The Archers: Domestic Dramas North & South

THIS week, the Telegraph's media correspondent Patrick Foster reported: 

'Rape charities have called for the arrest of Rob Titchener, the bullying husband in the long-running Archers domestic abuse plot, after his wife revealed that he had raped her "over and over again".
'Polly Neate, the chief executive of Women's Aid, said it would be "an insult to abuse survivors everywhere" if Rob, who was stabbed by his wife, Helen, as she tried to leave him, was not arrested after Tuesday's explosive episode.'

Giving evidence earlier this week, Rob's wife Helen, who stands accused of his attempted murder told the court:  'He was determined to have a baby. I told him I wasn't ready but he wouldn't listen. The first time he plied me with wine he held me down by my wrists. I told myself, he was my husband, it should be fine, but it wasn't fine, was it.'

As the trial proceeds this week the emotionally charged program has been an unfolding drama of a high level of  abuse by a middle-class husband Rob Titchener against his rather unworldly wife, Helen, in Ambridge somewhere in the Midlands. 

But giving evidence for the first time, Helen said: "He was determined to have a baby. I told him I wasn't ready but he wouldn't listen. The first time he plied me with wine he held me down by my wrists. I told myself, he was my husband, it should be fine, but it wasn't fine, was it."

Meanwhile, today the Express reported that 'After Helen revealed that her abusive husband repeatedly raped her, pleading that she stabbed him in self-defence, her lawyer Anna made a shock breakthrough.  During tonight’s instalment of the BBC Radio 4 soap, the frustrated lawyer - who has pleaded with Jess for so long to make a stance - finally delivered the good news. 

Catching Helen’s family outside the courtroom following the third day of the torturous trial, Anna beamed: “Good I’ve caught you - now, don’t get too excited by this, but Rob’s ex-wife Jessica has come forward.”  As Tom and Pat celebrated, Anne interrupted: “I can’t really say what she’s going to say, but it’s significant; She’s given a statement”.'

In the light of all this nail-biting media drama which is keeping the nation on tenterhooks one wonders what Rochdale MP, Simon Danczuk, is thinking as he awaits the outcome of a police investigation into allegations that he too transgressed while married to Sonia Rossington.   www.dailymail.co.uk/.../My-years-abuse-sex-text-MP-Disgraced-Danczu...

Domestic Tiffs in Ambridge & Rochdale

Rochdale's Liberals 'Lend Credibility to Spurious Tabloid Tales'

AS the residents of Ambridge in the Archers on  Radio Four grapple with the domestic conflicts of Rob and Helen; in Rochdale last week the former Labour Councillor Martin Burke reminded us of the domestic difficulties in the private life of Simon Danczuk MP for Rochdale in his letter to the Rochdale Observer.  In this letter on the 6th, April, the now Mr. Martin Burke put up an heroic defence of Simon Danczuk, in which he suggested that the Liberal Democrat Councillor Andy Kelly had 'claimed recent publicity surrounding Mr. Danczuk's private life is to blame all of Rochdale's ills'.  
The situation in Ambridge between Helen and Rob may well border on the melodramatic with Rob in hospital with a collapsed lung and a severed bowel, but the situation in Rochdale with what the Mail on Sunday journalist, David Rose, entitled 'The dark side of the Danczuk's' and other aspects of curious behavior involving the honourable Member for Rochdale, has reduced politics in the town to the realm of Comic Opera. 
Martin Burke's letter supporting Simon Danczuk in the Rochdale Observer merely reinforces the image of comedy:  For the a feature article in the Mail on Sunday last July by David Rose headlined 'The dark side of the Danczuk's:  A Spanish family holiday suddenly abandoned'  Martin Burke is alleged to have confirmed that his daughter Karen had 'appeared to be bruised on her return' from a holiday in Spain in 2008 with her then partner Mr. Simon Danczuk, who was at that time the Labour candidate in the Rochdale constituency. 
On the 12th, July 2015, David Rose wrote in the Mail on Sunday:

'Today, The Mail on Sunday can reveal disturbing new details of this incident – and of contemporary statements about it drawn up for a secretive Labour Party inquiry. These alleged that although he was apparently provoked, Mr Danczuk not only abandoned but physically assaulted his partner.'  
What was the evidence for this? 
Simon Danczuk himself has always denied that the tiff became violent and that he assaulted his then partner, Karen Burke, the daughter of Martin Burke.  
The story in last July's Mail on Sunday reveals the evidence of one witness:

'Martin Burke yesterday confirmed to me that Karen appeared to be bruised on her return. Her mother, Sue, told me the same. ‘I’m only sorry I didn’t take photos,’ she said. ‘On the phone, she told me he’d attacked her. Yet the day after she got home, she was going on about how it was lies.'

Can this be the same Martin Burke who is now condemning the Liberal Democrat, Andy Kelly for 'vilifying Mr Danczuk'? 
No wonder Les May in his letter below responding to Martin Burke's letter is expressing bewilderment.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3157459/Disturbing-questions-Simon-Danczuk-crusades-against-abuse.html#ixzz45XQ86Afy

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This link may be worth including in any preamble that you write.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3157459/Disturbing-questions-Simon-Danczuk-crusades-against-abuse.html

Letter to the editor of the Rochdale Observer (9th, April 2016):

Dear Editor,

As a lifelong Labour voter it pains me to have to point out that Andy

Kelly seems more in tune with what people think about Mr Danczuk's

behaviour since he became the town's MP than Martin Burke appears to be.

As for the 'spurious tabloid tales' which Mr Burke refers to he should

note that it is not Mr Kelly who was suspended by his party for

'inappropriate' texts sent to a young woman; it is not Mr Kelly who has

been told to pay back £11,000 of parliamentary expenses he claimed but

was not entitled to; it is not Mr Kelly who financially benefited from

one of those 'tabloid tales'. Need I go on?

And if Mr Kelly is taking advantage of Mr Danczuk's fall from grace

should we be surprised? After all throughout the summer of 2014 we were

regularly treated to attempts to smear the Lib-Dems with regard to the

thirty five year old story of Cyril Smith's antics at Cambridge House,

until it was pointed out that at the time Smith was a member of the

Labour party and that the late Mr Roger Chadwick had gone on record as

saying that he told the Labour agent about Smith's behaviour at the

time.

Had Mr Burke not felt the urge to respond, Mr Kelly's comments would

have been forgotten. Now they have been given a new lease of life. Or

was that the idea all along?

 

Les May