A court in Sheffield will possibly be sending someone down for the best part of 20 years because they are not sure whether or not Steve Robson a man from Rotherham, South Yorkshire who admittedly looks a bit shifty, committed a fatal robbery that turned into a murder as the night progressed.
On the night of Friday 3rd May 2013, someone who was probably Robson entered the Spar on Broom Lane, Rotherham equipped with a large knife and demanded the cashier handed over money into a bag that Robson was carrying, with the dollar sign ($) on it.
When the cashier refused Robson stabbed the cashier who died a short time later when customers inside at the time alerted the emergency services.
Police were quoted as saying “He was probably there all right, this crime scene had all the hallmarks of one of his crimes, and the victim’s body really struck me as looking like a Robson attack to me, anyway, but what do I know? I’m not the judge and jury, I’m just the serving policeman here!”
Alastair McGamble the chief prosecutor said “I took one look at the scene, and I thought, perhaps this was the work of Robson, this case has all the evidence I need right now to suggest that maybe Robson was at the scene at the murder, and with that I thought perhaps we will get a conviction.”
Since the Hearsay Permitted Evidence Act of 2012, courts now only have to so much as suspect someone of wrongdoing before they get the chance to throw the book at them in both a legal and literal sense.
As the jury weren't too sure about the case but thought that on balance Robson probably did it anyway the judge saw fit to back them up by admitting that whilst he too wasn't any surer than they were on the balance of probability, he probably did it, he felt he had no choice but to recommend a full and most importantly very long custodial sentence of the highest order because there was, in his words “a strong reasonable doubt that he was innocent of this shocking crime, probably!”
Steve McBurrell Robson’s defense lawyer could only add “Have you lot not ever thought about the possibility that maybe he wasn't actually there all along, you don’t have any actual DNA for a start." However this ultimately failed to convince the jury or the judge otherwise.
The only evidence that was given in court was a receipt for a transaction carried out by Robson for the DVD purchase of the 2003 film Texas Chainsaw Massacre. When this evidence was given in court the jurors could be heard gasping and whispering "He's clearly guilty."
As a result Robson will probably face a very long time behind bars whilst he appeals to the High Court who might overturn his case if they feel like it and they think unlike the judge in Sheffield that he probably didn't do it actually!
The court was adjourned for sentencing until Friday 13th September 2013.
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