Background
Our client, A, was indicted on a charge of illegal filming — secretly recording private footage of B, someone A had been close to, without consent. From the earliest stage of the investigation, however, A consistently maintained that "the filming was done with the other party's consent."
What Was at Stake
Cases of this kind unfold in private, with only two people present, so the accounts of the two sides readily diverge over whether consent was given. To convict in a criminal trial the prosecutor must prove the charge "beyond a reasonable doubt," but where nothing but competing testimony is available there is a real danger of leaning toward one side's account.
How Changchun Helped
Changchun established the facts through objective evidence rather than an emotional contest. We obtained and analyzed digital forensic results from mobile phones together with recordings of conversations between the parties, and identified one by one the points at which core parts of the complainant's account conflicted with objective fact. That made a persuasive showing that the evidence submitted by the prosecutor could not be regarded as proving the charge of "filming without consent."
The court held that the charge had not been proven and acquitted our client. The case reaffirms the fundamental principle of criminal trials — in dubio pro reo — and the point that a case must be tested by objective evidence rather than vague circumstance. When facing an unfounded charge, nothing matters more than assembling fact-based evidence without gaps, rather than responding emotionally. Outcomes depend on the facts of each case and may differ.