Aspie biker wrongly convicted of rape gets 2 years prison

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Christchurch New Zealand biker wrongly convicted of rape gets $350,000 compensation

A Christchurch man who spent two years in prison for rape before having his conviction quashed is to receive $351,575 compensation, the Government confirmed today.

Aaron Farmer served two years of an eight-year sentence after a jury found him guilty of raping a 22-year-old woman in Sydenham in September 2003.

He was freed in June 2007 after the Court of Appeal ruled that alibi evidence was not presented to the jury, and a retrial was ordered. The Crown decided not to go ahead with a retrial after DNA samples from the woman excluded Farmer.

Associate Justice Minister Nathan Guy today apologised for the ''devastating wrong'' and losses Farmer suffered, and said the Crown accepted his innocence.

''These losses include his loss of liberty, loss of reputation, loss or interruption with family or personal relationships, and mental and emotional harm. The payment also acknowledges that some of the questions or suggestions put to Mr Farmer during his police interview were criticised by the courts.

"While the Crown's apology and offer of compensation can never completely make up for the trauma and loss Mr Farmer has suffered, I hope it can go some way in helping him and his family put this very difficult experience behind them,'' Guy said.

Farmer's mother Bev today put the blame squarely on police for her son's wrongful incarceration.

''I believe the police that were concerned were looking for an answer and they chose Aaron. They showed a photograph, apparently to the woman, who was making the accusation and she picked him out of the photographs,'' she told Radio New Zealand.

She believed police had gone out to set up her son, who suffered from Asperger's Syndrome, ''right from the start''.

''I thought that justice was justice. I now know it isn't.''

She said the written apology by the Government was important to the family to prove her son's innocence to people still unsure if he committed the crime.

''[The conviction] destroyed our lives... it took everything.''

Police told Farmer his DNA was on the woman, ''which of course it wasn't - so they lied to him even in his interview'', Bev Farmer said.

She now resented the police force.

''I will never trust a policeman again. I am angry and I don't think I will ever lose that.''

Farmer, 41, who is living on benefits and splits his time between Feilding and Christchurch, said he was considering buying a house with the money or spending it on his motorcycle. He had received support and insults from people who had recognised him since he was freed.

"I've got some good people around the place who have been very good to me."

The keen motorcyclist said he had planned to travel the world on his motorbike before he was sent to prison, but he was "getting a bit old now".

Farmer said he would like an explanation from the woman who made the accusation.

from http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post...ts-Govt-payout



I wonder when the cops will WAKE UP and realise that an aspie will not respond the same as a neurotypical during interview, and any tell tale clues of guilt will be very hard to decipher unless said officers ARE TRAINED to work with aspergians.

Aspergers Syndrome is on the increase.


How long before the NZ police get round to dealing with autistic suspects correctly after a crime?

Dumb cops, ruined Aarons life and his mums, rapist is still free, cost the taxpayer around $1 mill

I would be pissed off if I was his mother as well. This man needs to be set free as soon as possible. People on the spectrum are less likely to be sex offenders than members of the general population.

This happened to Jill Dando's 'killer' as well

My husband could be convinced he did anything. If someone told him he did something, he would think Why would they lie, and would think he just didnt remember. I convinced him he did something years ago that he didnt do but because I said he did, he believed it. I know if my husband was accused of something he didnt do he would be mistaken for guilty because of how he responds.

No one can convince me I did something I didn't do. I trust my gut instinct because I realize people can just tell me I did stuff and keep insisting I did it because I am gullible so I have to trust myself so it won't happen.

I'm not quite that bad, but I used to be. I finally figured it out after being mind****ed by someone who accused me of fabricating my own memories. I knew I hadn't done that, but I immediately went to wondering if I was delusional (despite knowing better in my gut), and asking everyone I knew who was there at the time of the events if they really happened. They all said yes, and I began to learn to trust my instincts more. But even now... it's like I know lying is possible, and I know people do it, and often I can even tell when they're saying something that isn't true, but something in my head overrides that and tries to convince me that they're telling the truth.

I honestly am not sure if it's just because I'm autistic, I suspect it was set in motion by a number of life events in which terrible things happened to me if I didn't act like I believed other people's opinions of me over my own observations. And each person who did that to me left a door open for the next one to pry it a little more open, and... etc. I shudder to think what would have happened if I'd been accused of a crime by the police before I began to get a handle on this, because I spent most of my life extremely passive, easily led, and willing to go along with anything someone suggested in just the right ways.

I now know that the only time I should trust someone's assessment of me that doesn't ring true, is if it's someone who already knows me extremely well. And that if I have any doubts, I should ask someone close to me. I know that (like everyone) I have things I do wrong that I'm not fully aware of, but people close to me have proven very reliable at telling me when that's the case. But when people close to me tell me I've done something wrong, even if they do it in anger, they lack the sense of violation and invasion that comes with a wrongful accusation from someone who either is lying to me, or is honest but wrong. I'm just lucky I ever learned the difference, because for a long time I was just waiting to be set up for something like that.

The idea that there are other autistic people out there who have that same kind of passivity but haven't learned how to avoid it... that sometimes keeps me up at night, because it has truly nightmarish implications for people wrongly accused by the cops. I'm glad that autistic guy who was facing racism-based accusations knew enough not to take them seriously, but I worry that many others in the exact same position aren't nearly so lucky as to have that ability at their command. That's how some people get the death penalty in the USA.

I think my husband has always assumed people wouldnt lie to him, so if they say something, he beleives it. It has always drove me crazy because people have lied to us and I tell him HELLO! and he always gives them the benefit of the doubt and will never call someone out on lying to him. Ever. Ive never seen him do that. If someone told him they had a picture of him doing something, he would more then likely believe it. He might question it at first, but if pressed, he would just assume he blacked out and didnt remember. I dont know if its the lack of common sense?

I know, it sounds bad when I type some things about my husband. I dont want to make him sound like an idiot. I love him, and he is smart, sweet, nice, honest, and so many other things I cant even name them all. But he does have these personality traits that makes him trusting, and unfortunately you cant always be.

In this criminal case of rape, the cops interviewed Aaron Farmer the aspie, and because of his non neurotypical responses to questioning, thought they 'had their man'

The cops did not pursue dna evidence (which in a second trial proved him innocent), an alibi consisting of in store video placing him elsewhere at the time of the rape, and tons of other conflicting evidence.

They set out to rig the trial because of the bullying culture in the police, that permitted the prosecuting officers to not give a fair trial to an aspergian

What a nightmare. At least the system did eventually admit it screwed up and did the right thing. I'd half-expect him to be told, "you had your chance at justice, and this is what the system did (even if it's incorrect), so tough luck" -- in order to save money and save face for the police & prosecutors.

In the USA that is perfectly legal, and a known and studied technique that prosecutors and police regularly employ. Everyone needs to know that. (I haven't experienced it personally, but that kind of thing bugs me, especially knowing how my mind worked when I was younger.) Especially people who might be naive enough to think that police or prosecutors can't lie.

I also wonder if growing up with experiences and reactions, that when you try to explain them to people, always results in them saying, "baloney" -- if that makes a person tend to doubt their own knowledge, and/or expect that even if they are right, they'll be 'proved' wrong somehow, anyway. With that kind of conditioning I can see someone getting eaten alive by police interrogation techniques.


(Err, in the course of my slow typing (and getting distracted by Mythbusters) I see others have made a similar points, but I'm going to submit this anyway.)

I do not understand why the police would lie. How does that help them catch the suspect? Wouldn't the real rapist be on the loose still if they got the wrong guy because they said his DNA was on the woman even though it wasn't? Jut a reason to never trust police officers and don't ever give in when they try and convince you you did something you didn't do. If you know you know you didn't do it and have no memory of it, don't even admit you did it because that is what they want to hear.

I have been fooled in the past to believe things I didn't do. For a couple of years I was convinced I stabbed a plastic fork in this kid's neck and it stuck there even though I had no memory of it. Reason why I would believe stuff is because mom had taught me "Just because you don't remember doesn't mean it never happened" and also the fact I had a history of doing things I wasn't aware of. Then I realized in high school I had to start trusting myself again or people will keep convincing me I did stuff I never did.

This is what happens when the cops' "Bikers = automatically evil" mentality goes WAY out of control.

Recently, someone tried to convince me that things were true about me that were literally the opposite of what I am like. I ended up checking with multiple friends and family to make sure that there was nothing to this, that I was not actually like that.

Before that, I was misdiagnosed with borderline personality disorder, and I had to go through the same process, because if I was diagnosed, is there something that I didn't realize was there? In both cases I went through far too much effort to rule something out that simply does not match who I am or how I act or think. It's really hard to dismiss these things when other people suggest them. It's even easier to believe positive characterizations that may not be true, and I was misled by some of those in recent years as well.

Yes. My understanding is, no matter what - guilty or innocent - you should not talk to the police at all. They know a ton of tricks and if you tell them anything they can and probably will use that against you.

Also your last paragraph: I had a lot of that not just growing up but in an abusive relationship for my early 20s. I think it does contribute to making it easier to doubt one's self when being presented with information that conflicts with one's self-perception. Lacking a typical amount of self-awareness makes it that much worse, I think.

@League_Girl

They assume that an innocent person will deny they did it, no matter what evidence is presented, or how hard they're pushed, or what threats are made.

The trouble, of course, is that that isn't true. A person might start to doubt themselves; I've read about cases where people (presumably NT people) agreed to false confessions, as a result of extremely aggressive interrogations. Or maybe the person thinks there's a DNA lab error (or that the prosecutor rigged the test) or who-knows-what, and knows that they'll have little chance of proving that (even if true), so they figure they might as well sign a false confession in exchange for a lesser charge.

Basically, lots of people can be bullied into a false confession if pushed hard enough. And that contradicts the assumption that an innocent person would never do that.

(I think there are also a lot of psychological things going on on the police side of things, but that's more than I can think to write about tonight.)

So sad.

Last edited by twinsmummy20 on 14 Apr 2011, 1:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

OMG, I remember believing almost every word my ex said to me about me he had me thinking I was worse than I really am and other things and also had me believe my mom was just saying all these things to me so I wouldn't feel bad about myself because "that is what parents do." But I took it as anyone can believing something if they are told it over and over, that is why some women stay with their abusive husbands because they think they are better off with them because their husband had convinced them no other man would want them or that they are worthless and they treat them that way because they love her. So I vowed to myself to never do that again, do not listen to the next person what they say about me, that is why I don't listen to my husband much unless they are facts.