A Failure of Disclosure

The recent collapse of not one, but two, criminal prosecutions for alleged sexual offences has once again exposed serious shortcomings in modern policing. In the case of Liam Allan, a young university student who was facing charges of rape and sexual assault, it was left to the prosecutor, Jerry Hayes, a former MP, to blow the whistle on yet another legal scandal of our times.

If he'd been convicted, Mr. Allan could have faced a sentence of perhaps 10 or 12 years' imprisonment, followed by a lifetime on the sex offenders' list with all that entails - having to report to the police whenever he decided to spend a few days away from home or wanted to travel abroad. What's more, the likelihood is Mr. Allan would have had to endure a future life of unemployment, misery and online attacks, perhaps even physical assaults by vigilantes. Being a convicted sex offender is viewed by the public as only marginally less repugnant than being a convicted murderer.

With all this at stake, the DC in charge of the so-called investigation, Mark Azariah, decided that numerous text messages sent by the complainant, which made it abundantly clear that it was she who was the actual 'sex pest', should not be disclosed to the defence or, indeed, to the CPS. The police were in possession of thousands of messages sent by the accuser to Mr. Allan and to mutual friends and it was clear from these communications that the beleaguered defendant had been besieged by requests from her for sex and, even more pertinently, that any sexual activity in which he had engaged with her had been consensual.

Yet, the officer in charge apparently didn't consider any of these messages relevant to the case; which beggars belief. Either this is a case of total and utter incompetence by the police officers involved or it can be construed as something more sinister. All we can hope for is that the inquiry set up to look at the case's handling will be able to establish the truth of why Mr. Allan was let down in such a serious manner. The fact is we now know he should never have been charged and certainly not left to languish on police bail for nigh on two years.

In the same week we learned about Isaac Itiary, 25, who was charged with eleven crimes, including rape involving an underage girl, who had his claims that he thought she was an adult dismissed out of hand by the police. Had they bothered to check the accuser's messages, they would have learned that she was, indeed, claiming to be 19 years of age. (It doesn't bear contemplating that the police were aware of these messages and chose to ignore them. That stated, would any of us be surprised?) Poor Mr. Itiary had to spend four months in prison on remand because of - let's look favourably on the police approach - this incompetence.

Senior barrister and former adviser to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Levitt, observed this week that the police m.o. of believing all complainants and immediately assuming them to be victims might conceivably be damaging the justice system in this country. We should get her on BBC's 'Mastermind', specialist subject 'the Bleeding Obvious'.

As I've stated time and again recently, it is NOT the police's job to believe either the complainant or the accused, it is their job to investigate 'without fear or favour', just like they didn't do when 'investigating' the allegations of a grubby, greedy misfit who accused me in 2012 of supposedly touching him up in a shower room. The officer in charge believed the insidious, unscrupulous claims from the off and disregarded any evidence which weakened the prosecution case. As journalist Richard Littlejohn would say, 'you couldn't make it up'. As a result of this, I, too, was deprived of two years of my life and have never received an apology. I'm not holding my breath.

It would be imprudent to consider the three cases to which I have referred as merely isolated but rather come to the conclusion that they are indicative of a serious problem in our justice system. If reports are correct, there are another 30 cases pending which are being reviewed to ascertain whether vital information has been suppressed by investigating officers.

This very week a number of solicitors and barristers have come forward to share their experiences of similar flaws in previous prosecutions. They claim that non-disclosure is widespread and I'm not in the least surprised. I dread to think how many innocent people are now sitting in prison cells or, having spent time at Her Majesty's Pleasure, are now unemployable, bereft of hope and happiness, living in constant fear.

In any just, fair society, non-disclosure is a very serious abuse of power. Anyone accused of a sex crime, whether modern or historical, has a mountain to climb anyway and this just makes the task even more difficult. In my case it was I on my own up against a police incident room team with their almost unlimited state resources. This will be the same for anyone else accused of a sex offence. The preposterous mantra 'victims will be believed' continues to wreak havoc across our justice system. Let's be clear about this - any one of us could be accused of a sex offence and so have our life needlessly wrecked.

A biased, unfair approach by investigating officers certainly benefits and encourages those liars, fraudsters and fantasists who drag innocent people through the court system. These people are driven to make their spurious allegations by pecuniary benefit or cruel revenge or simply a need for attention in their hitherto miserable, unproductive lives. They have absolutely nothing to lose and a hell of a lot to gain and don't they know it!

Do we citizens really have to remind the police that they are bound by law to investigate all allegations impartially, as opposed to attempting to obtain a conviction at all costs? It seems we do.
Don't the police realise that, in the eyes of the public, there are few more heinous crimes than sexual assault and that it is therefore incumbent on them to investigate all allegations thoroughly and fairly, so the innocent are protected? It seems not.

So, Messrs Allan and Itiary- and a whole host of other innocent people - will all have to contend with the impact of an unfortunate, indelible online footprint which will continue to shadow them for as long as they live. To exacerbate matters, the liars who attempted to wreck their lives will enjoy life-long anonymity. And, no doubt, the spewing forth of hatred, spite and bile from the ill-educated internet mob will persist, regardless of the accused's innocence and acquittal, because in modern day UK just to be accused is enough for the untutored rabble to spit poison and threats of violence.

As Christmas approaches, we could well be advised to spend a few moments thinking of the myriad innocent people spending time in jail for sexual offences on the word of some monstrous liars and fantasists, aided and abetted by the biased 'investigative' procedures of the police. All this shames Britain.

Lies and Damned Lies on Oath

The erstwhile popular entertainer Rolf Harris has recently concluded nearly three years at Her Majesty's Pleasure. The previous pleasure he afforded her Royal Highness was in 2005 when he produced a superb painting of Her Maj to mark her 80th birthday. In 2014 he was convicted of a number of sex attacks on young women and girls. The most sinister of the charges was one alleging an attack on an 8-year old child... more about that in a moment.

In May this year, he was re-tried on four charges upon which the original jury couldn't agree. I attended most of this trial as a spectator and, taking notes throughout (as one would expect jury members to do!), I was in no doubt by the conclusion of the case that the charges should be dismissed. As it turned out, this is what happened but, once again, the jury members couldn't agree on their verdicts. There will be no more re-trials.

Now the Court of Appeal has quashed one of Mr Harris’ 12 original convictions from 2014, although the judges have upheld the remaining 11. Importantly, this quashed conviction concerned the most serious and revolting allegation of all, namely that Mr Harris had sexually abused an 8-year old girl during an event at a venue in Portsmouth in 1969.

This conviction was ruled ‘unsafe’ on the grounds that new evidence provided by the complainant’s own stepfather suggested that the girl would never have been permitted to attend such an event by herself at that young age. Moreover, the sole ‘eye-witness’ to the alleged assault - one David James -has now been exposed as a serial liar, fantasist and convicted fraudster, who has repeatedly claimed to have had a military career despite incontrovertible evidence that he is a lorry driver who never wore the Queen’s uniform and never served abroad in Korea, as he had claimed falsely on oath.

What is deeply shocking – but sadly hardly surprising in modern Britain – is that both the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) were aware of this lying fantasist’s dubious character, yet withheld this vital information from the defence and – equally importantly – from the jury at the first trial. This man was permitted to lie on oath and Rolf Harris was duly convicted and sentenced, despite his repeated protestations that he had never performed at the Portsmouth venue at the time claimed. He was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment on that charge alone.

The imposture of the key witness was only discovered by Mr Harris’ defence team when preparing his appeal against conviction. In response, the prosecution claimed that its failure to disclose this man's utter unreliability was 'a mistake'. It was, if I may say so, a very convenient ‘mistake’ and yet another example, in a very long line of incidents, in which crucial evidence has been withheld from the defence in sexual assault prosecutions.

Will any action now be taken against the fantasist who stood up in front of a judge and jury and told bare-faced lies on oath? I very much doubt it. It seems that blatant perjury is no longer treated as a serious criminal offence – or even prosecuted – as long as it assists the police and CPS in getting convictions, particularly in prosecutions for alleged sexual offences.

Even if the liars fail to impress the jury and the accused is acquitted, they're still not called to account even when their lies are obvious. I repeat for the umpteenth time, the two perjurers who dragged me into a court of law in 2014 and were subsequently seen to be what they are - lying, insidious fantasists - have still not been called to account, and it's over three years since the preposterous trial.

I am currently following another appalling case of an ex-teacher who was jailed in 2014 on the word of a proven liar who was, at the time, facing serious criminal charges himself. Needless to say, any charges against him were put aside.

According to media reports Mr Harris’ accuser has apparently already pocketed £22,000 in compensation payments. No doubt she will be permitted to keep the cash, despite this conviction having been quashed (a less generous observer might prefer to say comprehensively trashed).

The main, obvious point of concern following this latest judicial reversal is, if Mr. Harris was not guilty of abusing that woman when she was an 8-year old girl, what effect did hearing the dubious evidence adduced on this particular charge have on the original jury when they considered all the other allegations against him? Can you imagine sitting on a jury considering the fate of a man who is alleged to have sexually assaulted an 8-year old child? Once they had decided he was guilty of this offence, surely the minds of those jury members must have been influenced when considering all the other allegations. How can they not have? Yet the judges in the Court of Appeal seem to have concluded that all the other 11 convictions are safe.

May I put it to you, Your Lordships, that I defy anyone to hear evidence from a witness who vividly relates a sexual assault allegedly committed against him or her at the age of eight and not form a highly negative view of the person accused. After all, that is why the CPS opts to ‘bundle’ as many separate charges against a defendant as possible, in order to suggest the accused’s propensity to commit similar acts.

Surely, when one convincing complainant gives evidence of a vile crime being committed against him or her, it must contaminate the rest of the trial, since the jurors form a view of the defendant, particularly if that complainant was a pre-pubescent girl at the time of the alleged offence. Had the jury in the first trial been made aware that there were grave doubts about the truth of this crucial allegation – and the fact that the one key eye-witness to the alleged incident was a notorious liar and fantasist – it  would surely have led them to be much more cautious about the remaining allegations against Mr Harris.


We live in dangerous times: even totally unfounded allegations of a sexual nature can end a person’s career – and, sadly, even their life – long before they have even been charged, let alone convicted. Publicising such allegations prior to a conviction opens the way for a rag bag collection of liars, fantasists and compensation hunters to invent similar stories which can all too often be seized upon by police officers, who then fail grossly to undertake any rigorous investigation. And, as the quashing of one of Mr Harris’ convictions clearly shows, even when key witnesses are known to the police as liars and fantasists, this crucial information may be withheld from the defence, the judge and, crucially, the jury.

We already have a gross ‘inequality of arms’ in our courts. Most defendants, unlike Rolf Harris, simply do not have the financial resources to pay highly skilled investigators (often retired police detectives) to examine the evidence, check facts and track down potential witnesses – something that can prove absolutely vital in so-called historical sexual abuse cases, where the allegations can date back decades. The police have resources to do this work but often seem to rely entirely on the complainant’s statements, rather than impartially, thoroughly and even-handedly investigating the allegations.

As things stand, our justice system is being brought woefully into disrepute, yet police, prosecutors and perjuring witnesses seem to enjoy complete immunity from any negative consequences of appalling miscarriages of justice. How many innocent men and women are currently rotting in prison, their lives ruined, as a direct consequence of deeply flawed prosecutions?

And, to conclude, does any rational person on the street not now begin to wonder just how many more lies have been laid at the door of the beleaguered Rolf Harris?

Trial By Media

As many of my followers are probably aware, in 2012 I was publicly arrested as part of some police 'Operation' for an allegation of an inappropriate after-shower inspection in 1981, following a supposed P.E. lesson. The accuser was then 11 years old. The facts that a) I have never taught P.E. and b) I have never taught 11 year olds in a thirty year teaching career did not prevent the very public arrest and the subsequent, immediate, widespread publicity. I was driven to the cusp of suicide and, had I been cursed with a sensitive nature and had not endured a tough boarding school education, I would certainly have carried out this awful act.

It was the publicity which drove me to despair. You see everything you have built up ruined by the court of public opinion. The untutored mob of the evil internet (none had ever met me) repeatedly entreated me to kill myself at that time.

And still anonymity is refused to those facing a mere allegation.

On a TV debate programme I watched earlier today, the journalist Yasmin Alibhai Brown stated that, on the other side of the argument, Harvey Weinstein would not have been exposed had his name been kept out of the press. Yes he would have been - it would have happened straight after he had been found guilty in a court of law. This is the time to publish, thereby humiliate, people accused of abuse. Anyone who has had to experience his or her name being published in a story of alleged child abuse will testify to the horror of the experience: it's degrading, it's unalloyed cruelty - even if one is totally innocent. I had never met my accuser!

The police use this process of naming accused people to harvest (trawling, it's called) statements from other accusers, who are not hard to find if you offer a generous compensation payout at the end of the process. Indeed, money is paid out even if the accused is not charged or is found not guilty. What the police lack in quality 'evidence', they make up for in quantity, if they can.

We no longer live in an age when people are afraid to step forward to claim abuse. Even if Weinstein's name had been kept away from the media, local Hollywood gossip would have spread that the police were investigating him. But his name should NOT have been put officially into the public arena until he is found guilty of an offence in a court of law.

Otherwise, we maintain a system whereby accused people are used as an unfortunate by-product of the way we administer so-called justice. If this continues, then, I fear, there are going to be many more people, just like Welsh Assembly Cabinet Secretary Carl Sargeant, who are driven to take their own lives. I know exactly how Mr. Sergeant felt, as do the hundreds of people who have also faced this appalling practice.

Liar, Liar...

The new ITV drama serial 'Liar' recently reached its conclusion. It was billed as a 'did he or didn't he?' story of a hospital surgeon, Andrew, (played by Ioan Grifford), who is accused of drugging and raping Laura, (played by Joanne Froggatt), after an ostensibly romantic meal in a seaside restaurant. To add to the drama, Laura happens to be Andrew's son's English teacher, which makes it even more reckless of him to choose her on whom to carry out such a vicious crime.

Did it happen? Will she be believed?

From the outset I knew how this drama would unfold: to keep the tension, the writer thought he'd initially throw into the mix the possibility she could be making up her accusations. Sure enough, early on in the investigation, Andrew receives communication from a person whom Laura had accused of a similar offence many years earlier. That charge was dropped. But, inevitably, it wasn't long before the pendulum swung back Laura's way and it came as absolutely no surprise to me that she was revealed to be telling the truth after all. He was predictably declared to be a conniving, mendacious serial rapist.

Let's be clear about this - there's not a cat-in-hell's chance of a TV drama being commissioned here in the UK in the modern age, in which the accuser is revealed to be a lying fantasist. Because, as we are repeatedly reminded, it is such a rarity that people make a false allegation of having been sexually abused. We are pointed to the statistics which support this - I wrote in a previous blog about BBC correspondent Daniel Sandford recently claiming on the 6 o'clock News that there are 160 times more prosecutions for rape than for making false claims. He and the statisticians simply ignore the fact the CPS and police are not the slightest bit interested in pursuing malicious lies, even when those lies are obvious.

As for 'Liar', can you imagine the reaction of the militant lobbyists/sexual assault activists/lynch-mob Twitterati zealots/the self-appointed injustice campaigners if Andrew had been innocent all along and Laura a representation of the myriad opportunists, fantasists, greedy inadequates and downright liars who inhabit the UK?

The truth is malicious, unfounded allegations of sexual assault are an ever-increasing problem in our society and I think our TV programme commissioners have a duty to reflect this on our screens. However, I'm not holding my breath.

Compensation for Liars and Perjurers?

I seem to be in a permanent state of irritation and frustration recently, and this is not just down to the fact I am obliged to use the totally unreliable Piccadilly Line here in west London on a daily basis. I was watching the six o'clock news earlier this evening and BBC correspondent Daniel Sandford delivered one of his TV 'packages', as they are called, this one about the poor innocent fellow who spent two years in prison due to the lies of that foul creature Jemma Beale (please read my previous blog post for details).

What made me almost choke on my 'Hob Nob' biscuit was his closing statement, informing us that we needn't concern ourselves too much because false allegations of sexual abuse are extremely rare. To quote Mr. Sandford: 'There are 160 times more prosecutions for rape than for false allegations of rape.'

So that's ok then. We are meant to deduce from this statistic that people rarely lie about being sexually assaulted. But the statistic is totally misleading. Why? Because, as I have repeatedly mentioned, the police/CPS rarely, if ever, pursue complainants who, after investigation, seem to have been telling a pack of lies.

I'm still waiting for the two friends who accused me back in 2012 to be investigated. They both lied through their teeth about me supposedly having inappropriately checked to see they were dry after a P.E. or Games lesson, back in the early 1980s. I repeat, they both lied and anyone with an I.Q. above the day's temperature, who attended Ipswich Crown Court in October 2104, will have come to a swift conclusion that there was not a shred of truth in anything the two manipulative opportunists had to say (as all twelve members of the jury immediately confirmed).

After my acquittal I asked the police officer in charge of the so-called investigation if I was going to receive some sort of apology from the liars for having had my reputation and career trashed. 'Her answer was immediate: 'That's not going to happen.'

So, Mr. Sandford, that statistic you broadcast this evening is meaningless. Because I imagine my case is far from being an exception.

Within an hour of listening to Mr. Sandford my blood pressure was back to normal. Then I reached page 12 of today's paper. The headline screamed out at me:

'Sex abuse fantasists who get to keep thousands in compensation.'

The article told the reader exactly that - anyone who makes a false allegation of having been sexually abused, even those who are shown to be unscrupulous, greedy liars, are allowed to keep their compensation money.  What????? Does that mean those two lying fantasists who invented that cock-and-bull story about me, in a bid to get their greedy hands on money they were presumably unable to earn legitimately, who have since slunk back to their former miserable, unproductive existence, anonymity intact, leaving me to pick up the ruins of my life and career in the full glare of publicity, that they have been paid compensation money out of state coffers? Have they actually benefited financially for having deliberately perjured themselves? Meanwhile, I, the victim, have not received a penny from anyone. Can this be true?

Please someone, anyone, tell me this could not possibly have happened. Otherwise, my blood pressure is going to take some time to return to normal.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

Jemma Beale, a narcissist, a fantasist, a manipulative liar, has been sent to prison for ten years for falsely claiming she had been raped by nine men and sexually assaulted by six more over a period of three years. It was all a pack of lies. Police, meanwhile, spent 6,400 hours investigating her lies, which cost us taxpayers a quarter of a million pounds. One of Beale's victims, Mahad Cassim, spent two years in prison on account of this woman's disgusting claims.

Jemma Beale mugshot

Following the sentence, it was reported that Beale's is the most serious case of false sexual accusations in judicial history. Prosecutors went on to make the extraordinary statement that false allegations of sexual assault remain very rare.

How the hell would they know? The police and CPS rarely, if ever, go back over cases of alleged sexual assault when the accused has been found not guilty in a court of law. If the accuser doesn't actually admit to making up the whole story, he or she can be sure of getting off scot-free, even if their lies are exposed.

It has always to be pointed out, just because someone is found not guilty, this doesn't automatically mean that defendant is innocent, just that the prosecution has failed to prove its case. But there are occasions when it is palpably obvious the complainant is nothing more than a cruel opportunist/inadequate/liar (like the two friends whose filthy lies took me to Ipswich Crown Court in 2014). Wouldn't one assume that in cases when the trial is halted or when the jury return with an almost immediate decision of not guilty on all counts, the accuser would at least have his or her claims subsequently reviewed?

Not a bit of it. Why? Because the police and CPS do not want to look like they backed an unalloyed liar. After all, it was their decision jointly to charge (don't believe for a moment that the CPS operate independently from the police) and they have therefore both subjected the accused to a prolonged hell on earth existence and also cost the taxpayer many thousands of pounds.

Not good for career prospects for anyone to back the wrong horse.... so what do they do? They move away from the failed case as quickly as possible and allow the liars to return to the usually miserable, unproductive lives whence they came, with their identities protected forever.

My two accusers, who lied and lied about me, are not part of the statistics upon which the prosecutors base this latest, oft repeated, preposterous statement. Of course false allegations of sexual assault are ostensibly rare but this does not mean they are rare. How can anyone know?

If the police continue with their current m.o.of pursuing their so-called investigations following the guidelines decreed by the former Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, that 'all complainants must be believed', of course the greedy, insidious opportunists are going to chance their arm because they know they'll never be called to account for their vile behaviour, even when they are exposed for what they are. They have absolutely nothing to lose and a hell of a lot to gain. And all this passes for British justice.

I watched a television programme, 'The Wright Stuff', discussing the Beale sentence the following day and instead of the conversation being a vilification of the cruel, disgusting, rebarbative Beale, it was mainly focused on how this lengthy sentence might put off genuine victims 'coming forward'.

No it won't. Beale was proven to be a liar. As long as someone is telling the truth, he or she has nothing to worry about. There is not a cat in hell's chance of someone who has been raped being sent to prison for a false testimony. I reject utterly the mantra that prosecuting those who make false allegations will prevent other complainants coming forward. It is an excuse for the police and CPS to do nothing when they suspect they have been well and truly duped.

So, in spite of this appalling Beale case, it is highly unlikely that the m.o. of the police/judicial system will be in any way affected and people like me will continue to have their lives trashed as lying fantasists peddle their malicious allegations knowing they have little, if anything, to lose.

A Game of Chess?

There has been a succession of articles recently about the sharp decline in the number of children who read books for pleasure. Apps/video games/You Tube etc take up most of children's leisure time. Indeed, most youngsters are attracted by anything which doesn't require extended periods of concentration. Most households have at least two tablets, ready and waiting...

With instant gratification at the touch of a screen, why would any child bother to go about the laborious process of buying a cumbersome book and then sitting down quietly to read it? Added to this, it is often the case that when starting a novel, the reader has to be patient during the first few chapters, as the storyline unfolds.

Patient? No thanks. Nowadays, few under the age of 25 are prepared to wait for anything, if they have a choice.

This need for instant gratification has simultaneously had a deleterious effect on many children's ability to concentrate in class. Modern day teachers are expected to be akin to circus performers, to ensure the pupils are not distracted. As technology develops, the situation will only get worse.

What can be done? I have an idea... I think every child should be made to learn to play the game of chess. He or she will immediately find concentration is required, often for an extended period of time. And it won't only assist in a person's powers of concentration... it will also assist his or her powers of critical thinking/problem solving/planning analysis and abstract reasoning.

The benefits would be enormous. As a school boy, I was pretty hyperactive (still am) and I would probably have been diagnosed with ADHD in a modern day school. There is no doubt that being forced to play chess by my Housemaster every time I stepped out of line helped me enormously (as you might imagine, I had to play most days). Before very long I was playing unprompted. My behaviour soon improved and I often look back and appreciate how the game of chess enriched my life and helped to keep me on the straight and narrow at that crucial period in my life. We could even roll this initiative out into prisons... the benefits would be marked.

It's worth consideration, surely?

Why Real Education Matters

I was recently approached by the media to offer my thoughts as to why the provision of school education here in the UK is no longer the envy of the world. In fact, as a nation, we have slid down the international league tables in both literacy and numeracy, both to an alarming degree.

In a nutshell, I would state that the principal reason is, in our efforts to avoid reprimanding children at all costs and to try 'to get alongside them' (I know, ghastly phrase, but so often used by management), teachers' authority has severely diminished. Many British pupils seem to have adopted an inflated sense of their own importance and refuse to respect the paid professionals employed to educate them until they feel they are prepared to do so.

In British society teachers are viewed at a pretty low level in terms of the top professions and pupils are aware of this. An ever increasing number of parents, too, encourage their offspring not to accept what they are told to do at school and are quick to complain if their son or daughter is punished. In other words, they often undermine the running of the school.

Let's consider for a moment two countries in the world who annually come top of the international league for educational success - South Korea and Finland. In the way they provide education for their children you couldn't get two countries farther apart. In the case of South Korea, pupils are put under unrelenting pressure with long school days, a lot of homework and regular testing from an early age. In Finland, children don't start school until they reach the age of seven, they rarely do homework until their teenage years and don't have to sit a public exam until they reach sixteen.

But what is common to both countries is practically all children believe in the system and share a deep respect for their teachers and their academic accomplishments. Teachers are viewed as highly as doctors in both societies and the teaching profession attracts applications from the top ten per cent of graduates. In both countries the pupils are convinced that doing as they are instructed by the paid professionals will ultimately bring them success, happiness and fulfillment. They are taught how to work wisely and how to persist in the face of possible failure. Both Korean and Finnish parents support the running of their local school at every level.

In both these countries there is almost total literacy and numeracy among school leavers and the difference between the weakest and strongest is the smallest in the world. What's more, both countries spend far less money on each child's education than that spent here in the UK.

The lesson is clear but, of course, will be ignored here in the UK for generations to come - teachers' authority must be restored to how it was in the 1960s and '70s. I am not suggesting we return to the days of 'children should be seen and not heard' but as long as we persist with this notion that the pupils have every right to challenge the teachers' authority whenever they please; as long as we refuse to punish those unruly pupils who are ruining the chances of others in the class from learning; as long as teachers are treated as lackeys in our society, thus putting off top graduates from a career in teaching, and as long as parents refuse to offer their unalloyed support for the running of their local school, then the gap between educational provision here in the UK and that in countries such as South Korea and Finland will continue to widen.

Trial By Jury - Or By Prejudice?

For many, trial by jury has long been the most important part of our judicial system. Those accused of a criminal offence, it is argued, have a right to be tried by 12 of their peers, who are selected at random from the community. But, as the decades have passed, I have become increasingly convinced that the jury system has become anachronistic and is now fraught with problems.

My doubts started when I, myself, sat in a cage in a crown court in 2014 and a liar who had accused me of having touched him inappropriately 30 years earlier was allowed to give his 'evidence' from behind a screen. Those 12 jury members, most entering a court for the very first time, would not be human if they didn't feel some bias against me in my cage, and empathy towards the 'vulnerable' liar, being protected from my view. Thus, we have a natural bias against the defendant to overcome from the start.

When it comes to alleged crimes perpetrated against children, ordinary folk are programmed to feel disgusted and will be most reluctant to acquit if they feel there is even a smidgen of doubt that the accused may be guilty. Everyone knows that 'guilty beyond reasonable doubt' is unlikely to come into many jurors' decision making, but rather it is a case of  'are the chances this person might well be guilty?'

Recently, I sat through a criminal case in a crown court in which a man was on trial for alleged historical abuse perpetrated against three young women in the 1970s. I watched the jury eagerly as the evidence was presented and I was shocked that only one of the twelve was bothering to take any notes at all. If I'd been on that jury, I would have been unable to come to an informed decision back in the retiring room based solely on memory. I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that some of them might well have been bored.

And how can the system prevent certain jury members from making decisions based on their in-built prejudices? What was it that juror Kasim Davey posted on Facebook after a trial at which he had been adjudicating....'Woooow, I wasn't expecting to be in a jury deciding a paedophile's fate. I've always wanted to fuck up a paedo.'

Can we really be sure that all jurors will start listening to the evidence being presented to them completely open-minded about the defendant sitting in his or her cage? It is foolish to assume so. Is the present system an expensive and dangerous way of placing incredibly important decisions in the hands of 12 ordinary citizens, some of whom might well not understand the complexities of the case?

I do concede that judges can also be biased against certain tranches of the population but if we had a system in the crown court similar to that at a magistrates' court, i.e. three trained judges prevailing, I think it would be likely we would have fewer miscarriages of justice, particularly where historical allegations are concerned, as these usually are based on one person's word against another. Three judges would also be wary of the police's m.o. of trawling for complainants when the initial complaint has no evidence to support it... quantity replacing quality 'evidence', as is often the case nowadays.

I know a professional, hitherto distinguished, man who was recently sent down on the allegation of an ex-con. The jury was unaware the complainant's criminal history and that he was facing another jail sentence as he gave his 'evidence'. The defendant was subsequently found guilty based on prejudice rather than any actual evidence. Had three highly trained, informed judges been in charge of proceedings (there is a good reason why judges have to undergo such rigorous training), they would have been better equipped to come to the correct decision and, as according to our innocent until proven guilty system, this person would have been rightly acquitted.

I dread to think the number of innocent people serving time in jail - the national figure doesn't bear thinking about. I can state without hesitation that, with the growth of social media, if anyone thinks that the long established rule of jurors not checking out the background to defendants (to avoid bias thinking) still exists, he or she is living in cloud cuckoo land.

Police Bail: 28 Days Later

Curbs have now been introduced on the police current practice of leaving potentially innocent people in legal limbo for months on end, in some cases years. In my recently published book Presumed Guilty, I described the present system surrounding the use of bail by the state as 'police officer justice'. I had to endure 9 months on pre-charge bail and then a further 13 months after I was charged, as the police scoured the country for 'evidence'. Meanwhile, I was convinced this earth was another planet's hell.

While on bail the suspect lives his or her life under a cloud of suspicion and a number of arbitrary restrictions are placed on that person - movement/removal of passport/computer/phone/diaries/personal correspondence/suspended from job (in my case this involved suspended from the home and community where I had spent 30 years)/in some cases (not my own) even separation from one's own children.

There is now a 28 day limit on pre-charge bail. In my book I called for the limit to be 2 months because, with the police force and its support teams currently so stretched, we don't want to make the task of investigation even longer, as officers waste valuable time sitting around in court houses every few weeks.

The Magna Carta states: 'justice delayed is justice denied' but nevertheless some of the appalling cases of this 'police officer justice' m.o. led to Cliff Richard being bailed for 672 days (precisely the number I was bailed for) and Paul Gambaccini for a year, yet neither was charged.

Anyone who has spent even a week on bail will tell you the effect it has on your life is exacting. The longer the process continues, the more one feels the strain. It is nothing short of mental cruelty.

I was discussing this on the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2 on Monday and Jeremy asked what was the impetus for this new law being introduced. The answer is the printed press - not the television or radio but three newspapers: the Mail, the Telegraph and the Times. These journals are despised by the liberal establishment because the latter generally don't care a fig for individuals like me because I don't tick any of the minority boxes.

The left wing press concern themselves only with 'movements' and 'groups', while the right wing papers treat each case on the actual evidence. I would like to take this opportunity to thank, among others, Libby Purves and Daniel Finklestein, Richard Littlejohn, Jane Moore and Janet Street Porter - all those print press journalists who will not be cowed by political correctness but will express their views without fear or favour.

I wish the police would invite them to address their officers to explain why this is so important.

Liz Truss & Video Evidence

'We import two thirds of our cheese - MASSIVE PAUSE - that is a disgrace'. Who will ever forget the childlike self-unawareness of Liz Truss' speech to the Tory Party conference last year? Many found her speech performance that day bordering on excruciatingly embarrassing. Well, this individual is now the Justice Secretary. I know, it's hard to believe. But it just goes to show that these days anyone with a bit of luck can reach the dizzy heights of a seat in the Cabinet.

As Justice Secretary, Ms Truss' latest initiative is much more serious than dealing with cheese imports. She has decided that, from September, those making rape allegations are to be spared the ordeal of a cross examination in a court of law. Complainants will give their evidence via a pre-trial recording, which will then be played to the jury. This m.o. has been tested already in cases where children have to give evidence of alleged sexual abuse.

Ms Truss and her advisers believe that if such an initiative is extended to adult rape complainants, this will give them more confidence to report their ordeal. Ms Truss believes that we have made giant strides forward when it comes to dealing with sex abuse complainants, as cases of alleged sex offences have multiplied exponentially during recent years. Indeed, they've doubled in England and Wales within the past four years.

And, in case anyone is worried about liars coming forward, we are also told that false allegations of rape make up just 2-3% of all allegations.

If I may pick up on this last point for a moment. How on earth can anyone know the true percentage of false allegations when the police and CPS rarely, if ever, prosecute those complainants who they have a good idea might well have been spouting forth a pack of lies?

Take my own case, for example: it didn't involve rape, just an allegation of inappropriate touching over 30 years ago. Either way, the two liars who accused me were shown to be exactly that - liars. They managed to ruin my career and to push me to the cusp of suicide. When their lies were exposed for what they were, they slunk back whence they came. They were neither investigated nor prosecuted. When I subsequently asked for at least an apology from them, the Chief Investigative Officer's response was, 'That's not going to happen.' And, you won't be surprised, that's what's happened - precisely nothing.

So you'll excuse me if I dismiss that 2-3% statistic as meaningless. Knowing first hand how cases of alleged sex abuse are handled in this country, I'm surprised the percentage reaches two.

We all want the same thing - rapists to be brought to justice. However, we must be aware, with compensation pay-outs up to six figure sums, the easier we make it for genuine victims, at the same time the easier we make it for the opportunists and downright malicious liars as well.

If this latest initiative means more rapists are brought to justice, then that in itself is a very positive step forward. However, I know at first hand that there are those who will do practically anything to get their filthy, greedy hands on a compensation pay-out, while others simply take delight in seeing someone else's life, career and reputation trashed.

Will any of this have occurred to Ms Truss? I doubt it. I just hope intelligence plays as big a part in Ms Truss' reforms as emotion.

On The March

I, along with many of my right-leaning compatriots, have become used to being the target of partisan, at times unhinged, vitriol from the liberal left. It's par for the course here in the UK. As an admirer of Mrs.Thatcher, I learned to avoid unguarded moments when I was tempted to offer praise for all the positive things our former PM achieved for this country. Being a Thatcherite was always treated with disdain: the burning of her effigy, which I witnessed in Trafalgar Square just after her death, made me ashamed to be British. It was best to hold my counsel.

Now a leader has taken office in the USA whose unpopularity makes Margaret Thatcher appear almost saintly in the eyes of the public. There was one banner being carried down Whitehall yesterday suggesting President Trump is a threat to humanity. Some critics have likened him to Adolf Hitler, which is an appalling insult to every family still alive who lost a loved one at the hands of the Nazis.

Just as the 'remoaners' here in the UK described people like me who voted for Brexit as ill informed/stupid/closet racists/bigots, so anyone either side of the Atlantic daring to voice his or her support for Donald Trump is attacked in similar insulting terms.

Both the remoaners and the Hilary Clinton supporters agreed to the referendum/presidential selection rules beforehand, so why the sour grapes now? Because neither group expected to lose.

And what about the reason for these latest demonstrations in both America and here in the UK? President Trump has introduced a temporary ban on visa holders from seven countries: Iraq/Syria/Iran/Libya/Somalia/Sudan and Yemen. Such has been the unalloyed outrage you'd have thought he'd just ordered the countries' inhabitants to be slaughtered en masse. What's more, in 2001 plans were drawn up by the Bush administration to invade six of these countries! Any marches then? No.

In 2011 the then President Obama ordered the suspension of Iraqi visa requests for 6 months. Why didn't left wing Guardian columnist Owen Jones organise a march through the streets of London about that decision? Of course, it's only regarded as sinful/racist/barbaric/outrageous because the latest decision is made by the 'loathsome', bombastic Trump. Obama made his decisions in a much quieter, softer manner.

No protests, as far as I can gather, of Hilary Clinton receiving substantial financial support from Saudi Arabia for her election campaign. Why not?

And back here in Blighty, who has organised a march about our leader of the opposition Jeremy Corbyn's support of those cold blooded killers, the IRA?

And who has organised a march here in London about the woeful, disgusting practices carried out against women in so many parts of the Middle East? Female genital mutilation is about as depraved and abhorrent as it gets and it's still happening here in Britain. But, of course, no marches.

Oughtn't we make efforts to be less hypocritical? 63 million Americans voted for Trump and, in the biggest turnout since the Second World War, 52% of us voted for Brexit. Let's get some perspective on these puerile 'He's not my President'  'Brexit not in my name' comments. Otherwise, I'm going to organise a march of my own, simply as a representation of the silent majority.

Education and the Parent Factor

I was reading the latest complaints emanating from the teachers' unions, this time about the increase in class size numbers. There is no doubt that schools, just like hospitals, are having to deal with successive governments' relaxed attitudes about unfettered immigration, which has pushed many of our public services to breaking point. This stated, I am not convinced that teaching a class of forty is that much more onerous than dealing with one of thirty. There are more books to mark, of course, but in terms of lesson delivery it matters not one jot. It is far too simplistic to say that big is bad and small is good. Small class sizes in themselves do not raise standards in education.

I watched a documentary on BBC 2 last Sunday about educational success in South Korea. Three British pupils spent three days in the Korean system, being taught in classes of over forty. As in most parts of Asia, the standards of teaching and learning in South Korea are way ahead of what we manage here in the UK.

Why? Principally because Korean parents take an active interest in their children's education and are wholly supportive of their local school. This is often in stark contrast to what happens here in the UK, where there is a growing number of parents who show little or no interest in their child's education.

What's more, there is also a substantial tranche who deliberately undermine their child's school's authority. These parents complain publicly about too much homework or too little homework; too much discipline or not enough discipline; they express dissatisfaction with certain rules which they then publicly challenge. Why can't he wear his hair in this style? Why can't she wear her skirt in this manner? etc etc. There are even parents who have challenged their local school in a court of law after having deliberately disobeyed school policy by taking their child away on holiday during term time. More and more parents are chipping away at our schools' authority and doing it publicly.

The result is the pupils follow the parents' example by challenging the rules of the school and not only by ignoring their teachers' instructions but also by being unpleasantly rude and obnoxious in the process.

In Korea we were informed by the BBC 2 documentary that 'the king and the teacher are equal in the eyes of society.' As a result, Korean top graduates are keen to become teachers and are able to inspire the next generation to work hard to achieve their goals. Here in the UK teaching is no longer considered as a viable career option by top graduates. What's more, there is an annual haemorrhage of in-service professionals, as facing a daily barrage of recalcitrant, uninterested pupils takes its toll.

If we are ever to restore the once proud reputation of the British education system, we not to stop faffing around about peripheral matters, such as class size, and address the real issues:-

I say to parents, if you have a real issue of concern about an important school matter, such as your child not being taught properly or being bullied, address this issue, via a private meeting, with a head of year or form teacher. Under no circumstance involve the press. Any negative publicity about the school will damage your child's education. Publicly support the school and its rules on every matter. Even if you think your child has been unfairly treated, do not openly criticize the authority of the school - do it behind closed doors. Take an interest in your child's progress; spend some time asking him or her about homework etc. It doesn't take too much time.

With full parental support we could once again see top graduates attracted to the teaching profession here in the UK. The relation of an inspirational teacher to a pupil comes just below the relation of a parent to a child and our schools might once again be full of inspirational professionals.  What's more, bad teachers will no longer be able to damage children's future prospects.

Make no mistake, parents who undermine the running of our schools have a far more deleterious effect on children's educational progress than any increase in class sizes.