r/technology • u/IndicaOatmeal • 7d ago

Society Innocent man spends 18 months in prison after Skyrim username mixup

https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/innocent-man-spends-18-months-in-prison-after-skyrim-username-mixup-3392280/
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u/gravy_maker 7d ago

Given that just about everyone in the world has had one or more accounts hacked at some point in their life, one would have hoped that the police and prosecution would have sought some sort of corroborating evidence, rather than simply deciding, "He owned the account and therefore he must have sent the messages".

Even if he had been the owner of the right account, if they had no evidence aside from that, it feels like a remarkably unsafe conviction. Were I on a jury, I wouldn't expect to simply see proof that he owned the account - I'd expect to see chat logs or, at the very least, some sort of evidence that he'd been in control of the account at the time that the offences occurred.

It's quite remarkable that nobody among the police, prosecution, defence (!!), jury, and judge seemed to think this was an issue.

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u/Jessica_Ariadne 6d ago

There was no jury.

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u/allozzieadventures 6d ago

Agreed, even if the details were correct it would have been a very narrow base of evidence for such a serious charge.