Reputations in Ruins

Updated.
It is all so easy to destroy a man these days. A simple accusation, unsubstantiated but pursued by the malicious can take a reputation and a life.  The ease of communication makes it all too common. And it is all too often men, accused by women, rarely the other way around. The more wealthy the better, as far as lawyers are concerned, but even the poor lad starting out cannot escape. 

Indeed, the idols I have loved so long

Have done my Credit in Men’s Eye much Wrong:

Have drown’d my Honour in a shallow Cup,

And sold my Reputation for a Song.

So it was that a Dark Subject was discussed and several 'names' were mentioned in the Tavern yesterday. It really does not matter that you have never met them, nor that you may not even have known about them until now, but be assured that they are but a few amongst millions that you do not know but whose names will be thrust at you sometime.

Some names are famous. Celebrities. 'Idols' themselves. Some 'private' folk.

It matters to the ones who are pointed at. One could list a hundred college students, mere boys, here and abroad, who have been rusticated simply on the unsubstantiated accusation of a fellow (female) student.  Kangaroo courts of unqualified people, disregarding 'rules of evidence' and with not the slightest interest in corroboration, testing of detail, or the tried and tested methods of 'court' procedures, routinely dispense the most appalling assaults on Justice, and always with disastrous results - for the assumed guilty party. 

Prejudice Rules. KO?

And not just the student chap. The teacher chap is equally vulnerable. Take this fellow, Mr Kato Harris. By all accounts, up until recently, he was seen as a fine upstanding gentleman.  Simon Murphy and Brendan Carlin told us:

The Crown Persecution Service: 

Judge slams CPS for 'improper' rape charges against an innocent teacher who reveals the case has destroyed his life and how he now lives in a bedsit and is unemployed

• Teacher Kato Harris was forced to endure a trial for 'raping' a pupil, ruining his life

• Despite police warning the CPS that the case was flimsy the trial went ahead 

• A jury took 15 minutes to clear Harris prompting the judge to condemn the CPS

• A former senior Scotland Yard figure was hired by the 14-year-old girl's family

• Sue Akers ex-deputy assistant commissioner influenced the CPS into acting.

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4415104/CPS-criticized-improper-rape-charges-against-teacher.html

Mr Harris, then head of geography at an £18,000-a-year London girls’ secondary school, was accused of raping the pupil three times. 

The allegations emerged a year after the assault was alleged to have taken place and after the girl moved to a new school.

He was driven by the joy of helping pupils achieve goals they had previously considered beyond them. He was good at it too. Epithets frequently applied to Mr Harris included ‘inspirational’ and ‘brilliant’.

But in December 2014, a troubled, attention-seeking 14-year-old pupil at his previous school – who, according to one of her teachers, was competing with a friend ‘as to who could have the biggest story’ – decided to accuse Mr Harris, a man of impeccable character, of rape. Their game should have ended as soon as it began.

Instead, as Mr Harris, now 38, details today, he endured a 17-month ordeal during which he was publicly named, humiliated and dragged through the courts, an experience, he says, that left him suicidal.

His ordeal finally ended when a jury cleared him after just 15 minutes’ deliberation. Tragically, it was too late. The damage could not be undone.

We do not know the name of the accuser. Of course. We cannot have natural justice, can we?  Any female (and I do not want to be accused of misogyny here as I simply point to the overwhelming nature of the accusers) can accuse any man of a sexual 'crime' and be believed. And protected. It just does not happen the other way around in any extent.

The man is hung out to dry. His life, career, marriage in tatters. You can read more to see just what awful conspiracy (of women, of course) ruined Mr Harris' life.

But, one can hear a voice from the dark corners murmer, "what if he is a sexual pervert?"

Very good question. That is what a Court is for. To determine that. Proof. Evidence. Corroboration. Innocent until proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt.  Remember those almost archaic principles? 

But, what if he cannot be taken to Court? Dead, perhaps.

Not to worry, in this age of enlightenment. We can destroy him all the more and more easily. He is not around to mount a defence. 

And all of his victims can claim compensation from his estate - should anything be left in that kitty after the lawyers have finished with it. It can drag on for years too.  

Follow the Money.

So our attention was drawn to a report of a report. Yes the money is often that of taxpayers, coerced from his pocket to pay for some 'eminent' person's sinecure. They, of course, can say what they like. Invent too, perhaps. Who is going to contradict them?

The report was about one Jimmy Savile. He was famous on TV for 'fixing' things for kiddies. He did a lot of work with kiddies, many of whom were ill.  And for hosting 'Pop' music programs wherein hundreds of teeny-boppers who should have been in bed and watched over by their parents, were herded into the BBC (yes, that BBC) to gyrate in short skirts to entertain the viewers. 

 I met him once. No, he did not grope me. He came to my Base to have a jolly in a Buccaneer aircraft, organised by some PR hack in MOD. I did not like the man. But my personal likes and dislikes are not relevant when accusations fly. I try not to pre-judge.

The report writer clearly did not let her (yes another female) stop her condemnations, despite the total lack of testable evidence.  Hardeep told us:

'Jimmy Savile raped children as young as nine' while working at BBC, leaked report unveils

Findings of a draft report of Dame Janet Smith's review into Jimmy Savile's misconduct at the BBC have been published by news site Exaro

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/jimmy-savile-raped-children-as-young-as-nine-while-working-at-bbc-leaked-report-finds-a6824436.html

Jimmy Savile raped and sexually abused victims as young as nine and was caught on camera carrying out his lechery at least once while working for the BBC, according to a leaked draft of a report examining the paedophile’s misconduct at the corporation.

Note the use of the word. Paedophile. They spelt it correctly. No proof that he was one mind you. That question I shall leave to a Jury. Not so the Media or the 'Investigators'. 

Investigative news site Exaro has published findings of Dame Janet Smith’s review into the depraved entertainer and BBC television presenter, who was exposed as a prolific sexual predator and paedophile a year after his death in 2011.

 

The review, which has said it will publish its report in six weeks’ time, said the leaked findings were from an early draft of the report and that “significant changes” had since been made to its “contents and conclusions”.

According to Exaro, the review’s findings highlight multiple rapes and indecent assaults on girls and boys at the hands of Savile and “inappropriate sexual conduct” with teenagers above 16 - all “in some way associated with the BBC”.

“Three of Savile’s victims were only nine-years-old,” it says.

Again, 'alleged' is not a word that is now used about Savile. He is assumed guilty without a sniff at a Trial. 

Exaro reports that Smith criticises the BBC for a “very deferential culture”, with many BBC employees telling the review that they had heard about Savile’s predatory reputation but feared reporting their concerns to managers.

As if !  Have any of these people been charged with failure to report a crime? Hah!

It also warns that “a predatory child abuser could be lurking undiscovered in the BBC even today”.

But Smith accepts a series of denials by senior figures that they were aware of the paedophile’s misconduct, Exaro reports.

In the report, Smith says that most of Savile’s rapes, attempted rapes and more serious sexual offences took place in his flats and caravans.

But the former Court of Appeal judge adds: “However, I heard of incidents that took place in virtually every one of the BBC premises at which he worked.

“These included the BBC Television Theatre (in connection with Jim’ll Fix It), at Television Centre (in particular in connection with Top of the Pops), at Broadcasting House or Egton House (where he worked in connection with BBC Radio 1), Lime Grove studios and various provincial studios, including Leeds, Manchester and Glasgow.

Sexual touching going on. By whom?

 “He would indulge in sexual touching while working on the set (Top of the Pops or Jim’ll Fix It) and, on at least one occasion, he was actually on camera.

“Savile would seize the opportunity for sexual contact even in public places such as corridors, staircases and canteens.”

Exaro said the leaked report reveals that those working at the BBC now fear blowing the whistle more than ever, and criticises the BBC’s management culture, in which celebrities were treated with “kid gloves” and managers drank heavily.

It says: “Several witnesses described the BBC as very deferential.

“My general impression is that most staff (other than those who had been in the higher echelons) felt that the management culture was too deferential and that some executives were ‘above the law’.

“I have the clear impression that most people in the BBC held the talent in some awe and treated them deferentially; they appeared to have the ability to influence their careers and were themselves untouchable. It would be a brave person indeed who would make a complaint against such a person.”

Smith also highlights the fact that the honours committee advised then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher against recommending Savile for a knighthood because of public warning signs about the presenter, even if the BBC failed to see them.

Not that they said he was a somewhat 'common' person, a yobbish man given to extremes of gaudiness. Such ought not be seen in the company of Knights.

On its website, the Dame Janet Smith review said: “The review is disappointed by the decision of Exaro to publish, in breach of confidence, extracts from a leaked copy of an early draft of its report.

“That document is out of date and significant changes have been made to its contents and conclusions.

“The document should not have been made public and cannot be relied upon in any circumstances.

“The review will work with the BBC to arrange publication of its final report as quickly as possible to ensure that accurate and responsible reporting can take place.”

In a statement, Tony Hall, the BBC's Director General, said that “what happened was a dark chapter in the history of the BBC”.

He added: “Dame Janet Smith’s report will be invaluable in helping us understand what happened and to help ensure that we do everything possible to avoid it happening again. 

“The review has said that the copy leaked to the media is an early draft which has changed considerably, so while I am impatient to learn those lessons the responsible thing must be to act on the final report which we have not received.

The amount of time, high-powered  'eminent' people employed and public monies expended, along with all the fawning denials by the BBC hierarchy for the past ten years or more, begs a question.

Was Savile in fact guilty of anything more than simple crassness? 

I do not pretend to know, standing here behind the bar, listening as you do. But some think.......dark thoughts.  Mr Venner Road, for instance. He describes himself as an Independent researcher based in South East London. He also mentioned the landlady of the Raccoon Arms down the road (which is now closed unfortunately).

Was Jimmy Savile Framed?

A skeptical look at the alleged crimes of Jimmy Savile.

To probably the vast majority of the UK population, Jimmy Savile was the most prolific serial groper and occasional rapist these islands have ever produced. 

As is very often the case though, there is a canyon-wide gulf between the public perception and reality. Savile has now been accused of literally hundreds of offences, and it is clear that probably the vast majority can never be either proved or disproved. Having said that, a fair number of them are either clearly false or most likely imaginary.

Let us here take a slightly more critical look than usual at the case against Jimmy Savile. Although the ball didn’t start rolling until the documentary 'The Other Side Of Jimmy Savile', he was the subject of rumours long before his death, and had even been questioned by the police about alleged indecency with underage girls.

The former is by no means uncommon. 

People in the public eye from powerful to not-so-powerful politicians, business people and of course celebrities are often the subjects of the most outrageous rumours. 

The advent of the Internet may have led to a new Renaissance but it has also allowed the 

propagation of lies, libels and scandal directed at all and sundry on an unprecedented scale. 

Jimmy Savile was a more appealing target for such rumours than most for a number of reasons. To begin with he was an eccentric, that is something that can have both a great appeal to people, and just the opposite effect. He was also unmarried, and for many rumour-mongers that can mean only one thing.

The Other Face Of Jimmy Savile was screened October 3, 2012, but was given heavy advance notice. The man behind it was Mark Williams-Thomas, a Surrey Police Officer turned journalist - investigative journalist is probably too much of a loaded phrase. According to the man himself, he launched the investigation into Jonathan King which resulted in the former music pundit serving a seven year sentence. Before we go any further, it is worth taking a closer look at him. 

Williams-Thomas grabbed a headline in the Sunday Mirror on November 25, 2001, shortly after King was sentenced. According to the paper he was “THE policeman who led the Jonathan King sex crimes investigation". He was alluded to as "Ex-Detective Constable Mark Williams-Thomas”, and was said to have been a founder member of the Surrey Police Paedophile Unit. He said of King: “I have no doubt he would have gone on to commit even more serious crimes if he hadn’t been caught.”

Whether or not the latter claim is true, the former is not; a mere detective constable would not have led an investigation of this nature which involved cooperation with the US authorities.

According to the Times of November 22, 2001, the investigation was led by Mervyn McFadden of the National Criminal Intelligence Service; the senior Surrey officer on the case was Detective Inspector Brian Marjoram. There were about a dozen officers working the investigation altogether, although more would have been involved as needed. 

As Williams-Thomas left the force after 11 years, his career was clearly going nowhere; at least one person has an even more uncharitable opinion, and says he left the police “under a cloud”.

Rumours cut both ways !! 

By 2003 he was described as a freelance journalist. The reality is there is no such thing as a freelance journalist in practice; most so-called freelances are employed by specific organisations. Although it is not a closed shop like the police, the profession - if one may call it that - is extremely incestuous. 

And, in 2003, Williams-Thomas may just have been frozen out of the family, because in June that year he stood trial at Chichester Crown Court for blackmail. 

This was a bizarre case indeed involving an undertaking firm, but the fact that he found himself in the dock should have made him more circumspect than the average ex-copper about drawing far-reaching conclusions from dubious evidence.

He has also racked up quite a few entries in the IMDb, and shortly before the Savile documentary, he made one about Jeremy Bamber which claims to have found evidence that points to the innocence of the mass killer. For those not au fait with this case, the judgment in Bamber’s failed second appeal runs to 522 paragraphs. Bamber slaughtered his entire family then staged the crime scene to make it look as though his sister Sheila Caffell had carried out the murders and then committed suicide. He might have got away with it too because the officer in charge of the case appears to have been more interested in winding it up and getting back to the golf course than in carrying out a thorough investigation; it was left to Bamber’s distant relatives to dig up the evidence that would put him behind bars.

Get on with it Venner. 

Initially, Bamber’s lawyers raised one ground of appeal which they proceeded to expand to sixteen. The whole business was extremely weak, but he certainly had his day in court. Although the initial investigation by the police was virtually non-existent, the work done on it subsequently was very impressive, and the soundness of Bamber’s conviction is not a subject for debate by jurists of reason. 

The same cannot be said for the case against Jimmy Savile because all the evidence against him is weak. 

Weak evidence and lies do not make a strong case, however many of the latter there may be.

To be scrupulously fair to Williams-Thomas, he does give some space in Bamber: The New Evidence to the other side, but the same cannot be said of the mainstream media and Jimmy Savile.

The bedrock of “evidence” against Savile concerns Duncroft, a school for wayward girls he was said to have used as his personal harem under the eyes of its staff, if not with their outright connivance. Like other accusers - male and female - of Savile and many others who have been convicted of, prosecuted for, or simply named as the perpetrators of vile crimes, the Duncroft girls sound extremely convincing. 

Sadly, this tells us more about human nature than it does about the demonstrability of historical sex offences.

As might have been expected, the BBC ran a tribute programme for Savile shortly after his death, and caught considerable flak for this because everyone at the Beeb, or at least those higher up were said to have known Savile had been a serial abuser, indeed he was said to have sexually assaulted or even raped underage girls on the premises. 

The investigation into Savile broadened, and a large number of celebrities were arrested on the basis of allegations made years and even decades later. 

Of the resulting convictions, those of Rolf Harris, Max Clifford and Dave Lee Travis are anything but satisfactory. 

The Travis case required a trial and a retrial to convict him of a solitary offence. 

Only the convictions of Stuart Hall and Chris Denning can be said to be warranted, but even Hall was cleared of the major charges, while the homosexual Denning has a history going back to the 1970s. Gary Glitter has yet to stand trial, but he too has a track record, and is therefore an easy target. All the same, it is difficult to credit he is guilty as charged, but if Rolf Harris OBE can be convicted on the sort of garbage that was used to take him to trial, there is little hope for a man who has served time in Vietnam for molesting young girls.

Returning to Savile, {at last. TK} the plausibility of the Duncroft allegations was seriously undermined by a letter ostensibly from Surrey Police. This claimed that Savile had been on their radar but was not prosecuted solely on account of his age and infirmity. 

This letter turned out to be a fake, which begs the question, how much of the “evidence” against him is genuine?

A number of people including the blogger Anna Raccoon have pooh poohed the Duncroft allegations; the woman behind this blog, Susanne Cameron-Blackie, was actually at Duncroft at one point, and clearly knows what she is talking about. The blog jimcannotfixthis contains a more detailed analysis of the allegations against Savile. It would be tiresome to work through all of them, but here are a few that should give the reader the general feel of these allegations.

Anna was a terrier. A Lawyer herself, she wrote extensively about the case, as she was in the immediate vicinity of where some of Savile's 'sexual assaults' were supposed to have taken place. She researched in depth, pretty well every public and confidential document produced; interviewed dozens of the 'claimants' and detectives, examined reports and findings. She made a huge archive of materials which are ..... where? I do not know. I had read much of it when she published in the Raccoon Arms. But where it all is now, I do not know.

Anna's conclusions were even more skeptical than Venner's.

Update:
From Sackerson's comment.

Anna Raccoon archive on Savile and Duncroft here at:
 http://annaraccoon.co.uk/

A woman claimed to have been indecently assaulted by Savile (or someone who looked like him) in 1954 - NINETEEN FIFTY-FOUR - at Queen Victoria Hospital. 

The reality is that Savile’s rise to fame began in 1963 when he presented the first episode of Top Of The Pops; it was this that led to his championing of the NHS. 

Another allegation dates from 1959 - NINETEEN FIFTY-NINE - at which time the alleged victim was 7-8 years old. She had been admitted to Booth Hall Hospital to have an appendectomy, of that much we can be certain, though she told the police not only that Savile abused her but that this abuse was carried out with the connivance of her own father, who had also abused her. What are we to make of this, seriously? 

Savile’s great-niece Caroline Robinson is one of his accusers; she gave a graphic account of his opportunism in a TV interview, but in October this year it was revealed that her own family had accused her of lying about this incident. She made this claim because...when they say it isn’t about the money, you can be sure it is about the money, in particular Savile’s considerable but rapidly dwindling estate.

According to the same report, “The lawyers who represent claimants will be paid between £11,000 and £16,000 for every claim they process. Under the scheme’s fixed ‘tariff’ of damages and legal fees, this means the lawyers will be paid up to ten times as much as victims.”

In other words, this is a feeding frenzy by the lawyers. 

A recent hearing at the High Court before Mr Justice Sales saw at least four QCs and other lawyers representing no fewer than seven defendants. 

One final case worthy of mention, a former cancer patient who wrote to Savile thanking him for helping save her life has put in a claim for £60,000 damages for a series of alleged sexual assaults. 

Anyone reading about the allegations against Savile need exercise only a little critical faculty to realise that most of what has been written about him since his death is not only unproven but demonstrably false. 

One of the claims made incessantly is that he was so powerful that he was able to bully, intimidate or coerce people into silence. 

Can that really have been the case? 

Let us rephrase that question, if you were involved in the running of a hospital or an institution such as the BBC, would you allow Savile or anyone to carry out sexual assaults under your nose? Would you make yourself complicit in such crimes?

Furthermore, journalists are always on the look out for salacious stories; powerful politicians up to and including the President of the United States have been brought down by lesser scandals - Richard Nixon! Bill Clinton had his personal life dragged through the mud over the Lewinsky affair while in the White House. In this country, Jeffrey Archer ended up behind bars on account of his fraudulent libel win; he was neither the first nor the last politician to be hoist by his own petard. 

Savile had the ear of people in high places, but he was not influential in the sense that he could snap his fingers and these people would jump. 

And what influence he did have was purely benign. Sure, he had a set of keys for Broadmoor, but did that mean he could wander around at will and sexually assault whoever took his fancy?

The only people who insist we should believe “victims” uncritically, be they alleged victims of Savile or of anyone else, are those who have a vested interest in us doing so, 

.....which in the case of at least three law firms is purely financial. 

Ironically, Esther Rantzen has already been smeared by the lunatic fringe as if not a paedophile herself then as a protector of them. Rantzen is the founder of ChildLine and has been credited with the mantra “believe the children”. 

The simple truth is we can’t always believe the children, and if we can’t believe the children, why on Earth should we believe the lawyers?

'Tis a messy business. It is made all the worse by being used to engender anger, hatred, misandry and fear. Againt men in general.

The talk has been long but gives us much to think about.

Time for a refreshing pint.

Remember this.... 

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

It is hard to do for ourselves but we can at least hold off judgement on people we know little to nothing about.

Pax