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‘Innocent Until Proven Guilty’ is not a get out clause on all guilt, gentlemen

You can absolutely be guilty and not legally found guilty

Madelaine Lucy Hanson
8 min readSep 23, 2024

What is a ‘reasonable’ level of evidence to convict someone? I’ll let you decide, I’m a reasonable woman. Would it be CCTV footage of me stealing your wheelbarrow? The wheelbarrow being covered in my fingerprints, DNA, and in my property? Perhaps me boasting about stealing your wheelbarrow in a voice-note? Perhaps me livestreaming advice on how to steal wheelbarrows, with your wheelbarrow in the background? Confessing on tape to my therapist that I stole your wheelbarrow for my own sadistic pleasure? Maybe selling courses online on how to steal wheelbarrows, along with best examples of the wheelbarrows I had stolen? The thing is: all that can be true, all this evidence can exist and be known to the police and CPS, and I can still not be taken to court, not be convicted, or not found guilty.

It is also totally true that society can legally decide, even if I am not formally found guilty of Grand Theft Wheelbarrow, that they don’t want me to be around their wheelbarrows. They don’t have to think of me as ‘innocent’ of wheelbarrow crimes. They don’t have to think you lied about me stealing your wheelbarrow. They don’t have to think you should be punished for alleging that I had stolen your wheelbarrow. Even though I’m guilty as sin.

Muh logic, right lads?

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Madelaine Lucy Hanson
Madelaine Lucy Hanson

Written by Madelaine Lucy Hanson

The girl who still knows everything. Opinions entirely my own. Usually. Enquiries: madelaine@madelainehanson.co.uk

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