Whingeing Won’t Stop the Virus

by Les May

LAST Monday the ‘i’ newspaper devoted more than a third of its letters page to three long letters complaining that people over 70 have been referred to as ‘elderly’.  The day after Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, who likes to style herself as ‘a leftie liberal, anti-racist, feminist, Muslim’, decided to devote her entire column in the paper to the same topic.

You can get a flavour of it from opening sentences, ‘Who are you calling “elderly”? Why should those over 70 quietly acquiesce to house arrest?’  Being something of a snob she could not resist the opportunity to tell us how wonderful she is; ‘I have never worked as hard as I do now. I pen columns, broadcast, write books, run a charity, speaks at events, teach at university, and am reading dozens of books as chair of the RSL Christopher Bland Prize for authors over the age of 50.’   Followed by what looks rather like self praise; Look around you and you will see many others too, shining and unstoppable in their third age.’ (my emphasis) Yasmin may suffer from chronic whingeing but she certainly does not suffer from modesty.

This is whingeing for the sake of it. It suggests to me that older people have caught the habit. so commonly seen in younger people, of complaining about what people say rather than what they do. Open your mouth and say something some thin skinned individual, sometimes called a ‘snowflake’, does not like and you are likely to be labelled as ‘racist, homophobic, transphobic, antisemitic, islamophobic etc’.  Whatever I may think of Boris Johnson, a.k.a. Pinocchio, he is certainly not a racist.

For those who claim to be ‘of the left’ whingeing like this is letting the noise drown out the signal.  As in many other parts of the world our biggest problem in the UK is inequality.  What Yasmin did not bother to mention is that there is a steep gradient between poorer and better off women in terms of both longevity and years without illness or a limiting condition, a fact that will probably be reflected in deaths due to Corvid19.

Producing a Twitter storm about what someone has said or getting rid of the ‘Tampon Tax’ is viewed as a major victory when it has achieved little or nothing. I calculate that women will be better off by a whole 1p per week taken over their lifetime.   Some victory!

When I first heard that people over 70 might in a week or so be asked to voluntarily isolate themselves for a period months, I interpreted it as there being a window of just a few days to prepare myself and my wife for this. Instead of whingeing the letter writers would have been better employed thinking out the practicalities.  Contrary to Alibhai-Brown’s OTT comment, no one is going to place us under ‘house arrest’. It is advice; take it and protect yourself, leave it and accept any consequences.

Will Yasmin and the letter writers who object to the term ‘elderly’ be happy to forgo their pension, free prescriptions and free local travel, three benefits they get precisely because they are elderly? Thought not!

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/whinge

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The Delegitimising of Jeremy Corbyn

by Les May

FIRST some figures. Amongst the Opposition parties Labour has 247 seats, the SNP 35, Independents 15, Liberal Democrats 14, Independent Group for Change 5, Plaid Cymru 4 and the Green Party 1.  In other words Labour has more than three times the rest of the Opposition parties combined and in particular it has 233 seats more than the Liberal Democrats.

So if there is a ‘no confidence’ vote in Parliament and the Johnson government loses its majority and is unable to secure a majority in a second vote within 14 days the outcome should be either an immediate general election or a cross party ‘caretaker’ government mandated to delay leaving the European Union without a deal, it would seem to be uncontestable that the leader of the caretaker administration should be Jeremy Corbyn.

Apparently not. Jo Swinson, who since July has been leader of the LibDems, has said he ‘risks jeopardising a vote of no confidence in the government by insisting he becomes caretaker PM’.  Previously she had said he was ‘divisive’.

Writing in the ‘i’ last week Kate Maltby, who on her website modestly describes herself as ‘a critic, columnist and scholar’ tried to cast doubt on Corbyn’s fitness to lead by claiming that some of his social media supporters were ‘anti-semitic’ and were linked to those opposed to vaccination of children. (As she provided zero evidence for these claims I do hope she is a little more assiduous in carrying out research for the PhD she tells us she is doing on her website.)

In mid August Caroline Lucas decided she would bypass Corbyn by offering to broker a deal for ten women MPs to form a cross party Cabinet. (Interestingly she was attacked in the Guardian because, amongst other things, none of them were ‘trans’ and most were not lesbians.)

Yesterday Yasmin Alibhai-Brown used her column in the ‘i’ to claim he was ‘worryingly beholden to his close, maniacally anti-capitalist advisers’ and that he should let Caroline Lucas lead a temporary government of national unity.

What these women are about is delegitimising Corbyn and, by inference, Labour’s claim to be the party to form a caretaker government.  Corbyn has been elected leader of the Labour party on two occasions.  He was leader of the party when it confounded the pundits by denying Theresa May a clear majority in 2017.   None of the four women referred to above can make anything approaching such a claim.

You cannot maintain credibility by first attacking Boris Johnson for avoiding scrutiny by closing down Parliament for five weeks and then seeking to find an excuse for bypassing the leader of the largest opposition party.  If Jo Swinson is listening, ‘You have 14 MPs, Corbyn has 247.  Go figure’.

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Myth-busting!

by Les May

ANONYMITY until and unless charged for those suspected of sexual crimes has returned to the public agenda with the launching of a parliamentary petition.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/247912

Such a change was recommended by the Home Affairs Select Committee in 2015.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/mar/20/suspects-should-stay-anonymous-until-charged-mps-say

Why this was never acted upon and it has been left to people who have experienced significant personal distress and loss of income because they have been named as being investigated for sexual offences, I do not know.  One possible reason is the myth propagated by some prominent feminists and their acolytes in the media that without the police being allowed to ‘trawl for evidence’, victims as they would call them, complainants to the rest of us, would not come forward.  They would have us believe that this period of pre-charge publicity is essential in securing convictions. This is not true.

Under the changes advocated by the group Falsely Accused Individuals for Reform (FAIR) the restriction on naming a suspect would cease once charges had been brought.  Three of the highest profile sexual abuse cases of recent years were those of Rolf Harris, Stuart Hall and Max Clifford.  I looked at the time which elapsed between each of them being charged and the trial date, and the number of time they appeared in court including the trial date.

Harris was charged in August 2013, went to trial eight months later in May 2014 and appeared in court 3 times;  Hall was arrested in December 2012, went to trial four months later in April 2013 and appeared in court 3 times; Clifford was charged in December 2012, went to trial fifteen months later in March 2014 and appeared in court 4 times.  In other words there was plenty of time for each of them to be repeatedly named in the press after charging and before trial. Significantly the publicity generated by the trial resulted in Hall facing further charges in July 2013 and Harris also faced further charges.

Having seen some of the responses given by some women journalists I am inclined to wonder if they actually realise how limited are the aims of the supporters of FAIR.  There is no demand here that persons being alleged to have committed sexual offences should not be named, only that they should not be named until charged with a specific offence, other than in exceptional circumstances.

The journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown insists that pre-charge publicity is vital if complainants are to come forward.  But when she received in May 2012 a letter alleging that Stuart Hall had committed such an offence she did not feel this so strongly that she publicised the fact; she gave the letter to the police.

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/cliff-richard-bbc-reputation-damage-victims-opinion/

Seven months later Hall was charged after a police investigation. Now it may be that Yasmin was just being a good citizen and doing what you or I would do. Alternatively it may be that she realised that the allegation just might be false and that if she publicised it Hall might sue for defamation.

Seemingly repeating what Harriet Harman has said Alibhai-Brown says,

‘FAIR campaigners should focus instead on reckless police officers who bypass strict guidance on when and whether names of suspects should be made public.  According to the rules, identification should be withheld until the person is charged, except when there is some basis for believing there is a pattern of criminal activity.’

The underlined section would cover the Worboys case which is routinely trotted out as an example of why anonymity should not be granted before charges are brought.

You might wonder, as I do, how the ‘strict guidance’ differs materially from what those who support the FAIR campaign are asking for. This seems to have escaped Yasmin and Harriet.

In October 2017 Harriet said, ‘I think that the absolute key to this, when I think about my own experience and think about the Harvey Weinstein thing, is we need a system of whistle-blowing, anonymous whistle-blowing’. So no anonymity there Harriet? How did this woman get to be Solicitor-General and caretaker leader of the Labour party?

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2017/10/half-baked-harriet.html

(Note that the link embedded in the above is dead.)

The journalist Melanie Phillips is on record as saying ‘More secrecy in our courts is not the answer’.  Again she seems to have misunderstood the aims of FAIR.  Once someone has been charged with a specific offence it would be permissible to name them.  There is no secrecy involved.   Anyone being questioned or charged would have access to legal representation.  Again no secrecy.

The evidence seems to point to the fact that the publicity surrounding the charging and trial of those alleged to have carried out crimes of a sexual nature is sufficient to encourage other complainants to come forward.  Hall and Harris both faced further charges after their first trial as more complainants contacted the police.   Worboys too has faced further charges as up to 100 complainants have come forward since his trial and conviction in 2008.   We clearly don’t need people to be ‘hung out like like fly paper’ (in the words of Paul Gamboccini) to convince complainants to come forward.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Worboys#Later_developments

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jun/20/john-worboys-admits-drugging-four-more-women

In the UK we tend to think our institutions and ways of doing things are the envy of the world. The Brexit saga has somewhat dented this optimistic view.   But this is what the picture of the English legal system looks like to an Irish Supreme Court judge.  It is not a very flattering picture.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/hardiman-questions-methods-of-uk-sex-claim-inquiries-1.2533054

A House of Lords Library Briefing prepared in advance of the second reading of the Anonymity (Arrested Persons) Bill [HL] can be found by following the link below and going to the bottom of the page.

https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/LLN-2019-0025

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A Great Injustice & Rules of Evidence

by Les May

AN apology to Mr Harvey Proctor from the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police may be something of a moral victory for him, but it will do little to help him take up the threads of his life again.  The clock cannot be put back to a time before he was suddenly thrust into the limelight by what can only be described as somewhat bizarre allegations against him.  

But it is all too easy to simply blame the police for what happened and ignore the fact that to some degree we have all contributed to the context in which this kind of misguided approach to investigating serious allegations could happen.  It’s a context in which Harvey Proctor, Paul Gambaccini, Cliff Richard and others, are seen as no more than ‘collateral damage’.

The ending of the 2015-2016 session of Parliament meant that Sir Keir Starmer’s Private Members Victims of Crime Etc (Rights, Entitlements and Related Matters) Bill never got further than its first reading.  Had it passed into law it would have further weakened the rights of an accused.  A victim would have been defined as a person who has suffered harm which was directly caused by a criminal offence or in some cases even a close relative would be treated as a victim.

‘As stipulated in the Bill, no complaint need be made or determination of guilt found in order for a “victim” to exist.  Most obviously, the question arises as to how a criminal offence can have occurred without the matter having been proved in court?’  

https://www.kingsleynapley.co.uk/comment/blogs/criminal-law-blog/a-critical-analysis-of-sir-keir-starmers-victims-of-crime-etc-rights-entitlements-and-related-matters-bill

Lord Macdonald, QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions from 2003 to 2008, took issue with the philosophy underpinning the Bill.  Speaking to the Today programme, he said:

'… the worst miscarriages of justice I have seen in my career have resulted from blinkered investigations in which the police [have] believed a theory at the start of the case and then gone on to 'prove' that theory.  This supposedly pro-victims' rights stance of saying we believe the victims at the outset is precisely what we don't want.  We don't want the police deciding what the truth is before the investigation starts …  Not everyone who tells the police that they have been a victim of crime is telling the truth, it leads to the police believing people who are telling lies.'

He went on to say: 'The victims’ rights movement was born from the best of reasons, but it is now leading to an imbalance in the justice system that threatens basic fairness.'

And ‘basic fairness’ is an issue in the Harvey Proctor case because Starmer had already issued guidelines in 2013 which were supposed ‘to be applied to all cases where a sexual offence has been committed against a child or young person’.  (Note this interesting distinction between a ‘child’ and a ‘young person’.)

These include, ‘Arrangements for early consultation and joint work between police and prosecutors to agree a case strategy and address evidential issues head on.’

http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/latest_news/cps_launches_guidelines_on_child_sexual_abuse/  

Were these guidelines followed?  Did the police and prosecutors agree a case strategy?  Were evidential issues addressed head on?

If so why is it only the police that are ‘in the dock’?  Why are we not seeing a similar apology from the CPS?  Or is it that the police chose to ignore Starmer’s 2013 guidelines about consulting with prosecutors at an early stage and fell into the very trap which Lord Macdonald so clearly sees as a likely outcome of Starmer’s more recent intervention?

But ranged against Lord Macdonald’s careful assessment we have assorted pressure groups determined to resist any change away from the present ‘believe the victim’ mentality and even hitch a ride on the bandwagon, though their link with the substantive issue of sexual abuse of children is tenuous. http://rapecrisis.org.uk/news/keir-starmer-announces-changes-to-criminal-justice-handling-

A month ago Paul Gambaccini and Sir Cliff Richard went to the House of Lords to lobby for a change in the law so that those who are accused of sexual abuse are guaranteed anonymity until and unless they are charged.  Lord Paddick, who was previously the Deputy Assistant Commissioner at the Metropolitan Police, backs this change.

Two days later the writer Yasmin Alibhai-Brown wrote an article arguing against this change.  She quoted the lawyer Richard Scorer as saying ‘We have seen countless times how perpetrators isolate their victims and make them feel no one will believe them’.  But this is just an anecdote, an assertion which he feels no need to substantiate with quantitative evidence.  It’s  ‘Believe me I’m a lawyer!’

Alibhai-Brown describes him as a ‘specialist in this area’.  But if you probe just a little deeper you find that Scorer works at Pannones, part of Slater & Gordon, and co-authored the book ‘Child Abuse Compensation Claims’.  In other words his specialism is, broadly defined, in personal injury claims, which isn’t quite the same as being a specialist in preparing criminal proceedings against people accused of child abuse.

What Scorer does not mention is whether anonymity for people accused, but not charged, would have any impact upon his business as it would prevent lawyers signing up the people who made the allegation, as a client in a civil compensation case and prevent them ‘trawling’ for further clients who had not yet made a complaint.  Put this way it suggests that the present system is open to abuse by people seeking financial compensation.

Incidentally, if you check out the Slater and Gordon website you’ll find they are still running their April 2014 advert touting for business arising from claims of abuse at Knowl View school even though when these were investigated by the Greater Manchester Police in Operation Jaguar there was insufficient evidence to mount a prosecution. http://www.slatergordon.co.uk/media-centre/blog/2014/04/allegations-of-abuse-against-cyril-smith-victims-seek-answers/

In arguing that naming people accused but not charged ensures that those claiming to have been abused have the confidence to come forward Alibhai-Brown ignores the 2013 guidance from the CPS about how such cases should be handled, which was designed to ensure that the police would take seriously every complaint of abuse.

For Alibhai-Brown, Harvey Proctor, Paul Gambaccini, Cliff Richard and others are just ‘collateral damage’.  As she puts it ‘We should be far more concerned about those who never dare tell than about the small number falsely accused.’  In other words she wants to prioritise the unknown and unknowable number of people who might be inhibited from coming forward, over people who we know will suffer greatly from being falsely accused.  Should people like Alibhai-Brown be allowed to have the last word on the question of naming suspects or is someone else going to speak out?

Is it possible that what we have seen in Operation Midland is what some people call ‘The Law of  Unintended Consequences’?  The 2013 guidelines were intended to reassure those who complained about abuse that their allegations would be taken seriously and properly investigated.  There is no obligation to call complainants ‘victims’ or ‘survivors’.  Did the journalists and pressure groups simply appropriate the terms because it suited their agenda to do so?   Did the police simply follow suit in an effort to appear ‘victim friendly’?  If they did the this lack of judgement has spectacularly backfired with Hogan-Howe’s apology.