Tuesday 27 August 2019

Why Anonymity Matters

Last month, in the aftermath of the Carl Beech trial, I took part in an item on BBC 2's Victoria Derbyshire programme, discussing the impact of false sexual allegations and the need for anonymity of suspects, at least until the point of charge. One of the guests in the studio was Peter Saunders, the spokesman for the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC), a charity that supports victims of abuse.

BBC's Victoria Derbyshire
After they had played an interview I gave from my home in West London, Mr. Saunders stated the following: "False allegations are pernicious and horrible but it is massively rare [for someone] to make these things up.'' Sympathising with my own ordeal, he continued: ''I can't get my head around how awful it must be for Simon to have faced a false, malicious allegation (of sexual abuse).''

We now know, courtesy of the Mail on Sunday, he could indeed get his head around just how awful it is to be accused of this most heinous crime because Mr. Saunders himself was just such a target in 2008, something he has omitted to mention during the intervening eleven years. That omission matters.

Mr Saunders has always forcefully opposed anonymity for any adult accused of sexual assault, although he himself benefited from anonymity following his arrest on a rape complaint after an incident in a restaurant lavatory. These latest revelations in the Mail on Sunday concerning Mr Saunders’ arrest do suggest a certain hypocritical approach to this very important topic and they also raise important issues of public concern. The fact that his arrest and interviewing by police have only just been reported – some eleven years on – is a very strong argument in favour of legal anonymity for suspects in rape and other sexual offence investigations to be restored (it did exist between 1976 and 1988), at least until charge; although some – myself included – would extend it further until a guilty plea or the point of conviction by a jury.
Peter Saunders

In his response to the Mail on Sunday reporter, Mr Saunders states that he was falsely accused of rape by a woman following a meal at which a considerable amount of alcohol had been consumed by both parties. He emphasises that he believed the incident – in the restaurant lavatory – was entirely consensual, although he does appear to shift much of the blame onto the woman involved, whom we are told was a victim of sexual abuse in childhood and vulnerable. There is no doubt that this was a distasteful affair, but it is important to note that Mr Saunders was released without charge and the matter was never taken any further. He asserts his innocence of rape and I am willing to believe him. There is a possibility he has been the victim of a false sexual allegation.

Either way, Mr Saunders has undoubtedly benefited from the fact that his arrest and questioning by the police following the rape complaint over a decade ago have remained unknown to the general public. He has enjoyed what amounts to anonymity and the unfortunate, albeit unsavoury, incident has not – until now – impacted negatively on his life. It seems not to have damaged his family, nor does it appear to have ended his career as a vocal advocate for people abused as children. Tellingly, since the Mail on Sunday published its article, he has felt obliged to step down from the Victims and Survivors Panel of the Independent Inquiry into Childhood Sexual Abuse (IICSA), the ongoing public inquiry into sexual abuse. That, perhaps, highlights the ongoing negative impact of false sexual allegations, even after many years.

However, it is also important to note that when he appeared on the Victoria Derbyshire programme, Mr Saunders was adamant that such anonymity should not be granted to suspects of sexual offences even if they've not been charged. It is difficult to reconcile the two positions, yet, as an innocent man who was falsely accused and arrested without that fact being trumpeted all over the press and social media at the time - something which I, and many others, have had to endure - one would have hoped that Mr Saunders could have taken a more nuanced view. As it is, he seems to have benefited from a police approach that he would deny to others.

His situation also raises the important question as to whether people who have been falsely accused of a serious sexual offence, but never charged nor convicted, should be compelled to disclose that fact for the rest of their lives. One would assume that Mr Saunders’ arrest and questioning in 2008 would have been disclosed as part of any enhanced vetting checks, although the IICSA official response is that he did not do so when he joined its panel. Surely, it would also have been a required disclosure had he travelled to the USA or other countries that require information about police arrests, even when there has been no charge nor conviction.

There needs to be a much wider public debate about the plight of innocent victims of false allegations. As celebrities and public figures have discovered during the course of recent cases, including the Carl Beech scandal, merely being suspected or accused of a sexual offence can be utterly devastating, even when no-one has been arrested, especially when such police investigations are turned deliberately into an international media circus in the hope of ‘flushing out’ fresh accusers in order to bolster weak cases. False allegations, particularly of a sexual nature, are always life changing. I hope that Mr Saunders will now feel able, perhaps after a suitable period of reflection, to contribute to this debate from the position of one who has been falsely accused and is now coming to terms with the continuing fallout.

3 comments:

  1. Far too reasonable Simon; yes, the Falsely Accused should be entitled to anonymity and yes, the Presumption of Innocence should be returned. But Saunders admitted (he had to; there were witnesses including his teenage son) to this appalling abuse of a vulnerable abuse victim who he saw on TV, attracted her to a meeting by pretending she could start a NAPAC branch in the North (haha), when she arrived she brought a friend (who also accused Saunders of Vaginal Rape which he denied - a second False Allegation). Why didn't police and CPS pursue this? Far more "evidence" than in your - or my - case. Thousands are in jail NOW on less "evidence". And how many other victims are there? This very effective route to acquiring potentially vulnerable future victims was followed by getting onto commissions (Vatican) and panels (IICSA). And then to pontificate about evil perverts like George Pell. This Can of Worms has popped open and may expose hundreds of others hiding in plain sight. "What a dreadful tale; let's go to the pub for a drink".

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  2. There is no doubt at all that there are thousands in prison on far less evidence than this, and it would seem that police did not want to prosecute someone like Saunders who was a chief source of their custom.
    It is hard to imagine Saunders commiserating so deeply with Simon Warr whilst not actually mentioning that he was victim of the same. This points to a quite serious omission which many people don't appreciate is actually a lie. How lies beget lies.
    Peter Saunders has publicly labelled Cardinal Pell a "sociopath" whilst at the same time speaking of the entire Catholic church as if a nest of vipers. He admits to never having met Cardinal Pell, so this is quite a judgement on someone you don't actually know. NAPAC celebrate his conviction, rather than at any time asking what any reasonable person would, which is whether in fact on the evidence given it can be clear that he is guilty. It would seem that for anyone who has experienced abuse, it is always vital to assume that everyone accused is guilty, and this is a great mistake which puts those who support the falsely accused automatically in the opposite camp, when surely we none of us either want the guilty to go free, or for the innocent to be convicted.
    When Blasey Ford in the States was carrying out an open political assassination on Judge Kavanaugh, people paraded "Believe survivors" posters outside and showed not the slightest consideration of whether in fact Blasey Ford might be lying. Indeed, it really appeared not to matter.
    How far away are we from taking this exact same attitude in this country? Sadly I would say the answer is that we are not so very different.

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  3. After Savile, it was as if a universal guilt had been born, and as if to compensate, anyone who was even tainted by suggestion was automatically guilty. It did not begin with Savile. We know from Richard Webster's book "The secret of Bryn Estyn" that these matters go back twenty or thirty years. Innocent teachers who had devoted their whole lives to caring for disadvantaged children were no more than sitting ducks, and when vile suggestions were made, there was no thought that it was actually the institutional life style or deprivations they had suffered prior to entering these schools that were responsible for gross lying.
    Savile convinced people that anyone could be a paedophile operating in plain sight. GPs, vicars, carers, teachers, all those who had a previous history of working with children especially where they might have been alone with them, were immediately targets.
    "Believe victim" at no stage made clear that lying was off the cards. Sir Keir Starmer might have thought this was self evident, but in times of austerity and for people who had lived criminal or drug or alcohol influenced lives, it was an obvious temptation. For those whose fantasies, delusions or mental afflictions made them unreliable, this was no more a problem. After all, said the courts, these people were like this because of the fact that they had been abused.
    As Jimmy Savile begins to look less and less like a reality and every bit of the so called evidence against him has been taken apart by people who care about truth, we have to think a great deal about what we as a society have allowed. If we experienced a universal guilt over Savile, it is nothing compared to how people will feel when it is clear to all just how many innocents have been destroyed, how many totally insane stories have led to conviction, and how many old men have died in prison still maintaining their innocence.
    This is Britain. This is twenty first century. Without doubt, future generations will ask how it could ever have happened. In its simplest terms, lies breed lies. An industry has been created which benefits police, SS, media, lawyers, all in the Child protection industry, Charities, both those supporting victims of sexual abuse and those supporting children, judges, court personnel, and of course the government because it employs so many and the fiscal benefits are obviously helpful. For the first time ever we have all sex offender prisons, and old men in wheelchairs, who still state their innocence but have long given up the fight and often spend their days simply longing for death.
    The story I am sad to say is not one of Child abuse, terrible though that is. The bigger and even more terrifying story is the abuse of innocent men.

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