Perjurers and the Pug

It often seems that we live in an increasingly topsy-turvy world in which crimes – real or imagined – are treated in very different ways. Liars, compensation fraudsters and fantasists who make false allegations against innocent people routinely escape any form of censure or prosecution, while others who are accused of far less harmful offences will be dragged through the courts by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

I was reminded once  again of this sad state of affairs by the recent tale of the online ‘comedian’ who taught his girlfriend’s pet pug to raise its paw in imitation of a Nazi salute. Not a very laudable or tasteful thing to waste his time on, but hardly a criminal act worthy of police attention. Yet the man responsible has been prosecuted and convicted. He now awaits sentence. Perhaps actor John Cleese – in his celebrated role as hapless hotelier Basil Fawlty – will be the CPS’ next victim, prosecuted for goose-stepping around a table of German guests with his arm raised. If so, it would be a slam-dunk for a ‘historical offence’ conviction. Tens of millions will have seen the video evidence: ‘Mr. Cleese, you are guilty.’

What emerges is a pattern of highly selective prosecutions that appear to be politically-motivated. I use the term ‘political’ in its widest meaning, because all recent British governments have been guilty of creating a wide range of criminal offences that never hitherto existed in English (or Scottish) law. Some of these so-called offences are more about assuaging public outcries by tiny groups of campaigners or soothing those who are easily offended (which busybodies, for example, complained about the performing pug, I wonder).

We have also seen a pair of failed prosecutions for alleged female genital mutilation (FGM). Since this law was enacted by a Conservative government in 1985 (and beefed-up by the last Labour government in 2003), there have been precisely two prosecutions brought in England and Wales (with a third case pending). The first defendant – an NHS gynaecologist – was acquitted by a jury in less than 30 minutes back in 2015.

The second defendant (a solicitor) saw the prosecution against him collapse earlier this month when the judge agreed with defence counsel that there was no case to answer. So why were these very obviously weak prosecutions brought in the first place?

DPP Alison Saunders: under pressure

The answer is put eloquently in an article which appeared in The Guardian newspaper in February 2015, following the acquittal of Dr Dhanuson Dharmasena:

“The case against Dharmasena was announced in March 2014, in a high-profile statement by the director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, following political and media pressure on the police and Crown Prosecution Service at the failure to prosecute anyone for the offence since FGM was outlawed in the UK in 1985.”

And there we have it in a nutshell: the police and CPS bowing to pressure from politicians, the media (and no doubt a few vocal activists) to launch a prosecution and obtain a conviction at almost any cost. The CPS succumbed to the ‘something must be done’ philosophy and blundered ahead. Even The Telegraph described the 2015 case as ‘a show trial’. And, to their credit, jurors saw right through this ridiculous charade and acquitted Dr Dharmasena.

In making these comments, it is necessary to make it clear that I do not endorse the vile practice of genitally mutilating girls, which is palpably an abhorrent act. But this is not a valid reason for launching ‘show trial’ prosecutions in cases where there is little or no evidence that it has even happened. Evidently jurors in one case and a judge in the other agreed.

Yet we are told that 144,000 girls in the UK are ‘at risk’ from FGM (according to an academic report published in July 2015 by London’s City University). If this statistic is accurate, it seems very strange that not one successful prosecution has been brought to date.

Turning now to another area where the police and CPS are clearly in dereliction of duty: the prosecution of those who knowingly make false and malicious allegations against innocent people. It is difficult to assess the appalling human cost of such wicked, selfish acts.

As I have stated in previous blog posts, targets of this vile crime often lose their jobs, homes, savings, pensions – and even their families and friends; some poor souls are driven by misery and despair to end their own lives. I know of a number of such cases. Yet prosecutions of the liars and perjurers responsible are extraordinarily unusual.

In one very recent case – noteworthy precisely because these prosecutions are so rare – a 23-year old student named Lottie Harris (now known as Lucien) admitted six counts of perverting the course of justice between 2016 and 2017. The victim was a gay man for whom Harris had a misplaced attraction – a work colleague. Frustrated, Harris accused him of a total of 23 totally false allegations, including rape and threats made with a knife. The entire story was a series of barefaced lies, made up by a repugnant attention-seeker.

Guilty liar: Lottie (Lucien) Harris

As the victim of these false allegations observed in his statement to the court: “I feel scarred for life. I was arrested in full view of customers and colleagues… It has proved to be very embarrassing and shameful. I have lost the respect of people I work with as they saw me arrested… I don’t think I will ever get back to how it was before or recover from what Harris has done to me.”

And the sentence for all the shame, harm and terror this false accuser inflicted on the victim? A two-year suspended prison sentence, 300 hours of unpaid work and compensation of a measly £2,500 for the man whose life has possibly been ruined. In contrast, had the victim of these false allegations been convicted because of these vile lies, he would have received a sentence of over 10 years’ imprisonment, perhaps much longer, and a lifetime on the Sex Offenders’ Register.

It needs to be stressed that this has been one of the very few cases involving false allegations of rape or sexual assault that the police has bothered to investigate and the CPS has then deigned to prosecute. It often appears that convictions in these cases are only obtained when, on the very rare occasion, the false accuser confesses and pleads guilty, as in this instance.

There seems to be no appetite among either police detectives or CPS caseworkers to investigate or bring charges against the vast majority of liars, fraudsters and fantasists who inflict endless misery and ruin on their innocent victims, regardless of whether the motive is revenge, compensation, attention-seeking or a bogus claim to victimhood. There are even cases I know about where criminals have managed to extricate themselves from their own pending prosecution by spinning a vivid imaginary tale of an historical experience of having themselves been sexually abused.

Perjury in a court of law should be a serious criminal offence (the maximum penalty is supposedly seven years’ imprisonment), as should be any attempt to pervert the course of justice by making false allegations. These are crimes which undermine confidence in the justice system, as well as leading to wholly innocent victims being sent to prison for years or even decades, utterly ruining them and devastating their families.

In practice, how are these offences treated by our agents of the state?  I know from first-hand experience, other than in exceptional cases, as outlined above, the authorities completely ignore them. The two liars who dragged me through the courts in 2013-14 for their own selfish, insidious ends, have not been called to account. Yet, their crime is substantially more serious than the one they accused me of, even if they had been telling the truth. I had my life turned upside down, while these two liars and perjurers have carried on with their own lives as if nothing had happened. I was told just to get on with things and stop complaining. Can someone tell me how all this can possibly be right? I despair, as every right-minded person should.

Far from being a so-called ‘victimless’ crime, makers of false accusations know exactly what harm their lies and vile fantasies will almost certainly unleash: it is ‘pushing the nuclear button’ on another person’s life. Such premeditated offences – with ‘malice aforethought’ as the old legal phrase put it – demand appropriate application of the law by the police and the CPS. Anything less is an utter betrayal of the victims. And we victims of malicious allegations continue to be betrayed.

Our criminal justice system is currently in a sorry state (as laid out painfully bare in the excellent book written by the blogger and author known only as The Secret Barrister, Stories of the Law and How It’s Broken, which I’m in the midst of reading). We need an urgent return to the rule of law and proper policing, not the ridiculous political mob-pleasing gestures for which the police and the CPS have now become infamous. There needs to be a clear focus on real criminals, with professional prosecutions based on genuine evidence, rather than squandering resources on dragging trainers of ‘Nazi pugs’ into the dock, to the deserved derision of the nation.

Some are just 'the Wrong Sort of Victims'

Recently, I’ve been reflecting on the whole issue of ‘victimhood’ and one thing is clear - there are different types of victims. While there are some who attract widespread popular support, both from agents of the state and from the public at large - particularly those adults who claim to have been abused in childhood - there are others who are deemed merely worthy of being swatted away, like irritating flies or gnats. It seems to me that victims of false allegations are usually slotted into this latter category. Indeed, while our modern culture here in the UK pays much attention to someone claiming to have been sexually abused, little or no attention is given to an innocent person whose life might have been totally wrecked by a malicious, compensation-hungry liar.

Since writing a book about my own experiences – Presumed Guilty – I must admit I have been heartened by the widespread support I’ve received from ordinary folk, particularly from people who have gone through the misery of a similar situation, either directly or indirectly. This stated, I have also been disappointed by the glib manner in which some vocal ‘campaigners’ and ‘activists’ dismiss experiences like mine as being unwelcome or inconvenient.

Some people can’t understand how being the target of a dangerous, insidious liar is worth even dwelling upon. The attitude seems to be  ‘Oh, get over it and move on....’ Can you imagine the same dismissive approach being taken towards someone who has been a victim of a convicted paedophile?  ‘Oh, stop complaining, just get on with things...’ There’d be uproar, and quite rightly so.

In the modern hierarchy of victimhood, I, and others in my situation, are regarded as being the ‘wrong’ kind of victim of crime. Indeed, agents of the state don’t seem to recognise fabricating stories of having been sexually abused by an innocent party as a crime.

Police: no support here...

When I asked the investigating officer in my case whether I was going to receive an apology, after a court trial which PROVED the two friends who had accused me had lied, including repeatedly perjuring themselves in a court of law, she responded: ‘That’s not going to happen.’ It seems that having been a victim of a failed conspiracy by greedy compensation-hunting perjurers, one should simply shut up and crawl away, lest news of the ordeal becomes embarrassing for the professionals in charge of ‘the investigation’ or undermines the ordeals of genuine victims of sexual abuse.

On the one hand, those who make allegations of sexual abuse - regardless of whether or not they are telling the truth - are afforded a significant level of support and encouragement by the police, vocal campaigners, numerous charities and other organisations. If the person complaining is a genuine victim, then this is totally laudable in any caring society. (If he or she is lying, of course, then it undermines the entire process). Some complainants are also offered psychological counselling and therapy, as a person telling telling the truth should. And a significant number receive substantial sums of compensation, even if the alleged perpetrator has already died or the claims being made have never even been tested in a court of law. (Unfortunately, because of the sizeable amounts of money on offer, these handouts, unsurprisingly, attract the fraudsters, the fantasists and the inadequates).

But only for some victims?

In stark contrast, proven victims of false allegations are completely ignored by official bodies. There are those who have been accused of heinous offences and their names indelibly stained, but who have not even been arrested. There are others who have been arrested and kept on police bail for months, or even years, but never charged. And then there are those of us who were dragged through the criminal justice system, including a very public trial, and been acquitted by juries almost immediately, or whose cases have collapsed when police misconduct came to light. Perhaps the most unfortunate of all are those who have been wrongly convicted and find themselves in the hellish nightmare of our violent, dysfunctional prison system.

Regardless of the category in which innocent victims fall, none will find any official institutional support, counselling, recompense or compensation.

Yet many victims of false allegations have lost everything: careers, homes, professional reputations, life savings, pensions, even their pets. Some have lost close friends, relationships with family members and – in the worst cases – have felt unable to carry on with life and have killed themselves (one such case happened this very week). Others are saddled with vast legal bills which they may never be able to pay. Yet none of this seems to count.

No votes to be had here

How many of our politicians care a monkey’s, to use the vernacular?  Why would they? After all, to concern yourself with someone who has been accused of child abuse, even though he or she has been proven to be innocent, is hardly a vote winner.  At the end of our ordeals we are cast adrift and are just expected to slink away and keep quiet.

Meanwhile, those fakers and fraudsters who have told the most blatant lies – to police officers, to social workers, to psychologists, to barristers, to judges and to juries –  unless they actually admit they have made up a pack of lies - face no sanctions nor consequences. Police officers who have ‘believed’, supported and encouraged these liars for months, or even years, are most unlikely to recommend that any of them are charged with fraud, perjury or perverting the course of justice. This would be far too embarrassing because questions might then be asked about the shoddy, partial, virtually non-existent ‘investigations’, which too often pass as modern detective work in cases involving sexual allegations, past and present. It’s far easier for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service simply to kick the failed prosecution into the long grass and hope no-one asks any awkward questions.

True, there are a few small charities and support groups – such as the outstanding Falsely Accused Carers and Teachers (FACT - link here) – which do offer support and advice to victims of false allegations, but, without exception, these organisations are privately funded and staffed by unpaid volunteers. There is no public money provided to aid or support people whose lives have been ruined by greedy liars, fantasists and the plainly delusional. Police, prosecutors and the whole institutional structure of the criminal law simply turn away. After all, there will be no rise in public popularity for those seeking justice for the falsely accused. And public popularity is so important to those who run the system.

Until we, as a society, stop rewarding these liars, fantasists, fraudsters and compensation-grubbers, I fear that the phenomenon of false allegations – and the ever-expanding industry which supports it (including personal injury solicitors who profit from the misery of others) – will never be tackled. In order to restore popular faith in our beleaguered criminal justice system, we urgently need to see evidence that perjury and lying to the police will no longer be tolerated and that compensation payouts made to proven fraudsters will be reclaimed with interest. Criminal actions must have consequences and we need to stop treating innocent people whose lives have been wrecked by false allegations as the ‘wrong’ sort of victims, just because it is the easiest route to take.

Objective Professional v Emotional Presumptuous Policing

The ongoing police investigation into the suspected attempted murder this week of a former Russian military intelligence officer and his daughter, by means of a toxic nerve agent in the city of Salisbury, has highlighted the power of painstaking, traditional British detective work. A sizeable contingent of experienced police officers – supported by specialists and even army personnel – is investigating every possible lead. It is the sort of thorough investigative work that once earned British police forces the respect of the world.

Supt Sean Memory, Salisbury 2015

Police representatives and national politicians have been cautioning the media and the public from jumping to premature conclusions until hard evidence of who is to blame has been obtained. This is just as one would expect a professional investigative team to operate.

It is interesting that this unfortunate incident took place in Salisbury, the beautiful Wiltshire city where the late Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath had lived. It was outside his former house, in 2015, that Superintendent Sean Memory of Operation Conifer appealed via the media for anyone who had ‘been a victim of any crime from Sir Ted Heath’ to come forward. Clear echoes of the infamous ‘credible and true’ assertion made in 2014 by Superintendent Kenny McDonald of the Operation Midland fiasco.

In this week’s attempted murder case, we have not witnessed any police officers standing at the scene of the attack on Mr. Skripal and his daughter informing us that Mr. Putin’s dastardly regime was to blame and that anyone else who has been targeted by Russian agents should come forward and ‘you will be believed.’ Why? Because no one is yet sure of the actual facts. Evidence is still being gathered.

What a contrast this week’s approach is to the unprofessional, myopic way in which sexual accusations (often historical) are ‘investigated’ by our ideologically-obsessed police forces. So what are the reasons for this starkly different modus operandi? Why are police detectives able to conduct perfectly professional investigations in some cases and yet seem averse to doing so in others?

Having lived through my own lengthy nightmare of false sexual allegations in 2013-14, made by a couple of compensation-chasing perjurers – their lies dismissed unanimously in a matter of minutes by a Crown Court jury, yet since totally ignored by the state authorities – I have met with dozens of other victims who have had their lives trashed by liars, fraudsters and fantasists, not to mention the associated misery and trauma it has caused their family members. I have discovered that there is a marked similarity in respect of almost all of these cases – a seemingly determined approach by the police officers concerned to ignore completely any evidence which might hinder them in getting ‘a result’ – i.e. a criminal conviction in court.

In my own case, after I had been dragged from my bed and arrested at dawn in late 2012, I gave the investigating officers a list of former school colleagues who would be able to assist them with their inquiries. I had nothing to hide, so I was completely open. I answered fully all their questions and was under the impression that this could only help in ultimately determining the truth. But, did they bother taking statements from any of these potential witnesses, many of whom I had worked with for years? No.

And I have since discovered that when they did interview one former colleague of mine, apart from the usual ‘we believe the accused to be guilty etc at the start of the interview, they failed even to ask him the critical question on which their whole case eventually collapsed when it reached court nearly two years later: had I ever taught junior boys PE? The answer was no. I had told them ‘no’ at the outset, but the police officers realised that any confirmation of this fact could wreck the vile fantasy being spun by the two liars, who were both hoping to make a quick buck at my expense. Professional policing? Hardly....

So what is the reason that experienced detectives all too often abandon the pretence of conducting an objective, even-handed and professional investigation when allegations of a sexual nature have been made? And why is evidence which might assist the defendant repeatedly not being disclosed or, worse still, actually being concealed from defence counsel, as well as judges and jurors?  

My conclusion is that some of the present generation of police officers, particularly those investigating alleged child abuse, are allowing themselves to become involved emotionally with those who make the complaints. At the very least, they may indulge the complainant by conveying the message from the outset that they believe the allegations and he or she can rely on the police’s total support. Once this message has been made clear, there is no going back. If the complainant subsequently turns out to be an unalloyed liar, the police, having already compromised themselves, are now unable ‘to change sides’ and investigate the false accuser.

Some officers go further by ‘befriending’ those who make allegations (and often their families) long before cases reach the charging stage, let alone a court of law. Sometimes this familiarity involves exchanging messages via social media, or even sponsoring witnesses who are taking part in charity events. Occasionally, close personal relationships between an individual officer and the complainant (or a member of his or her family) may also go undisclosed and undeclared.

This ‘emotional investment’ in complainants makes it much more difficult for police officers to approach any criminal investigation of sexual offences in a fair, objective and dispassionate way. Some people who make false allegations are notoriously adept at manipulating others, including detectives, and, once hooked, it seems that certain police officers are credulously willing to swallow any tale, no matter how fantastic or improbable.

Some dishonest complainants are old hands at spinning lies: a few have peddled their vile fantasies several times (even using different identities), in order to secure hefty sums of compensation money. These days the news that any famous person or celebrity has been accused of sexual misconduct is very likely to attract a coterie of ‘wannabe victims’, who seek to profit from adding their greedy selves into the story of others. This is an obvious danger given the current police approach of bolstering very weak – or non-existent - evidence of historical sexual abuse by presenting multiple accusers in the witness box in order to sway jurors. It is no surprise that some of these opportunistic liars are later exposed for what they are.

Added to this, some detectives deliberately avoid interviewing anyone who might cast doubt on the complainant’s claims. This can include ignoring the evidence of estranged members of the accuser’s own family, who are fully aware that the person making the allegations is a notorious liar and/or fantasist, based on years of personal experience; or else declining to interview key witnesses whose evidence might well undermine the allegations under ‘investigation.’ Perhaps this is the real reason why even the most outlandish and bizarre claims seem to go completely unchallenged by investigating officers, as was the case in the farcical (and ruinously costly) Operation Midland.

In the aftermath of my own nightmare, I seem to have become a repository for many other people’s ordeals, a number of whom are at the end of their tether because either they themselves have been falsely accused or else they have a family member suffering. Some of these cases should be causing serious concerns, especially when innocent people have been wrongfully convicted and sent to prison, often for years.

In one very worrying case, an adult prosecution witness claims that he was bullied by two female police officers because he steadfastly defended a former teacher under investigation, whom he believed to be completely innocent. When the witness attempted to name a specific individual who, he believed, had orchestrated a series of false allegations against both this teacher and a number of others, the police officers refused to record this in his statement and then forced him into signing it anyway. How can this be possibly justified?

In another case, a former teacher has been jailed for decades partially on the evidence of a prosecution witness who had spun a very detailed tale of historical sexual abuse in a boarding school. The story involved him and another named pupil, with an assertion that both had been sexually abused by the accused teacher at the same time. The man on trial was duly convicted and is currently in prison. However, I have since seen contemporaneous documentary proof that the second complainant, who, it was alleged, was a victim during the same assault, didn’t even join the school until a term after the teacher had left. They could never have met. This fact alone must raise serious doubts about the safety of some of the other convictions in that trial.

Police officers investigating allegations often make no effort to check the factual accuracy of claims being made, as they are on a pre-determined course. I find it hard to believe that if it were a murder enquiry, or the investigation of a major bank robbery, any key evidence would be ignored by detectives. However, if the allegations being made involve sexual offences – especially historical ones – the usual rules about gathering evidence can be completely disregarded. How is this being allowed to happen?

It is high time we woke up to the danger of police officers being ‘groomed’ by devious fraudsters, liars and attention seekers, who seem able to manipulate detectives (and others) emotionally. Surely it goes without saying police officers who work on cases involving sexual allegations must maintain a proper professional distance and resist the temptation to get involved in the often chaotic lives of complainants, some of whom are driven by either financial or narcissistic reasons. The ludicrous mantra ‘you will be believed’ must be rejected for good. As I have stated repeatedly, it is NEVER the police officer’s job to believe either the complainant or the defendant. Their duty is to investigate without fear or favour.

It is hard to accept the common excuses now being offered for the lengthening list of collapsed prosecutions as a result of disclosure failures or other types of police misconduct, which are: under-staffing and/or a lack of resources. As the current massive operation in Salisbury clearly demonstrates, thorough and professional investigations are perfectly possible when the political will is present.

My own experience – and the cases of others – leads me to the view that in too many instances police officers are studiously ignoring any evidence (whether involving a review of electronic records or taking eye-witness testimony) which might undermine the credibility of those making allegations of sexual offences, for fear that cases in which they have invested significant personal emotional effort and energy might collapse. This approach is, quite simply, a perversion of the justice system and urgent action to redress the balance is now required.

On a personal note, I think I have made it clear why I am convinced the two liars who had me dragged me to Court in 2014 will never be called to account by the State. Is this British justice to be proud of?