According to this line, the balance of probability is tilted in favor of the respondent, and that is sufficient. There is no need to prove this at a level of probability, even though the District Court is convinced at such a level. The opposite argument, according to which the diary could not have helped the respondent because it was not clear enough, or that the alibi given by the respondent at the first stage was not accurate – constitutes wisdom after the fact. After all, the rule is that the issue of negligence is examined "in real time", as of the date of the negligence, and not according to the information received afterwards (see: Civil Appeal 10094/07 Anonymous v. English Hospital, paragraph 10(c) (November 24, 2010)). If so, it is very reasonable to assume that such a significant discovery would have accelerated the movement of the wheels of the investigation in a way that would have led to the respondent's earlier release from detention. At this point, even let's say as a supporting actor, the issue of interrogation failures in relation to the checks of call outputs and location joins.
- Now the question arises of the causal connection, and more precisely: the scope of the causal connection, between the aforesaid omissions and the prolongation of the respondent's detention. Let us put it another way: If the police had not been negligent in the aforementioned omissions, when would the respondent have been released from detention?
On the basis of the facts of the case, at least the following restrictive approach can be adopted: the police received the cell phone call output on September 8, 1999, even though it should have been obtained as early as July 20, 1999 – at which time the police were given the call output from a flash device at the respondent's home, and the message was taken from the trainee's mother. This is a period of fifty days. The respondent stated that on the eve of the incident he came to pay the owner of the pension, and a receipt was attached, on September 14, 1999. It is reasonable to assume that if the police had presented the respondent with the diary on July 22, 1999, or close to it, he would have directed the police to interrogate the owner of the pension within a few days. Here, too, we are dealing with a period of about fifty days. This period accounts for almost 60% of the total period of detention. In other words, if the police had not been negligent, this period of time could have been saved and deducted from the respondent's period of detention. Moreover, during this period, the respondent's detention was extended for the third time, an indictment was filed, and his detention was also extended until the end of the proceedings. The respondent was labeled a rapist, with all the significance this has for his mental state, as is evident from the opinion (whose editors were not interrogated). It is possible that if the aforementioned actions had been carried out at an earlier stage, the respondent's detention would not have been extended at all and he would have been released even earlier.