Cite? These photos were faked to cash in on Abu Ghraib, no more no less. There was a stink kicked up when these photos were published; why else do you think Piers Moron was fired so comprehensively? (He was walked out of the office without being allowed to pick up his jacket, no less.) These photos are indicative of nothing more than some cheap fraudsters out to exploit public suspicion, “common knowledge” or not. They were reprehensibly faked to exploit a current affairs story, and any justification of such deception is so much bullshit.
That said, if the CPS don’t believe that there’s sufficient evidence that a crime was committed, then I support them in not wasting public funds on a wild goose chase. To me, it’s sufficient that those responsible for publishing this crap were humiliated and fired. We know the photos were faked, and those who are (to my mind) primarily responsible have carried the can. As the OP says, he’s not a lawyer, and much as it might outrage us that the people behind them didn’t break a law, I think that in the absence of an informed, alternative legal opinion, we ought to trust that the CPS know a lack of evidence when they see it.
Cite? Come on, you need to give us some decent evidence for such a comment. I don’t see it as implausible that the photos were created as a joke, and then found their way to the outside world. And when there’s nothing to prove this isn’t the case, the CPS can’t be confident of convicting anyone of anything.
Cite? Didn’t he hang about for many days before being forced out?
Really? Some fairly elaborate fakes were created and sold to the Daily Mirror for a substantial amount of money, along with a defence of the veracity of various features of the photos. This, to me, veritably screams “cash in”, coming as it did right on the heels of the Abu Ghraib scandal. Considering that one of the Mirror’s sources even went on TV to testify that the photos were real and that abuse was taking place (see link below), I find it massively unlikely that the photos were created for a joke.
I agreed that the CPS shouldn’t prosecute if they didn’t think there was a chance of conviction, which they apparently don’t. But that doesn’t mean the photos were just larks, and it doesn’t mean they weren’t sold with cynical self-interest in mind. Note that the charge the CPS were considering was “obtaining property by deception”, with respect to which the question of motivation behind the photos is irrelevant. The lack of charges only means that they can’t prove beyond a doubt that the equipment used was obtained by deception, which doesn’t vastly surprise me.
Once it was demonstrated that the photos were faked, he was sacked on the spot. Link: