In the light of yet another celebrity ( Dave lee Travis ) found not guilty on alleged historic indecent assault case does anyone else feel troubled by the media and police frenzy on this.

 

Can you imagine 18 months of waiting around and having your life taken apart, your reputation, the very core of your family smashed, and as said on the news the last celeb DLT has had to sell his house to defend himself, all of its seems wrong when taking into the details of many of these cases quite what the CPS were thinking I do not know.

 

With more cases still to be heard in court yet I can see the same happening, in the case of Coronation Street star one of the alleged victims when cross examined was asked to give her memory of the event.............her reply I don`t remember it happening??? when asked how do you know it did then? she replied well I think it did???? how on earth did the CPS find this acceptable evidence???

 

Now do not get me wrong I would never condone any form of assault sexual or other on young girls but these cases have become farcical and will do damage to any future genuine cases, the phrase the "law is an ass" could not be more fitting at the moment!

 

 

Jeff TT

Edited February 13, 201411 yr by JeffTT

Perhaps if some of these people counter sued for deformation of character, loss of earnings and personal trauma some of these cases might actually only get to court if the propper evidence is in place to prosecute. I know if someone wrongly accused me of such crimes and wrecked my career i would make damned sure i got substantial damages in return.

The only reason all of this has come about is because somebody started the ball rolling by accusing Savile (who was too dead to say otherwise) of molesting them.

 

Now, I'm not in a position to say whether Savile's guilty or innocent. Really, nobody's in a position to say that. Cos he's dead. The truth will never be known about him and his (possible) actions over the decades.

 

One thing I will say on the whole "celebrity sex assault" thing is this: standards were very different back then. What's unacceptable now wouldn't necessarily have been out of the ordinary back then. I'm not talking about molesting children here - I'm talking about celebrities "enjoying" some of the benefits that their status brought at the time.

 

DJs were one step down from bona fide rock stars in the 70s, and women would think nothing of throwing themselves at them because of that. As I said, things were very different back then...

 

One thing I don't understand is why the DJs and celebrities are always identified at the point they're first accused! As Jeff said, one of the "victims" of DLT even stated in court that she had no memory of any sexual assault taking place. Surely, in the face of such weak (or non-existant) evidence, the police and the CPS should be holding back names until they something slightly more concrete to go on...??

 

[/my 2 cents]

I watched the documentary about Jim Davidson that was on a few nights ago , he too was arrested and accused of sexual assaults and cleared , in lost earnings and his legal costs he reckons it,s cost him 600k !!

The reason they are named, is too see who else might step forward with an allegation, i personally think that as the law states "innocent until proven guilty" that names should be kept out of the media to protect not only the accused but the family and close friends surrounding them. At the end of the day alot of people suffer over a case like this, not just the poor guy being accused.

If found guilty then obviously you pay the price and your world will fall apart.

 

I still cannot fathom that such cases, which happened 30-40 years ago can end up in court today with what amounts to hearsay for evidence, the cps dont normally prosecute unless they have a 99% chance of getting a conviction and even then i think many chance their arm and twist words and talk in clever legal jargon to push their point.

 

I have no doubt that many of the accused in the papers today may or may have not done something at the time, but there is no substantial evidence and my concern about todays justice system is that if enough people come forward to accuse you and they all sing from the same hymn sheet, then how can you defend yourself against that?

In the case of Saville, when the story came to light in the media, the nation was shocked, unfortunately and i think this applies to many people now, that the more you hear or read in the papers about these cases, the less shocked and dare i say, bothered by it, therefore making people more blase, oh theres another one....... which is wrong imo, its had the opposite effect of the original intent.

It does seem a witch hunt to try and prove to the public that something is being done about it, no doubt this sort of behaviour has been going on for decades/centuries, its only now in this day and age that everything is put under the spotlight.

What I don't understand maybe I'm just blonde or super thick but why after all these years are women starting to come forward with the alleged attacks/assaults?? IF it happened why not say something sooner?

And what were they doing in cars, houses and dressing rooms with these people in the first place?

Claiming their 5 minutes of fame and now trying to claim their bit of compo!!!

I was listening to the senior Police officer in charge of the case today, saying that they would consider the case for any Victim of sexual assault........on what grounds do they know they are actual Victims, have they made up their mind on the heresay of someone who has come forward out of no where and claims an incident that might of taken place 20-30-40 years ago? surely they should be stating these are only alledged victims!

 

I for one would like to see any kiddie fiddler hung and drawn if proven guilty, but on the back end of Saville the CPS are on a witch hunt supported by the politicaly correct left wing who have their own aggenda...seeking out anyone who may be willing to come forward and make spurious and unproven claims against another.

 

These claims are a shocking waste of public money and cause the destruction of someones reputation and in many cases their financial security, without fear of any public indentification...wrong, Just wrong!

 

The worst thing is, real victims especialy in recent events probably won't come forward because of the press frenzy and desperation of the CPS to find a head to hang at whatever cost.

 

Think I need a quick double of dark rum!

My view - however horrid sex crimes, paedophilia etc are; there should be a statute of limitations on bringing such cases to trial.

 

Granted, the guilty must be punished; however how can anyone (apart from those truly involved) really know exactly what happened 20/30/40/50 years ago? Exactly! In the case of Stuart Hall, he pleaded guilty - but what if he had not? The law says a jury should only deliver a guilty verdict if they believe "Beyond reasonable doubt" that the accused committed the crime. And surely after so, so many years, the only evidence is each party's word on the matter.

 

And the criminal compensation awards granted to victims today has only served to make matters worse for genuine victims; as said above, if the accusers were so adamant they were abused then why not bring the matter to the police at the time. Sorry - it's all wrong; and the celebrities at the heart of the scandal have had their names dragged through the mud on the basis of hearsay. Yet many of the victims get to remain anonymous; leaving innocent men to rebuild their lives after having them turned upside down.

 

With the DLT case, there is also the issue of what was acceptable behaviour 40 years ago compared to today. Again, whilst I agree that each of us (women and men) has a right to our own personal space; if it was generally accepted as fun, horseplay etc back in the 1970s to slap a women on the bum [etc] as a laugh (no matter that we quite rightly think it wrong today), then we must not seek to retrospectively apply our modern standards to historic actions.

 

I do believe that Jimmy Saville was probably a vile sexual predator (my own personal opinion; nothing to do with the club/forum/committee), but in spite of all that has transpired he remains dead. His secrets duly died with him and, however unfortunate or wrong it may be, any alleged victims are unlikely to get justice. But that is no excuse for the CPS to waste our tax monies on pursuing futile cases against other celebrities from the same era, which can never really be proven beyond reasonable doubt, in the wake of the Jimmy Saville allegations.

 

In short; no hard physical evidence [should] = no prosecution. Sorry to any (alleged) victims; get over it - you should have said something 40 years ago!!

 

Richard

The worrying thing is not that celebs are loosing massive chunks if money but anyone could be falsely accused, it happens very regularly sadly. Esp false accusations against men of rape. Now without being rich to start with, on your private house or secret location to run to what happens. The locals get their pitch forks out.... Scary shit. It's a crazy world out there I know several girls that have told silly lies about people locally then had to confess its rubbish.

The worrying thing is not that celebs are loosing massive chunks if money but anyone could be falsely accused, it happens very regularly sadly. Esp false accusations against men of rape. Now without being rich to start with, on your private house or secret location to run to what happens. The locals get their pitch forks out.... Scary shit. It's a crazy world out there I know several girls that have told silly lies about people locally then had to confess its rubbish.

 

Sad but true Steve....

 

...And again, it also prevent genuine victims from coming forward for fear of not being taken seriously. I am pleased, however, that there have been a couple of high-profile cases recently; where women who have falsely accused men of rape, have actually been named and convicted of their crimes - and handed custodial sentences accordingly.