Protecting Our Children At School

Modern Britain is a remarkably tolerant society: we have a long tradition of minding our own business, especially when it comes to people’s religious beliefs. Unlike some other countries – such as France – we do not seek to limit individuals’ choices when it comes to what clothing is worn in public.

However, we also have a responsibility to give authority to head teachers and school governors to ensure the well-being and safety of children in their care. This is why the latest warning of the dangers of radicalisation in schools by Amanda Spielman, the Head of Ofsted, should be taken very seriously.

Her comments about extremists seeking to “indoctrinate impressionable minds” follows the furore that followed a recent decision by the head teacher of St Stephen’s primary school in East London, Neena Lall, to ban girls under the age of eight from wearing the hijab in the classroom. It was a decision that had been supported by the chairman of the school’s governors, Arif Qawi. Unfortunately, vocal criticism from hardline campaigners – including some parents of pupils – has since forced Mr Qawi’s resignation, while the head teacher has backed down and reversed what was a sensible decision concerning school uniform.


There is no legitimate reason for any young girls to have to wear the hijab or any other form of overtly religious dress in British school classrooms. Even in hard line Iran the headscarf is not compulsory for girls under nine years of age. There is no religious tenet anywhere which requires an 8-year old to wear a hijab.

This fiasco sets a very dangerous precedent: head teachers and boards of school governors need to have the authority to determine what is best for children in the classroom without fear of a backlash from a minority of disgruntled parents. Evidence suggests that our children thrive best in schools with good discipline, clear rules and high standards, including policies on behaviour and the wearing of smart uniforms; uniforms which cross all social divides, promoting a sense of corporate belonging.

Our classrooms should be places where there are no visible distinctions between pupils of differing faiths. We all know how children who are perceived as being ‘different’ can fall victim to bullying. A fairly applied code on school uniform can play an important role in minimising divisions between youngsters who should be focusing their attention on studying and learning, not on what they, or other pupils, are wearing.

Educational standards and levels of academic attainment are highest in schools in countries such as South Korea, Finland, Singapore and Switzerland, where teachers enjoy a high level of respect within their local communities and where parents are fully supportive of head teachers and the rules of the schools which their children attend. In contrast, when parents and activists set about undermining the authority of head teachers, it leads to plummeting standards and failing schools. Here in the UK, where there are regular public protests and social media mobs undermining the running of our schools, we have slumped to 20th place according to the 2015 OECD report.

As someone who worked as a teacher for over 30 years, I am absolutely certain that one of the key reasons why there has been a serious deterioration in standards of behaviour amongst many pupils here in the UK, which continues to affect negatively on standards of basic numeracy and literacy, is the marked decline in the authority of teachers, made worse by a failure by some parents to back staff when they make decisions that may be necessary, even if these may be unpopular with children or their families.

Head teachers need to be empowered and supported whenever they make rules which keep all children safe. As a society we have a responsibility to keep extremism and divisive dogmas, of any kind, out of the classroom. Unfortunately, tolerance can easily be mistaken as weakness by extremists and young, impressionable children can be vulnerable to manipulation by hardline fanatics who are eager to peddle poisonous doctrines of separatism, hatred and division.

Not Fit For Purpose

The scandals surrounding failures of police/CPS disclosure and the consequent collapse of trials – mostly, but not exclusively, to do with allegations of rape or sexual assault – just keep coming. Almost every day brings a fresh revelation concerning the withholding by police or prosecutors of vital information which might have assisted the defence.

We are being asked to believe that these appalling failures within our justice system can be attributed to human error, to tight budgets or to staff shortages. Personally, I don’t believe a word of this self-serving flannel. Key evidence is being withheld from defence teams, judges and members of juries – and even, on occasions, from barristers representing the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), because convictions at all costs, especially when defendants have been charged with sexual offences, suit the current ideological dogmas prevalent within both police forces and the CPS.

Even a cursory glance through the latest official CPS report on ‘Violence Against Women and Girls’ (note that there is no mention of violence against men or boys in that title!), issued on 10 October 2017, reveals just how target-driven our justice system has become in recent years (basic common sense tells us pre-set targets and justice are mutually incompatible). In fact, the CPS report celebrates rising prosecution and conviction statistics. For example, it highlights that successful prosecutions of sexual offences (including rape and child abuse) have increased by 14 percent since 2015-2016. Needless to note, there is absolutely no reference to wrongful convictions or to people currently spending time at Her Majesty's Pleasure while maintaining innocence.

The CPS report also boasts how prosecutions for alleged sexual offences against children (including historical cases) have increased by 82 percent in a decade, while convictions are at an all time high of 89 percent. What we don’t know, of course, is how many of the contested trials took place against a background of withheld evidence which might have supported the defendants’ version of events. Many accused people – especially when the alleged incidents date back decades – are quite literally fighting these cases with both hands tied behind their backs.

Of course, target-driven justice was always fated to produce miscarriages of justice. Ideological dogma (and no doubt hopes of promotion) places pressure on police officers to ‘cut corners’ and to abandon traditional even-handed policing methods of following up inquiries wherever they may lead, even if evidence emerges that undermines the accuser’s account of events.

In my own case, elementary detective work could have saved me two years of hell on earth. It was established within ten minutes of my first interview that, contrary to what was being alleged, I had never taught PE or junior school games during the early 1980s. It would not have needed Detective Columbo, even at that early stage of the so-called 'investigation', to expose the lies being told by my false accuser, who was doubtless hoping for a compensation payout and another spot in the limelight. But the police officers, from the very beginning, obviously made a decision not to make any inquiries with former colleagues or ex-pupils which might undermine their quest to have me convicted. Instead, they pushed on with a prosecution which ended my teaching career and cost me my home, even though I was eventually acquitted by a unanimous jury in a matter of minutes. Ultimately, there was little, if anything, to discuss! Meanwhile, the liar and his supportive friend, who both attempted to frame me, have walked away with no negative consequences and their anonymity intact.

Since my own 672 day ordeal finished in 2014, I have become aware of other similar cases where the lies of fraudsters and fantasists have gone unchallenged and not investigated by the police. There are people whom I believe to be innocent who have been convicted and imprisoned, in some cases for years, and had their lives destroyed at the altar of the cruel dogma of set targets. Responsibility for these appalling miscarriages of justice must be shared by the police and CPS because their basic procedures and practices have become fundamentally flawed and unbalanced due to fatuous nonsense such as the mantra ‘you will be believed’, regardless of how ludicrous or obviously bogus such allegations may be.

The very fact that the CPS has now been forced by negative media coverage and rising public concern to review all pending rape and sexual assault prosecutions is evidence that something is very rotten within the culture of the police and the CPS. It remains to be seen how many of these cases where defendants may have already had their lives wrecked, their jobs and/or homes lost, their safety constantly threatened, their family life ruined, will eventually be abandoned. All this trauma is being suffered because of a failure on the part of police and prosecutors to follow the law by disclosing evidence which might have assisted an innocent person's defence.

However welcome a genuine review of current prosecutions may be, it is far from being sufficient. The perverse practices now being exposed – such as failing to disclose vital evidence or refusing to interview potential witnesses because their evidence might assist the defence – must end now. (I can't believe that in any fair, just society I am forced to write this statement).

All target-based approaches to prosecutions must also be ended because constant demands by the CPS (and its cheerleaders in the media and in radical pressure groups) have simply encouraged police and prosecutors to abandon the basic rules of our justice system in order to pursue convictions at any cost. The presumption of innocence, as well as robust, impartial detective work by police officers, needs to be returned to the heart of our criminal justice system.

DPP Alison Saunders

Moreover, ALL contested cases, where those convicted are maintaining their innocence, must be urgently reviewed and case files examined by independent barristers and caseworkers, who do not answer to the police nor the CPS. The ridiculous assertion by Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders that no innocent people are in prison due to disclosure failures is both shockingly complacent and certain to be wrong. How can someone in such a senior position be allowed to make such a preposterous statement with impunity?

It is vital to acknowledge that misconduct by police and prosecutors that could, and does, lead to miscarriages of justice hasn’t just started in the past few weeks… it has been embedded in our unbalanced justice system for years, exacerbated, of course, by 'the Savile effect'. It’s only now that the general public is becoming aware of the sheer wickedness which has been going on behind closed doors for far too long. Justice demands a root and branch reform of both police practices and the misguided, ideologically motivated policies of the CPS, which have led directly to the present crisis.

An Open Letter to Alison Saunders

A copy of my Open Letter to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders.

Dear Ms Saunders,

Like many people who have had first-hand experience of our criminal justice system, I was dumbfounded by your recent assertion on the BBC Radio 4 'Today' programme, that no innocent victims are languishing in prison as a result of disclosure failures by the police and/or the Crown Prosecution Service. The statement is as absurd as your predecessor's that 'all complainants of historical sexual abuse will be believed.' How people who secure senior appointments such as the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) can make such preposterous statements is beyond me.

Ms Saunders, how could you possibly know that there are no innocent victims suffering as a result of disclosure failures? Pray, tell me, how?

These puerile claims do everyone who is involved in the criminal justice system no credit at all. Anyone who has had a 'taste' of British justice in recent years, particularly in alleged sex abuse cases, knows that the whole system is set up solely to produce convictions at almost any cost. Any defendant will have a mountain to climb to prove his or her innocence. (Let's stop pretending that in alleged sex abuse cases it is innocent until proven guilty).

We all know that once the police arrest someone they feel it is their bounden duty to secure a conviction. We all know that any evidence to cast doubt on the prosecution case will tend to be ignored. Yet, you attempt to whitewash what has become a broken, unbalanced system and this serves to damage your high office as the DPP. Asserting, as you do, that there is no need for the police to review media accounts and mobile phones in such cases is to shut down, potentially, vital avenues of inquiry. This very issue seems to be one of the key reasons prosecution cases are now collapsing on what is virtually a weekly basis. (Full marks to prosecuting counsel Jerry Hayes for getting the ball rolling).

How can you possibly continue to maintain this arrogant fiction that no innocent people are rotting in jail on account of the biased m.o. of the police and/or CPS? The truth is you cannot possibly know unless you order a review of disclosure procedures in every contested prosecution case that has ended in a conviction. After all, juries in criminal trials are under oath to try cases solely on the basis of evidence presented to them during the trial. If crucial evidence which might assist the defence is held back, then such trials can be neither fair nor just. It is no surprise that the recent public collapse of several criminal prosecutions has cast serious doubt in the minds of the general public about the competence - and bona fides - of the entire prosecution system here in the UK.

The CPS, under your leadership, seems to be continuing misguided policies that were introduced for largely ideological reasons. Your unlamented predecessor, Sir Keir Starmer, now a Labour shadow minister, did immense damage to our justice system by politicising the role of the CPS. As DPP, you have rendered a bad situation worse.

British justice used to be the envy of the world, something of which we could all be justifiably proud. Now it is becoming inexorably a national disgrace. Ms Saunders, people's lives are being destroyed due to appallingly one-sided and unbalanced police 'investigations' (try reading my latest book 'Presumed Guilty'; and I was one of the lucky ones!). These 'investigations' presuppose guilt and, what is worse, seem institutionally inclined to conceal or suppress evidence that might undermine prosecutions. In this way they boost the chances of the prosecutors hitting your arbitrary, ideological targets for 'successful' results, i.e. accused people being found guilty.

Ms Saunders, you have spent most of your professional career inside the CPS and it isn't hard to understand why you see no reason to pursue meaningful reform or to challenge the current status quo. Could there be a better reason to consider the ethics of promoting someone from within the system to the post of DPP?

Rather than grandstanding in the media, you might well be advised to look more closely at the reasons public confidence in our criminal justice system is being undermined - an issue highlighted this week by the former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge. The law of unintended consequences of the present unbalanced, unfair approach to these 'investigations' might just be that juries will no longer have confidence that they have heard all the relevant evidence and acquit the guilty.

Ms Saunders, we all know that miscarriages of justice are a fact within our legal system. If they were not, then the Court of Appeal would not be quashing convictions. And I can tell you that the chancers/liars/fantasists are rarely hauled into a court of law, even when they are shown to be just what they are. (I am still awaiting for the two liars who falsely accused me to be called to account).

The system is stacked against those accused and the complainants, often referred to as 'victims' from the outset, are supported throughout. For an innocent person, found guilty in a court of law, has little chance of a case review unless there is incontrovertible evidence to prove that innocence. Which makes fair, balanced initial investigations all the more important.

Ms Saunders, there are innocent people rotting in our dangerous prisons. These people are victims, just like those who have been genuinely raped or abused. This latest assertion by you that only the guilty are being punished, are having their lives ruined, gives the impression you are either out of touch with reality or in denial.

Yours sincerely,

Simon Warr

We Must End The Compensation Craze

Happy New Year to all. I do hope many of those who are suffering at the hands of the state, following malicious false allegations of abuse, will this year receive the justice they deserve. I feel the tide is at last turning.

Vile fantasist 'Nick' 

I have a few questions. Does that appalling fantasist 'Nick', still have his greedy hands on the £50,000 injuries' compensation money he received from state coffers for his false claims of having been abused by, among others, ex-Tory Home Secretary Leon Britton and ex-Army Chief, Lord Bramall? 'Nick' has been shown to be a cruel, manipulative liar and, in any decent, just society, he should be sent to prison for a long time but this is Great (ha ha) Britain, still suffering from 'the Savile effect', a time when perjury and perverting the course of justice are permitted... as long as you claim to be a victim of sexual abuse. What's more, you can keep the compensation pay out, it seems, even if you have been found to be lying!

'Chronic liar' Danny Day

Next, does that 'chronic liar', Danny Day (he has waived his anonymity so can be named and shamed), still have his hands on the £11,000 he was awarded for falsely claiming he was raped by ex-fire chief David Bryant in the 1990s? Not only should every last penny be repaid by now, the repellent specimen of humanity, Day, should be behind bars, serving a sentence well in excess of the stretch poor Mr. Bryant had to endure on account of Day's lies. Oh, of course, this is Great Britain which has seemingly little interest in punishing perjury and attempts to pervert the course of justice, even if all this has led to the ruin of an innocent man's life.

Of course, it is more tricky to lie your way to a gigantic slice of unmerited state funds by claiming the alleged abuse happened recently because the defence team will have a small(!) chance to prove you're telling lies, as we have seen in a number of recent, high profile cases. Faked historical abuse claims are so much less risky.

No, having endured the horrific process myself, I would tell any greedy, grubby liars that an allegation which is historical is far safer because it'll be a devil of a job for someone accused to prove his/her innocence (this judicial volte face is what is required in courts nowadays). I was lucky because the pair of grubby chancers who lied about me were too thick to come up with a plausible false account. However, since my acquittal in 2014, I have got to know a number of other innocent people who were not so lucky. One of them was accused of historical abuse after the single complainant had been coached by a malicious third party to ensure his account could stand up in a court (the accuser was far too stupid to invent a plausible story himself).

I imagine many of these liars will know how to play it because there is so much advice available from those 'riding white chargers' the personal injury lawyers. Try typing 'abuse compensation' into a search engine and you can take your pick where you go. In the case of the motor industry, they are called 'ambulance chasers' and the government has finally woken to the fact that the system is being swamped by greedy liars. So the PI lawyers, always with their eyes on the next lucrative market, (these people never advertise the fact that their fees are usually in excess of the compensation money paid out to the claimant), realise that they are on much safer ground dealing with cases of sexual abuse, leaning towards historical claims, because these are almost impossible to prove either way.

These PI lawyers rarely tout for business in low profile cases within families, where most genuine abuse occurs, because it's unlikely to be lucrative enough, with no insurance money to get their hands on and most families themselves have only limited funds. Far better to attack schoolteachers/care workers and the rich and famous... potentially lots of money on offer!

I am calling for an immediate end to the handing out of large sums of compensation payments, much of which comes of of taxpayers' pockets. Sexual abuse complainants should not be regarded as immune from the temptations and incentives, particularly financial, that drive human beings generally. These payments are making a mockery of British justice.

If someone has genuinely been abused, then he or she should be entitled to whatever professional help is required, as the victim strives to survive that abuse. The perpetrator should, accordingly, be sentenced to a long stretch behind bars. This should provide more than adequate, appropriate support for anybody who has suffered real abuse.

As for those who have lied their way to receiving a wad of state cash, they should hang their repugnant heads in shame, preferably behind bars, for a substantial tranche of their lives. But, of course, this is Great Britain, and the old boys' club of the judiciary/CPS/police don't consider all this lying, this perjury, this perverting the course of justice important enough to investigate.

Once again, may 2018 see a turning of the tide. It's only right and fair.

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.