert through the IP address of the computer. Mr L was charged and kept in custody due to the serious nature of the offence. We urged the CPS to review this case as the evidence seemed tenuous and we made applications for bail, all of which failed. We consulted our own computer expert and major failings were highlighted in the Crown's findings.
Our Nadeem Afzal was the advocate at Harrow Crown Court. After one day of evidence and cross-examination, it was clear that there was no reliable evidence that could put Mr L at the scene of the crime and the Crown formally offered no evidence against him. A Not Guilty verdict was formally entered on the court record.
