Telephones, Trauma, Trials and Truth

One step forward… two steps back: this seems to be the way in which our criminal justice system usually operates.

Innocent: Liam Allan

From late 2017 into early 2018, the mass media was buzzing over the shortcomings of prosecution disclosure in rape and other sexual offences trials. There was much hand-wringing and outrage over cases like that of student Liam Allen who – but for the grace of an honourable barrister, Jerry Hayes, acting on behalf of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) – might well have been convicted wrongly of an allegation of rape that never was. In fact, evidence recovered from Mr. Allen's accuser’s mobile phone completely undermined her false accusations and revealed that he himself had been the real victim, of harassment. Understandably, there were widespread demands for major improvements with regard to the disclosure of evidence to the defence, in the interest of fair trials and justice.

Fast forward to 2019 and even a very modest proposal by the new Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Max Hill, and the College of Policing, seeking to achieve a uniform approach by police forces wishing to access the mobile phones and other digital data of complainants, has managed to provoke loud wails of outrage from vocal campaigners. Some have asserted that the very act of police requesting such access will discourage complainants who have alleged rape, or other forms of sexual assault, from coming forward. The shrillest responses are even likening these requests to assist the police with their inquiries as being akin to a ‘digital strip search.’ Nothing like a wildly emotive catchphrase to whip up an online feeding frenzy, eh?

The hot-air fuelled miasma is being stoked eagerly by certain sections of the national press, whose journalists are peddling outright lies via their sensationalist headlines. The Guardian – rarely a byword for impartiality on these matters at the best of times – wins first prize for claiming that rape victims’ phones would be 'seized' by police. Notice the emotive verb 'seize'. Aside from being untrue – the new system simply allows police to request access – The Guardian felt it necessary to add fuel to the flames of ‘woke outrage' by also repeatedly using the term ‘victim’, long before anyone has even been charged or convicted. After many complaints online, the editors backed down and amended the incendiary headline to read ‘complainants’. However, the bogus claim about phone ‘seizures’ still remains online.

Baroness Newlove

Others who should know better, including outgoing Victims’ Commissioner Baroness Newlove and various ‘victim’ support groups, along with privacy campaigners – such as Big Brother Watch – have weighed into the debate (albeit with very different motives). It seems that everyone is entitled to an impassioned view - other than victims of false sexual allegations, of course. As usual, this category of victim is completely ignored and disregarded because such people are 'the wrong sort of victims' of crime in modern day Britain.

While the proposal for police investigators to request access to complainants’ phones applies to any type of criminal case, it is entirely predictable that the only protests achieving national media coverage concern sexual allegations. I’ve not come across people who claim that they’ve experienced online fraud, car theft, GBH, robbery or burglary now demanding that their mobile phones be sacrosanct during police inquiries. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that the vast majority of genuine victims of crime would be only too happy to assist the police with their investigations – including handing over mobile phones – if it meant there might be a better chance of PC Plod collaring the vile little toe-rags who injured or robbed them. Far better, surely, than just being issued with a crime reference number and a shrug of the shoulders, as is often standard practice.

Police downloading data

However, those alleging sexual assault seem to have an army of vocal campaigners willing to twist or misrepresent these latest modest proposals, in order to present them as ‘digital strip searches.’ I presume the reference to ‘digital’ has been chosen for reasons that are all too clear.

The overwhelming message being broadcast loudly by these single issue groups is that anyone – particularly a female – who makes an allegation of rape or sexual assault MUST be telling the truth on every occasion. Their account of events, no matter how bizarre or unconvincing, MUST be believed and NEVER challenged. Police should NEVER seek to investigate the ‘victim’ (i.e. the complainant) and NEVER dare to make a request to download anything from their mobile phones or social media accounts. To do so, no matter how politely phrased, must be seen as an act of vile, patriarchal aggression.

There has even been criticism of the latest plans on the grounds that such searches of mobile phones and social media accounts could lead to the evidence being used to prosecute the complainant for a range of unrelated crimes. This is certainly not the purpose behind this latest proposal. It is churlish in the extreme to state that the police will use their new powers to search through online activity to seek evidence for a separate prosecution. Unless, of course, the complainant is guilty of serious criminal activity, in which case it is right and just and proper that the police carry out their professional obligations without fear or favour.

Rape fraudster: Jemma Beale

It’s well worth recalling the fact that serial rape faker Jemma Beale, recently convicted and jailed for a well-deserved ten years after making a series of false rape allegations against nine different men, plus further accusations of sexual assaults against others, was brought to justice – in part – because digital evidence extracted by police from her mobile phone and social media exposed her as a sadistic fraudster and liar. Beale ‘gloried’ in her crimes and remains to this day utterly unrepentant. Yet, had detectives not checked her phone and gathered this damning evidence, it is entirely possible that more of her innocent victims would now be rotting in jail, while she waltzed away with many tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money, courtesy of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA)

One thing that my own experience with compensation-grubbing liars and fraudsters has taught me is that many of these crooks are usually not very clever or sophisticated. They think nothing of allowing their masks to slip in text messages and posts in closed online chat rooms. Whole criminal conspiracies and compensation scams can be exposed if police both have access to these fraudsters' electronic communication devices AND disclose relevant evidence of such fraud to the defence.

A ransacked bedroom

It is also important to note that, while there are no proposals for police to ‘seize’ complainants’ phones and other electronic devices, I can state from first hand experience it is now entirely routine practice for anyone who has simply been accused of a sexual offence (without a smidgen of actual evidence) to have his or her home raided by a squad of police officers, often in the early hours of the morning. Once the suspect has been dragged out of bed and arrested, his or her house will be ransacked from top to bottom. Every personal item will be bagged up for subsequent scrutiny: every diary, every personal letter, every family photo album will be seized and piled into police evidence bags. Cherished books will be pulled from bookcases and thrown onto the floor. All electronic devices – mobile phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, cameras – will similarly be taken, to be closely and thoroughly scrutinised for potential evidence. And all this equally applies to the devices of family members living at the same address. Goodness only knows the effects of it all on any child who happens to live in the home.

This is not a ‘digital strip search’ as much as a literal one. Every vestige of dignity and privacy is systematically stripped away from a suspect and his or her family. Every aspect of the accused person’s life will be exposed and examined, from bank accounts to every personal piece of correspondence. And remember, this happens long before anyone has been charged, let alone tried in a court of law. A single complaint of an alleged sexual assault opens the floodgates to this devastating process.

House for sale

In the course of my current research, I’ve spoken to victims of malicious sexual accusations who say that they will never find happiness in their own home again. Some have felt compelled to move house, so unbearable is the trauma of the initial police search, carried out in the customary ruthless manner. Imagine experiencing a burglary, while you are present, with the full weight of the law behind those who are busy ripping your home apart.

Having been through that dehumanising and humiliating process myself, I find it deeply offensive that vocal campaigners feel it appropriate to describe a request from police officers for access to a complainant’s mobile phone as a ‘violation of privacy’ or a ‘digital strip search’. I experienced both during the twenty-two months I was kept on bail before I was acquitted in a matter of minutes by a unanimous jury, who delayed returning to court immediately out of respect for the judicial process. The two evil, compensation-grubbing fraudsters whose lies subjected me to all of this have walked away unscathed, with their anonymity protected, free to lie again should the fancy take them. And, of course, none of their electronic communication was ever looked at during the so-called investigation. Perhaps, if it had have been, I wouldn’t have lost my cherished teaching career.

The latest proposals regarding complainants’ communication devices might not prevent the victims of false allegations from experiencing the trauma of a police investigation, but where evidence is revealed of blatant lies, or even a conspiracy to defraud or pervert the course of justice, then this might prevent unnecessary and unjustified prosecutions being launched at enormous human and financial cost. Furthermore, as in the case of serial liar Jemma Beale, such evidence could prove vital in bringing other criminals to justice. I, for one, think this is a price well worth paying.

The Hard Lessons of Jemma Beale

In August 2017, Jemma Beale (27) was convicted and given a ten year prison sentence (of which she will serve half in jail and the remainder on licence), following a trial during which jurors heard that she was a ‘serial liar’, who had falsely accused nine men of raping her on separate occasions, while a further six had supposedly sexually assaulted her. All these bogus allegations were confined to a three-year period, while she was an adult.

Jemma Beale

As a direct result of her lies, an innocent man was convicted of rape and jailed for seven years. Before his conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal, he had already served over two years in prison, being treated, unsurprisingly, as the lowest of the low: he was a convicted rapist and sex offender. Since his release, he has described graphically for the media how his life has been utterly ruined.

Beale had been supported throughout that case as a victim of sexual violence, whose account must be believed. No doubt there were professionals on hand to give her support, in addition to a police victim liaison officer. In due course she applied for – and received – compensation amounting to £11,000 via the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA). Meanwhile, an innocent man, whom she had falsely accused, was rotting in a stinking prison cell, his reputation and happiness destroyed, his life as he'd known it effectively over.

And no doubt that would have been the end of the matter had Beale not felt emboldened by her ‘success’. After all, the police had got the result they wanted – the conviction of a dangerous sex offender – and she had pocketed a sum of tax-free money, courtesy of the taxpayer, to spend on whatever she fancied. It’s worth remembering that for some people a lump sum of that size can seem genuinely life changing, especially if they aren’t in regular employment or are living on state benefits.

English prison cell

Jemma Beale, however, was greedy. She was not only hungry for more compensation payments, but she also had a deeply sadistic streak in her nature that led her to revel in the suffering of men she chose as her victims. Psychiatrists and psychologists will no doubt debate whether or not her claims of childhood abuse contributed to her perverted, warped nature, as well as her supposed ‘vulnerability’ as an adult. Whatever the root cause, she set out deliberately to make a series of utterly baseless accusations against other men. Some, she asserted, had raped her. Others subjected her to vile sexual assaults. In every case, her allegations were nothing more than calculated lies.

It was the astonishing volume of these complaints that proved to be Beale’s ultimate undoing. Even police officers who specialise in sexual offences, and who had been indoctrinated during the era of the ‘you will be believed’ policy, imposed from above by former Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Sir Keir Starmer and propagated assiduously by his hapless successor Alison Saunders, realised that they had a serial liar and attention-seeker on their hands. Systematically, the whole investigation, which now involved fourteen targets, unravelled and the first innocent victim who'd been jailed saw his rape conviction quashed and he was released from prison (although never from the horrors which he has had to endure). Even so, he must be accounted among the luckiest of the plethora of innocent people rotting in jail, simply because victims of wrongful convictions, especially in cases of sexual offences' prosecutions, are so rarely able to get their appeals as far as the Court of Appeal, let alone being able to clear their names.

Moreover, in the vast majority of such cases, the overarching policy among police and CPS prosecutors is to let sleeping dogs lie. Prosecuting the makers of malicious false sexual allegations is not considered to be ‘in the public interest’. Some excuse almost always seems be found to avoid taking any action, often with an assertion that the liar, fantasist, revenge seeker, fraudster or perjurer suffers from ‘poor mental health’. It is not surprising to me that the police are nearly always reluctant to prosecute liars who have duped them into believing they have been abuse victims because it is these very liars to whom the police have proffered undiluted support and encouragement throughout the so-called investigation process. I know from first hand experience.

In the specific case of Jemma Beale, however, the CPS did make a decision to charge her and she stood trial and was duly convicted by a jury, despite her stubborn refusal to accept that she had done anything wrong. There was no acceptance of responsibility, nor evidence of any compassion or concern for her many victims.

Importantly, jurors heard and read evidence extracted from her electronic communications, which included text messages, one of which graphically revealed how she was ‘glorying’ in the suffering of an innocent man she had falsely accused of rape. This fact alone makes it clear why police and prosecutors MUST have access to complainants’ communication devices and online accounts. Without the vital evidence of those damning messages, a serial fraudster like Jemma Beale could well have pulled the wool over jurors’ eyes and walked out of court free to wreak havoc on further victims.

Court of Appeal

As was her legal right, Beale appealed her conviction and sentence, asserting that ten years was ‘unduly harsh’. That appeal was heard this week and the judges of the Court of Appeal rightly rejected her applications. She was properly convicted and her sentence was confirmed. She will remain where she belongs: behind bars for several more years to come and, after her release, will remain under supervision by probation officers until August 2027.

Nevertheless, there has been a concerted effort by Beale’s family and others, including journalists, to paint her in a very different light. Articles have been written decrying her conviction and sentencing. She has been portrayed as a vulnerable ‘victim’ and many column inches have been filled denouncing her prison sentence as ‘cruel and unnecessary’. What is noticeably lacking in these protests is any genuine concern for the men whose lives, careers, mental health and relationships Beale has deliberately wrecked.

It gets worse. I recently stumbled across a very professionally produced website, endorsed by members of her family, that continues to proclaim her innocence. This, I suppose, is understandable. Relatives often find it difficult to accept that a loved one could have committed vile crimes. What I found particularly grotesque, however, is that this website names and smears Beale’s innocent victims, thus adding to the damage she has already inflicted upon them. If the family of a convicted rapist dared to set up a similar website, naming the victims, I don’t doubt for one second that they would be the focus of police attention and would face arrest and possible prosecution. Yet this pro-Beale website continues to peddle her vile lies, despite her conviction and the recent dismissal of her appeal. Will these smears stay online now? Only time will tell.

Jemma Beale on her phone

Although Jemma Beale’s case has been reported widely in the media, there has so far been no informed analysis of the lessons that need to be urgently learned. I would suggest that the first issue is just how dangerous the ‘you WILL be believed’ dogma actually is. Simply accepting as truth any sexual accusation made by any complainant who walks in the door of a police station defies logic to the point of being ludicrous. It certainly flies in the face of established investigative practice of investigating 'without fear or favour' and clearly produces wrongful prosecutions and miscarriages of justice.

Beale’s claims should have been thoroughly and impartially investigated from the start. Had this been done, it seems unlikely that her first victim would have lost over two years of his life rotting in a prison cell. These cases have real, human victims. He was failed utterly by the police and the CPS.

The second lesson is the vital importance of police having access to both the complainant's and the defendant's communication devices and online accounts, especially when there is little or no other evidence that an offence has actually taken place. Without such investigation, vital evidence – such as Jemma Beale’s messages expressing her sadistic joy in her vile crimes – would have been lost. Recent calls to block or restrict police investigations on the grounds that it might ‘discourage’ genuine victims of sexual assault are disingenuous. The only people who are likely to want to keep their communications hidden from police view are liars, fraudsters, fantasists and those bent on revenge.

Mobile phones

The third lesson that needs to be emphasised is that when police and prosecutors fail to conduct proper impartial investigations into sexual offences, it empowers fraudsters, liars and fantasists, like Jemma Beale, effectively encouraging them to try it on again and again. During my research into false allegations, I have found such cases, including that of one woman who falsely accused no fewer than seven men – all work colleagues – of rape or sexual assault, while she was working for different firms. In most cases, because the allegations were always set in an office context, each firm’s insurer opted to settle her claims quietly, out of court, without realising that she had done it all before. Her anonymity proved very convenient, as well as profitable. She made hundreds of thousands of pounds over the years.

In my own case, the two greedy liars who made false allegations against me had previously been awarded compensation for their claims against another teacher at the same school. Emboldened by their ‘success’ the first time round, they decided to return to the institutional insurer’s 'honey-pot' a second time. They failed when a unanimous jury saw through their tissue of lies in a matter of minutes. However, I am of the firm opinion that, had those lies been believed and I had been convicted, the malicious duo would have pocketed thousands more pounds in undeserved compensation and would then have started plotting to accuse falsely yet another innocent victim.

The fourth lesson is that we need some form of mechanism designed to claw back compensation payments that have been made to individuals – like Jemma Beale – who have been exposed and convicted of perverting the course of justice, perjury or fraud, whether against the CICA or institutional insurers. It is simply outrageous that she has pocketed £11,000 of taxpayers’ money without facing the prospect of having to pay back her ill-gotten gains that were obtained by fraud. Other types of criminals, including insurance fraudsters, robbers, drug dealers and embezzlers are regularly slapped with Proceeds of Crime Orders (POCAs), which strip them of their assets and recover monies and property that have been accumulated through criminal activities. Why not the likes of Beale?

The fifth lesson is, whenever a conviction has been quashed in circumstances which make it clear an accuser or prosecution witness has lied on oath, or that trials have collapsed for similar reasons, the CPS should always consider prosecuting, whether the false accuser admits to an offence or not. Of course, there may well be cases where a prosecution genuinely wouldn’t be appropriate, but, as Beale’s case demonstrates, liars, fantasists and fraudsters can and do inflict appalling damage on their immediate victims and their families, as well as on society as a whole. A failure to acknowledge this undermines our justice system and brings the police and CPS into disrepute. I am still beset with daily outrage that the two scheming liars who dragged me into Ipswich Crown Court, in 2014, have walked away with both anonymity and impunity. How can this be fair and just?

I would also suggest that, where a false accuser has been convicted of making sexual allegations against innocent victims, the courts should impose lifelong orders, giving these wronged individuals retrospective anonymity. Such an order could require the online media to remove or redact the innocent parties published names and give them the same rights as genuine victims of sexual offences. Of course, they would retain the right to waive their own anonymity, if they wished to do so. That would put a stop to websites – such as that being maintained by Jemma Beale’s family – continuing to name and smear her many victims online.

By any measure, Jemma Beale is an unrepentant criminal, as was noted by the judges at her unsuccessful appeal. She has caused immense harm to many innocent people and continues to refuse to take any responsibility for her vile crimes. In view of these facts, surely it would be appropriate for her (and others like her) to be included on a national register of serious offenders, who should be obliged to notify the police of their details and movements for the rest of their lives? Otherwise, there will be nothing to prevent her reinventing herself, once she has completed her prison sentence and licence period, and causing misery and havoc once again. That must not be allowed to happen.

The 3 Cs: Contamination, Collusion, Concoction

I was alerted to this topic during the two years (2013/14) I was under suspicion of having inappropriately touched a child in a school changing room back in the early 1980s. The allegation had absolutely no truth in it whatsoever but I was disturbed to learn that, during the so-called investigation, somebody, who had nothing whatsoever to do with the case, had appointed himself a sort of police helper and was actively touting for other complainants to come forward via postings on the internet.

In April 2014, he posted the following: 'Simon Warr's trial has been postponed until October 2014. The police have asked me to inform you all that they are still open for statements. You can DM me.' etc etc.

This seemed to be a clarion call for more former pupils to come forward. I decided to do some research into this sordid practice.

Allegations of institutional historical sexual and physical abuse have become an industry here in the UK, due to the prospect of generous compensation payments. Although the sums paid to alleged victims of sexual abuse are limited under the government’s 'Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority' (CICA), personal injury solicitors have realised that most institutions – particularly boarding schools and local authority children’s homes – have public liability insurance that offers far richer pickings for claimants. Individual claims can easily top £100,000 and many insurers prefer to settle these claims out of court, rather than incur the heavy costs of official legal proceedings and the risk of the associated negative publicity.

What I found particularly concerning is the role being played by private individuals in actively trawling online for, usually, historical allegations – true or fabricated – that can ultimately be used to claim compensation. In some cases the alleged target(s) may be deceased, but many others are still living and, in these cases, complaints can be passed onto the local police. In a few very troubling instances, the police themselves appear to be supporting these trawling operations by sharing intelligence with the private citizens who administer the web pages.

While bringing genuine sex offenders to justice is a laudable aim, there are serious problems when private, unaccountable individuals start to play a key role in identifying potential complainants, meeting them face to face privately, without witnesses or any official oversight, taking initial statements of ‘evidence’ and then coaching them prior to passing their details on to firms of personal injury solicitors and then to the local police force.

This practice raises three major concerns about the integrity of any evidence that may emerge via these ‘trawling’ operations – the 3 Cs:

• Contamination – where the individuals involved in trawling ‘implant’ (or even fabricate) memories of abuse, or make suggestions to often vulnerable or disturbed adults; or to those adults who are down on their financial luck.
• Collusion – by networking between complainants, either acting as 'a go-between' for information, or sharing unofficial statements made by other complainants from the same institution, thereby adding unmerited credibility to their allegations.
• Concoction – where completely fictitious, malicious allegations against innocent people are created and developed, before being presented to the police as spontaneous claims of sexual abuse.

Even when historical allegations of abuse may be grounded in fact, the processes of contamination and collusion – if proven – may well result in a complainant's evidence being treated as unreliable. In such cases, the intervention of online trawlers has the very real potential to do enormous harm to prosecutions. The end result may be that the guilty go free, due to the meddling of unqualified and irresponsible ‘enthusiasts’.

Moreover, there is also the inescapable fact that those who orchestrate such online trawling activities have no professional training or duty of care to anyone. Implanting or encouraging false memories can have devastating consequences, not only to an innocent target but also in cases where damaged or vulnerable people are effectively being manipulated to suit the trawler's own objectives. It isn’t unknown for this type of obsessive to publish personal details of those alleging sexual abuse, even against the wishes of the person who has disclosed highly sensitive information to him or her. In such cases, the clear goal of the online trawler is self-aggrandisement and the cultivation of a ‘saviour/hero’ figure. Any damage to those who have unwisely shared their real or fantasy experiences with such individuals is dismissed as collateral damage. In some cases, irreparable harm can be caused to families, including young children, due to irresponsible behaviour of this kind.

Of course, there are some who set themselves up as trawlers who may well have much darker motives. There are doubtless a number of individuals who find stories of sexual molestation – real or imaginary – stimulating and exciting. These voyeurs – for that is what they are in reality – enjoy listening to every salacious detail of what they are being told. Yet they would deny vehemently any such suggestion from puzzled observers, who might enquire why they are so fascinated by the sexual degradation and abuse of children. It would not be unfair to describe such obsessive characters as aural scopophiliacs… deriving their sexual pleasure from listening to other’s accounts of sexual abuse. Many of these perverts are very accomplished at hiding in plain sight.

Since private individuals – whether they be vigilantes or sexual abuse obsessives – who engage in these trawling operations are not bound by legal safeguards and rules which are designed to protect suspects from the contamination of evidence or collusion between accusers, any police investigation that has been launched as a result of information emerging from this type of trawling may well be compromised from the very beginning, especially if the role played by the trawler is actively concealed by detectives from the defence and the jury in criminal trials. There is a very real risk of miscarriages of justice and innocent people being wrongly convicted, due to the manipulation and even creation of bogus ‘evidence’, especially when prosecutors often rely on similar fact evidence to convince juries of a defendant’s guilt.

So we really do need to ask: how many wrongful convictions may have occurred as a direct result of this online trawling? All defence teams should be alert to possible contamination of evidence and active collusion between former pupils, as well as the concoction of completely false abuse claims by unscrupulous, malicious, mendacious adults, who are seeking substantial compensation payouts for historical institutional sexual abuse that may never have taken place outside of their own fetid, disturbed imaginations. Just like the two who accused me back in 2012.

A Modest Proposal: Polygraph

I was interested to read this week the fact that domestic abuse defendants could face mandatory lie-detector tests when released from prison, as part of the Domestic Abuse Bill. Starting back in August 2014 similar testing is already being used for some high-risk sex offenders who are subject to probation supervision after their release (read article here).

The polygraph (or lie-detector) machine has been around since the early 1920s and was invented by an American police officer, John Larson. The instrument measures a person's blood pressure, pulse and breathing rates as he or she answers a series of questions. The technology is widely used across the world by law enforcement agencies, as well as intelligence services (primarily on their own agents) in the hunt for spies and moles.

Unfortunately, there have been numerous cases over the decades of people beating the technology. Psychopaths and sociopaths, for example, who usually have much lower anxiety levels than the average person, seem more able to defeat the machine. Hence, here in the UK, quite rightly, we do not rely on any polygraph data in our courts of law. Such results are deemed inadmissible as evidence.

This stated, I do think there is a role these machines can play in the pursuit of justice outside the courtroom. I refer particularly to claims of 'historical’ sex abuse and in the police’s initial decision whether or not to pursue a complainant’s allegations with a full-scale investigation.

Since 2012, UK police forces have been pretty much swamped by adults coming forward to claim that they were abused as children. Many of the allegations go back over thirty years or even longer. A few accusations have even dated back to the 1950s. The very nature of these claims means that there cannot be a shred of actual evidence of whether or not the complainant is telling the truth.

Accordingly, the m.o. of the police, in an era of the ludicrous mantra 'you will be believed’, is nearly always to arrest and charge the accused and let a jury decide who they think (or just guess) is telling the truth: accuser or accused. I know from experience that once the police raid and ransack an accused person’s home, confiscating his or her most intimate possessions, reading every email/text message, letter and diary that the target has either sent, received or written, scrutinising every personal photograph and video, they will do everything in their power, backed by the full force of the state, to railroad that target into court.

Nothing but a full and frank confession by the accuser that he or she has been telling a pack of lies from the start will stop the investigating officers from doing all in their immense power to have the accused person found guilty in a court of law. The result is a plethora of innocent people are having their reputations ruined, their lives effectively destroyed, just because these agents of the state know they have the full backing of the overwhelming majority in our society and seemingly unlimited resources at their disposal.

Both personally, as well as through my current research into false allegations, I have come to know of so many innocent people who have committed suicide soon after they have been arrested and have had their name plastered all over the local, in some cases national, press. Politicians have little, if any, interest in any of this, of course, because speaking up for innocent people accused of historical abuse will not curry favour with the electorate and the vast majority of MPs care only about popularity and securing as many votes as possible in the next election. Ensuring the repair of pot holes in the local roads is a far more rewarding cause, given the constant pursuit of popularity by the average parliamentarian.

For many in society, it has been the case until recently (as more and more cases come to light about vital evidence being concealed by the CPS and the police, the general public are beginning to become rather more sceptical) that if a person has been accused of child abuse, he or she deserves everything that he or she gets. With innocent people's reputations destroyed, there are even some innocent targets who end up spending time at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.

Our prisons are stuffed full of people serving time without a shred of actual evidence having been presented at trial beyond the word of the accuser and, if police trawling has been effective, others who have either been in cahoots all along with the original complainant or who have read about the accused person's arrest and, prompted by the thought of a hefty pay-out in the event of a guilty verdict, throw their proverbial hat into the ring. After all, what have they got to lose?

Which brings me back to the polygraph test. Would it not be prudent to make use of such technology whenever a person first comes into a police station to allege historical abuse, which, by its nature, as I have already explained, cannot produce any evidence as to whom is telling the truth, the accuser or the accused. Both parties could be required by law to undertake such a test to help the police decide whether they are going to invade an accused person’s life, at the start of an investigation, appreciating the devastation that this always causes to that person, who may well be innocent. The result of a polygraph test would not be used as definitive proof as to whether the accuser or the accused was telling the truth but, if both tests indicated the accuser was telling lies and the accused the truth, it might just influence the police to put that raid on hold until, or if, some other indicator came to light as how to proceed.

Of course, a positive indication that an accused person is lying about their innocence might also persuade them to enter an early guilty plea, so my proposal isn't just one-sided. Genuine victims of sexual abuse might be spared long drawn out police investigations, as well as having to give evidence, if a polygraph test supports an abuser's guilt and encourages them to admit their crimes.

Above all, this guessing game which can destroy those who are not guilty of any crime – or even kill – must stop. Are we prepared to allow the destruction of innocent people’s reputations and careers when it could be avoided by the use, very early in an historical sex investigation, of one of Mr. Larson’s instruments? I would gladly have volunteered to take such a test in late 2012, as it might have saved me 672 days of torment on bail, not to mention my successful teaching career – which was ended despite a unanimous jury acquitting me in a matter of minutes. I daresay my false accuser, in the same circumstances, would have thought twice about spewing forth his totally groundless, filthy lies told in pursuit of hoped-for compensation.

Some Fraudsters Go Unpunished

There was an excoriating article, penned by journalist Beth Hale, in Saturday's 'Mail', entitled: 'The £670,000 Grenfell Ghouls', about the (so far) 14 despicable chancers who have lied about being in the Tower when the deadly fire took place (link). The word used to describe these crooks was 'despicable' but I daresay any reader will find their behaviour so repellent, so contrary to human decency, that he or she may come up with a stronger adjective more compatible with the heinous crime.

All of these convicted fraudsters have claimed tens and thousands of pounds in compensation, from money which was raised to offer some succour to the real victims of Grenfell in their desperate hours of need. The amounts handed out to the imposters run upwards from Mohammed Gamoota's £6,264 to the incredible sum of £103,475,60, which was claimed by the repugnant specimen of humanity, Sharife Elouahabi. By the end of Ms Hale's article, I was quietly spitting feathers, as the saying goes.

Then it occurred to me all that these selfish, greedy, shameful cheats/liars/fraudsters had in their minds when they claimed to have been directly affected by the fire was pecuniary gain… their actions, however greedy, mean and shabby, didn't directly lead to the complete ruin of another human being's reputation and career. These were crimes of acquisition, rather than malicious destruction.

Then I thought of the two malignant liars who told the police I had acted inappropriately in a school shower room after I taught them P.E. in the early 1980s (a subject in which I have never taken a class in my entire career). It was subsequently proven that their allegations had absolutely no truth in them whatsoever. Yet they peddled these lies to the police because they saw it as a chance to get their filthy, grubby hands on yet more compensation money after they had successfully pressed a previous claim against another teacher. Because such claims are made against the school’s institutional insurers, we're talking about tens of thousands of pounds. I presume these appalling scammers were hoping for a similar payment the second time around.

The difference between the Grenfell fraudsters and the two cheating liars who accused me is the latter knew their false claims would inevitably lead to my personal destruction and public humiliation. And they couldn't have cared less. They must have been aware that another teacher from the same school had been accused just months before they made up their lies against me and he had committed suicide. Still they were prepared to make up a pack of lies for their own iniquitous ends. It was utterly sadistic.

And what repercussions have these two justice perverters faced since the truth has emerged? Nothing. Rien. Nichts. Niente.

While the police quite correctly pursue all those bogus Grenfell degenerates and bring them to deserved justice - involving prison sentences and their names being splashed across the national press in the process - the two malignant fraudsters who dragged me into a court of law have faced no consequences for what is unarguably a much worse crime, particularly in terms of the human cost of their wicked lies. Not only have they not been punished, but the state has allowed them to carry on with their lives with anonymity. Some may argue that, at least, I have the comfort of knowing they are living out the rest of their lives with utter shame about lying but, of course, any people who have it in them to make a false allegation of sexual abuse have a different moral code from the vast majority of the human race. Such people are pure evil. And, since my two accusers are hiding behind the anonymity granted to them by law, who knows whether they might strike again by targeting another innocent victim?

I am just one of many in a similar position: since 2014, I have met so many who have suffered a similar fate to my own. The only ones who have found justice are those whose accusers have finally admitted to having lied. But these cases are so rare. Meanwhile, we all throw up our hands in horror when reading about chancers like the 'Grenfell Ghouls', as they are brought to justice to pay for their sins in the full humiliating glare of national publicity, while even worse monsters carry on with their lives without so much as a slap on the wrist.

False Allegations: Innovation of Justice Speech

Text of the speech delivered by Simon Warr at the Innovation of Justice Conference, University of Manchester, Saturday 24th November 2018

False Allegations

I want you to form a picture in your mind - you have devoted the best part of 35 years to school mastering - and when I use the verb 'school mastering', as opposed to merely teaching - I refer to a career not just imparting knowledge in a classroom, but also coaching over 70 senior sports' teams, producing and directing over 30 major school plays and musicals, and being a Housemaster to over 70 adolescent boys; i.e. totally immersing yourself in educating teenage children. Then, in the blink of an eye, everything you have built up over more than three decades is, for no good reason, smashed to pieces by agents of the state.

Photo courtesy of Innovation of Justice

It was an immensely rewarding career in so many ways and, still only in my 50s, I felt, as I went to bed on the 17th of December 2012, at the start of the Christmas holidays, as fresh as ever. Apart from attending the funeral of my adoptive mother in 1999, I'd not missed a single day of school in all that time. That night in December 2012, I slept as soundly as ever, knowing that, after another busy term, I didn't need to wake up to the alarm clock the following day, I could sleep in for as long as I wished.

As it turned out, I was awoken the following morning at 7.15am by a loud wrapping on my kitchen door. Who could this be at such an unearthly hour? As I quickly descended the stairs, I presumed it was the property services department coming to service my kitchen boiler. 

'Who is it?'
'The Suffolk police - open the door.'

Unsurprisingly, this announcement came as a shock. I struggled to find the kitchen door key, in spite of the fact it was in its usual place.

'Open the door, now!' The message was clear and uncompromising. I thought momentarily they were going to smash their way in.

As soon as I had opened the door, four police officers barged past me and the fifth one read me my rights. I was being arrested for the alleged historical abuse of a former pupil at St. George's School, where I had spent teaching for two years during the early 80s. I had absolutely no recollection of the name they gave me. I can't mention his name to you now because he has the luxury of lifelong anonymity, even though it was subsequently proven beyond any reasonable doubt that, when he accused me of touching him inappropriately in a shower room 30 years previously, he was lying through his teeth. More of him and his mendacious ways to come.

The police were ruthless in their m.o. at my home that morning - cold/efficient/clinical/harsh. They had absolutely no regard for the trauma they were putting me through. I can't imagine their approach would have been much different had I been accused of plotting to blow up number 10 Downing Street.

As they were tossing my possessions onto the floor, in a desperate attempt to find anything incriminating to support their case - and be in no doubt when the police decide to raid a suspect's home, they have absolutely no intention of carrying out their perceived duties in a fair, balanced manner - all they are concerned with is 'evidence to support the guilt of their target.' As they were rummaging through every book/magazine/DVD/photo/piece of private correspondence, a mobile phone belonging to one of the officers rang:

'I'll ask him. Where is the key to the small bedroom in your flat?'

I then realised they were simultaneously raiding my private accommodation in London. I was told to wash and dress and was escorted to an awaiting car by two officers as the rest of the team continued their search.

If I can draw a parallel, my feelings of shock were, at that time, akin to being told a member of one's close family had suddenly died or that you had just been diagnosed with a serious illness. I felt total despair because I knew immediately just to be arrested for alleged child abuse is the end of one's life as you'd known it.

At Ipswich police station, finger prints and DNA were taken and I was put into a cell. And that is where I languished for the next five hours, sitting on an excuse for a bed, staring at a blank wall, wondering how on earth this nightmare had come about. I kept repeating the name of my accuser over and over in my head but I was none the wiser. (Ultimately, this was of no surprise when it became clear I had had little, if anything, to do with the liar). Around about lunchtime, I was escorted to a police interview room and the allegation was put to me and I was asked to comment.

As Ann Widdecombe wrote in her Daily Express column in March 2017: 'I have just finished reading a book called 'Presumed Guilty', by Simon Warr, a teacher falsely accused of child abuse. He was acquitted by a jury in under 40 minutes - during which time, as he points out, the jurors had to go to the loo, settle in their jury room and elect a foreman. By the end of the book I was shaking with outrage because all the evidence which acquitted him was there from the very start of the police investigation.'

The allegation was that, after teaching this former pupil of St. George's P.E., when he was just 11 years of age, I had checked to see he was dry in a shower room in an inappropriate manner by asking him to bend over and inspect his bottom. When he had first made the complaint, just after he had been awarded a hefty payout having accused another member of staff of sexual abuse, he made no mention of my having touched him. At that point the police informed him the allegation was insufficient to have me arrested. No arrest meant no compensation, of course.

Six months later, after Jimmy Savile's alleged exploits exploded into the media, my accuser decided he now remembered, yes, I did touch his genitals. He had put it back to the deep recesses of his mind but, seeing and hearing me in the media repeatedly during 2012 had jolted his memory. Now the police had enough for my arrest.

I explained to the police that afternoon in the interview room, a) I had never taught a lesson of P.E. in my entire career and b) I am a secondary school teacher and, at the age of 11, he would have been in the junior part of the school. I gave them the names of the members of the discrete St. George's P.E. department and presumed they would locate these people to confirm if I were telling the truth.

They didn't bother. The ironic thing is most of these P.E. teachers were still living and working in Suffolk. I repeat, they didn't bother to follow up the leads. Why? One can only assume they WANTED me to be guilty.

I was on bail for the next nine months as, what I now know, the police tried desperately to find other former pupils to come forward. One ex-pupil of St. George's did but he happened to be a close friend of my initial accuser! They had both waived their anonymity after the outcome of the previous court case against another teacher, when both secured tens of thousands of pounds in compensation. In fact, they were so close that, immediately after that case, they both gave an interview to a tabloid newspaper (still no mention of me, of course) about all the awful things which had happened to them at St. George's. This friend who now came forward made no allegation of touching - he just confirmed my checking after P.E. lessons. 

Needless to state, even though the police had access to my mobile and computer records, to every email and letter I had ever written and received, to every photo I had taken or been sent, to every personal card I had received, my accusers had conveniently no internet history for the eventual defence team to access because it had all been supposedly lost. Wasn't that handy?

After months of trawling, the police finally managed to get hold of a person who had been a pupil in my boarding house in the school where I had been teaching for the previous 30 years, who, after much encouragement, alleged that,, in 1991, I had chased him a round the house day room (in full view of every other pupil), trying to pinch his bottom. This was the allegation that the police and the CPS needed to charge me. After all, it would have been difficult for anyone to believe I would act inappropriately at a school 30 years previously and then nothing at all at the school where I had taught for the past three decades. It wasn't much for the police officers but at least it was some reward for their months of trawling.

I'll just say a few words about trawling: trawling is the method used by the police to search and, in some cases, advertise for fresh complainants. Advertise, I hear you shout, NEVER. Yes, advertise - in my case a businessman in Newbury volunteered himself to act as an agent for the police. The police reckon, quite correctly as it happens, that the more complainants who step forward, even if those complaints are weak and/or unlikely, the more chance the police and CPS have of convincing the jury that the person in the dock is a dirty old man. What's more, any allegations which emerge as a result of trawling are presented to juries as if they were entirely spontaneous when, in point of fact, they are anything but.  

Is it not obvious to anyone with an I.Q. above the day's temperature that there is an enormous difference between spontaneous complaints made by individuals who have no connection with each other, and who have not read about the accused online or in a newspaper, and those manufactured through collusion? Is anyone really surprised that people make allegations when the police fish for complaints and, of course, there is a chance of an ultimate hefty compensation payout, often more money than many of these accusers have had access to in their entire lives. 

I state here and now that trawling operations are the most dangerous development in the history of police investigations. They have been allowed to become more and more widespread to the point of becoming standard practice, despite Parliament having legislated to put a stop to such investigative procedures through the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

One thing is for certain: trawling is a sure method of destroying the presumption of innocence. What's more, because of the particular characteristics of trawling operations, potential witnesses might be pressurised into making exaggerated or even false statements. I want to read a section from a statement written by the ex- Head boy from St. George's, now a successful teacher and child protection officer at a school in Hampshire, after he had been visited by the Suffolk police in 2014:-

'I was approached by the police earlier this year; they visited my home and took a statement. I was asked repeatedly by the police about his supervision of post P.E. showers and I told them repeatedly he never did this. In my entire time at St. George's, I never heard any rumours regarding Mr. Warr and of any improper conduct on his part.'. 

He goes on to state: 'The police were not impartial. They made it clear that Mr. Warr was guilty of abusing children and that he would be convicted without question.'  The person states finally, 'As you can imagine, I was very upset  by this visit and had to take some time off work to get things right in my head.'

Now, just suppose, this successful professional man had been someone quite different... down on his luck or perhaps a certain antipathy towards his former teachers due to having been disciplined unfairly as he viewed it… the police come to visit and that person is soon left in no doubt what they want him to say. The likelihood, of course, is he will give the police what they want, particularly as he will be well aware that a fat wad of cash will be coming his way if there is a guilty verdict.

Another ex-pupil of mine, now a City high flyer, who was interviewed over the phone about me, was very direct when he emailed the police after being told he would not be required to give a statement:-

'You don't seem to be at all interested that, in my experience, Simon never acted in a way that these allegations could be true... it is pretty clear that you are not interested in actually investigating whether these allegations are indeed true, you are just searching for any old scrap to assassinate his character. Very worrying, and in light of current high profile cases falling down, you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves.' Bold words from a bold man.

Despite the absence of any evidence, other than the suspect claims of a pair of palpable chancers, I was charged with seven counts of historical abuse on the 10th of September, 2013. The story was given a large spread in one of the daily nationals, the same newspaper making absolutely no mention of my case when I was acquitted at Ipswich Crown Court 13 months later. Surprised? Thought not.

I quickly learned that I was basically on my own in preparing my defence and I was up against the generous resources of a police incident room team. As police budgets were being cut, alleged historical abuse inquiry teams seemed free to spend money like there was no tomorrow. The trial date was set for March 2014 but, as the date approached, the prosecution seemed unable to get their house in order in time and the date was put back to October 2014, nearly two years after I had been originally arrested (672 days, to be precise). As soon as news hit the net of the postponement, the Newbury businessman was appealing on behalf of the police for others to come forward... oh, so this is why the trial has been postponed, I thought.

Eventually the time arrived and in October 2014, I was put into that glass cage where all defendants have to sit and I was forced to sit through two days of the prosecution case, two days of the most preposterous, the most absurd lies I have ever had to endure. The two main complainants came across as damaged individuals but the fact which was most clear to all in the court was they were both lying through their teeth.

How on earth did we arrive at a situation in which the police decide at the outset that a suspect, an accused person, is guilty and they then proceed to so-called 'investigate' in a totally biased, unjust manner? How is it the CPS and the police work so closely on cases, when the CPS itself was introduced in 1986 as an independent body as a result of public disquiet about the police railroading suspects into court?

When the platinum-haired DJ Jimmy Savile died in 2011 and subsequent allegations about his conduct came to the fore, I believe a collective insanity gripped sections of our society here in the UK. The police were embarrassed by the revelations because they had ignored repeated disquiet about his conduct around young women. Operation Yewtree was duly set up and the CPS and police set out on a path of revenge. 

Who can ever forget those words which fell from the mouth of the then Director of Public Prosecutions in 2013, Keir Starmer: 

'Complainants - only he used the word 'victims' - complainants who come forward to allege historical abuse will be believed.' He used the verb 'believe' - accept as true or conveying the truth! This was the message he was issuing to the police - believe complainants. Mr. Starmer, I shouted at the radio, it is not the police's job to believe or disbelieve either the complainant or the accused - it is their job, in any decent, civilised society, to investigate without fear or favour. So, it became clear, traditional safeguards which protect those who are accused were to be abandoned. The assumption that someone is innocent until proven guilty was to be thrown away and the police were being told to set about their work with a 'prosecute at all costs' mindset. The CPS would now be able to charge despite the case presented to them having being built upon weak, uncorroborated, disputed allegations. 

Soon afterwards, an official line was issued from above: 

'Using the lack of corroboration of a complainant's account to justify a decision to drop proceedings is flawed.'

The police were now in almost overdrive, as anyone accused of historical child abuse was akin to a lamb to the slaughter. The effective removal of the need for corroboration in cases of historical sexual charges (which, incidentally, is still required in Scottish law), in conjunction with the judges' failure to caution a jury as to this important issue, has made it much more likely that malicious false allegations can be placed before a jury in the guise of firm evidence. An unsupported allegation is now viewed as evidence in its own right - a perfect gift for any liar, fantasist or fraudster. The obvious collusion between my two complainants was not looked into by the police, who accepted what they had to say as the absolute truth. Indeed, one of the interviewing officers said to me: 'Here we have a similar allegation being made by another pupil in the changing room. What have you got to say about this?'  She seemed to be suggesting this suggested that both were telling the truth.

 Nor did the police make any effort to access the online and phone activity between the two friends just prior and just after my arrest. This is common practice. Service providers are happy to provide the police with a suspect's online activity in murder or financial fraud investigations but no such effort is made when an accuser's testimony is challenged by the defence in alleged sexual abuse cases. These so-called police investigations of alleged historical sexual abuse are so biased that officers are allowing complainants to hide their online history and to revise their statements once the police have interviewed the accused. Thus, even if the accused can demonstrate a firm alibi, dates and times can be altered by the prosecution team prior to any court trial. 

Further to this, it is now incumbent on the defence to serve a pre-trial statement, which has made it much easier for the police to alert complainants about any evidence that might otherwise undermine a prosecution case. And if anybody fighting for his reputation and career thinks the police will interview any potential witnesses mentioned by the defendant during initial interviews, you will be sorely disappointed. I learned this through first hand experience. I handed them names of those who could prove my innocence. They didn't bother to pursue any line of inquiry which might cast doubt upon their complainants' allegations. And I use the possessive adjective 'THEIR' pointedly. The police manacled themselves to the allegations - the complainants were offered succour, total police support throughout. 

And it wasn't just the police who were keen to have me hung, drawn and quartered in a court of law, so too were the Personal Injury lawyers, those 'No Win, No Fee' solicitors, those heroes riding on their white chargers to save the abused; they were waiting in the wings throughout the initial stages, prompting and encouraging the complainants. In the motor industry, these people are referred to as 'ambulance chasers'. They and those whiplash claims have finally been sussed, so these self- appointed saviours have turned their attention to the sexual abuse allegation industry, realising they are on much safer ground because the whole topic is so sensitive, there is little chance of anyone calling them to account. They rarely tout for business within families, of course, because there's so little money to be made; they far prefer organisations, like schools, hospitals, the Church, where there is almost always an insurance policy from which to claim. 

One of the most dangerous trends for any society is when police investigations and prosecutors' charging decisions are based upon ideological notions, rather than following the law. And one of these symptoms is when the prosecution and police withhold evidence from the defence team.

Over the past year we have read about numerous court cases which have been abandoned on account of a failure by the CPS and the police to disclose key evidence, usually found on electronic equipment, to the defence. The recent experience of Liam Allen is known to us all, of course. But his is just one case among many. The excuse offered is the prosecution is usually overburdened and this has resulted in these gross errors, if they are indeed simply 'errors'. 

If I might point out, with regard to being overburdened, I was left to conduct my own entire defence during 2013/14, without any help, financial or otherwise, from anywhere nor from anyone. I managed. Of course, we have to concede that, since 2010, there have been swingeing cuts within the CPS - 1/4 of its budget and 1/3 of its staff but this cannot, and must not, be an excuse for negligence or tampering with due, just process. The situation has got so bad that juries have now become wise to the prosecutors and police withholding vital evidence. If we do not address this disclosure issue urgently, palpably guilty defendants will be acquitted because jury members will be unsure whether or not they've heard the whole truth from the prosecuting team.

An admission that errors had been made have had to be ripped out of the chief prosecutors - only last year the recently retired Director of Public Prosecution (2013-2108), Alison Saunders, was asserting without equivocation that there were no innocent people in prison as a result of disclosure failures. Yet, recently the CPS Inspectorate Report stated that 'there has been a steady stream of miscarriages of justice.' It pains me to think of all those currently banged up who are completely innocent of the charges for which they were found guilty. Will they ever achieve proper justice? Highly unlikely.

And, what happens to those who lie and lie again for their own greedy, malicious and narcissistic reasons? When it is eventually obvious a complainant has been feeding the police and prosecutors a pile of lies, what happens? 

When I went to Bury St. Edmunds police station in November 2014, after the conclusion of my trial, to retrieve my possessions which the police had removed from my homes, I asked the chief investigative officer whether I would, at the very least, be receiving an apology from the two liars. Her immediate answer: 'That's not going to happen.' 

But they had been proven to be lying, what's more perjuring themselves in a court of law, for their own iniquitous ends, but I was being told that they were to face no repercussions. The main reason, of course, comes down, once again, to the fact that the police had offered them succour, had supported them throughout the process, even encouraged them, so they were now, after more than 672 days, unable to swap sides and carry out their duty. The police had, as they often do in this type of investigation, compromised themselves. 

My two accusers have lifelong anonymity despite having ruined my successful teaching career, having had me thrown out of my home and community of thirty years, having destroyed my reputation and made me the target of appalling online abuse, and they were being allowed to walk away unpunished. Had they invented a more plausible pack of lies, I could well have lost my freedom. So while they've walked away scot free, it is I who continue to suffer. Don't think for a moment that if you are found not guilty in a court of law, that's the end of the matter. These cases can destroy an accused person utterly, regardless of the outcome of any trial. A couple of hundred years ago a criminal would have been branded on his forehead - nowadays the internet does the branding but, unlike in yesteryear, you don't have to be found guilty of having committed a crime to be indelibly marked for life.

I repeat the present m.o. is so iniquitous that the two liars have continued their lives as if nothing had happened, yet they both lied and lied again. Is this a fair way of operating? Is this proper justice in action? 

When I went to see my local M.P. last year, her response was one of uninterest - there are no votes and public approbation for dealing with unscrupulous fantasists and liars who accuse innocent people of abuse, of course.  As I sat in front of this elected M.P., explaining the iniquities of it all, she looked almost bored. Needless to state, I've heard nothing back. 

To sum up, then, and I apologise if some of these points are blindingly obvious:-

1. The police must investigate all allegations of crime, regardless of the type of crime, without fear or favour.
2. Police trawling must cease forthwith.
3. We must put a stop to the handing out of large sums of money in compensation. Somebody who has been genuinely abused should be offered, at the state's expense, unfettered access to the best psychological treatment, knowing the perpetrator is locked up at Her Majesty's Pleasure for many years.
4. Because child abuse is a crimen exceptum, anyone accused of child abuse, whether historical or recent, should be granted anonymity until found guilty in a court of law. because once a suspect's name is made public, he/she will be tarnished forever.

What is vital is that we don't inadvertently bring about some kind of ethical collapse: in a bid to safeguard the lives of innocent children and to repair their own reputation, the police and CPS's approach to their investigations cannot continue to be a weapon for destroying the lives of innocent adults.

I finish with the words of that outstanding author, recently deceased, Richard Webster: 'In its zeal to believe ALL allegations, the police and CPS have betrayed the very people it seeks to protect.'

The Victim Vanishes

In recent months I have gained the distinct impression that the tide has started to turn against those who make false allegations – especially those of a sexual nature. There is still a long way to go, but there does appear to be a greater public awareness of the fact that false accusations are not as rare as some vocal campaigners would like us to believe.

Indeed, there is a greater willingness in the media to report on cases where malicious allegations have been made, as well as giving a voice to innocent victims whose lives have been devastated or to the grieving families of those who have committed suicide because they were unable to cope with the intense pressure and utter misery of being falsely accused of sexual abuse.

The way in which the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) deal with allegations of sexual misconduct is also coming under intense scrutiny, with questions being raised in Parliament and in the courts. Urgent reviews of thousands of current cases have led to hundreds of these prosecutions being dropped owing to relevant evidence either having not been disclosed to the defence or new material (especially electronic communications, such as text messages) being produced belatedly which casts significant doubt on claims made by the complainant.

The recent collapse of certain high-profile prosecutions – including that of former pop mogul Jonathan King – raises yet more questions about the conduct, methods and even probity of some police investigations. All of this controversy has led to an official call to abandon the ludicrous dogma of ‘you will be believed’ – which applied specifically to allegations of a sexual nature, no matter how bizarre or fantastical the claims being made might be. (I still can't believe that someone in such a prominent legal position - Keir Starmer, then Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) - could have uttered such a pathetically puerile, preposterous statement). The utter fiasco of the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Midland (2014-2016) alone – at a cost to the taxpayer of £2.5 million, plus substantial compensation payments made to victims such as Lord Bramall and Lady Brittan, should have been proof enough that suspending disbelief and simply accepting that every bizarre tale told to police was ‘credible and true’ was the road to ruin. And so it has turned out to be.

Pressure is also mounting for a review of older sexual convictions, where dubious police practices and highly skewed methods of investigating (such as failing to check any of the allegations being made against relevant facts, or refusing to interview relevant witnesses whose testimony might assist the defence in any way) might well have led to miscarriages of justice. Although there remains a marked reluctance on the part of the authorities – especially the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) and the Court of Appeal – to acknowledge the potential scale of these possible wrongful convictions, more and more scrutiny by the media and campaigning groups will make a policy of obstinate refusal much more difficult to sustain.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of unjustly convicted people and their families are now demanding effective redress, starting with the urgent review of cases where prisoners and ex-prisoners are maintaining their innocence. Once the floodgates have been opened in a few high profile convictions, the flow through the CCRC and the Court of Appeal may prove difficult to ignore.

However, while there are some positive developments ongoing, the plight of the innocent victims of malicious false accusations – whether prosecuted and acquitted or not – remains largely unaddressed. Moreover, until vindictive liars, compensation-grubbing fraudsters and attention-seeking fantasists are routinely prosecuted and brought to justice for their crimes, the risks of making a bogus complaint to the police will remain extremely low.

And the damage that these malicious false accusations inflict also needs to be recognised and addressed. One of the rarely acknowledged by-products of the false sexual accusation industry is that of the innocent victim who becomes a ‘non-person’ as a result of the negative publicity generated by these allegations. I’ll explain what I mean by this. Most successful professional people, who are often the target for compensation-hunting liars, have a wide social network, including a significant social media ‘footprint’. Such folk are often active in their local communities – making a positive contribution to a wide range of organisations and causes, such as charities or clubs. Their names – and reputations – are well-known and, thus, very vulnerable to any kind of scandal.

All of this good work is undone overnight as soon as a false accusation of a sexual nature has been made. This can also be true, of course, following a bogus claim of other forms of misconduct, including embezzlement, fraud or violence, but it needs to be recognised that alleged sexual offences are the crimen exceptum of our age: crimes considered so exceptionally terrible that the normal rules of evidence and justice need not be followed. This perverse doctrine was established during the Middle Ages when superstitious panics about witches led to appalling injustices, including torture and judicial murder following shockingly unfair show trials where the only ‘evidence’ was the demented or malicious ravings of the accusers.

Such medieval attitudes were revived during the so-called ‘satanic panics’ of the 1980s and 1990s, when reason seemed to go out of the window and mob rule – encouraged by the most irresponsible and sensationalist reporting by the media – led to literal 20th century witch hunts, under the banner of what is still called ‘satanic ritual abuse’. From there it was a short step to suspending rational investigation when it came to any accusation of sexual misconduct, especially if children (or adults claiming to have been sexually abused when they were minors) were involved.

The logical conclusion of all this nonsense was the idiotic dogma of ‘you will be believed’, promulgated, as mentioned above, by the then DPP Keir Starmer (now a Labour MP and shadow minister) and followed by the present incumbent of that office, Alison Saunders. Although this policy has now been utterly discredited, it remains to be seen how long it takes to filter down to police attitudes and practices at the front line.

Yet, in many cases, it doesn’t even require a prosecution to wreck the lives of innocent victims of false accusations. Reputations that have taken years to build up can be shattered in seconds by malicious gossip, especially when such allegations are broadcast via social media. One popular tweet on Twitter, or a post on Facebook, can incite mobs – both online and on the street – to target people who have never even been arrested or interviewed by the police, let alone charged or prosecuted.

Businesses, lives and careers can be destroyed overnight, professionals suspended pending further enquiries, homes targeted and families (including children of victims) bullied and intimidated. I have been dealing, in recent years, with a number of fathers who are not even allowed to live in the same house as their own children. Others are so afraid for their safety and that of loved ones that they have to flee their homes and go into hiding, or to seek refuge with friends’. And, on top of all this, the names of the accused can suddenly be ‘wiped out’: organisations and institutions that were once proud to be associated with him or her immediately drop the accused like the proverbial ‘hot potato’.

This is particularly noticeable when teachers have been accused of any form of misconduct: suspension from work is always immediate. And within a matter of days, or even hours, the very existence of such a person is often erased from websites and official records, as if they had never worked there. Even group photographs can be doctored to remove the pariah. It is strongly reminiscent of the concept of an ‘unperson’ during the Stalinist purges in the 1930s, when every trace of the accused person had to be removed until it seemed that he or she never even existed.

Since I was the victim of malicious false accusations in 2012, made by two vile lying fraudsters intent on cashing in on the institutional insurance gravy train, I have lost count of the number of social events and school functions – including colleagues’ retirement parties, school sports days and the like – to which I have not been invited, despite my 35 year career as, if I say so myself, a highly dedicated, hard working teacher. The fact that at trial I was acquitted in a few minutes by a unanimous jury counted for nothing. The damage was done by the mere existence of pretty absurd sexual allegations, regardless of the fact it was patently clear by the end of the trial that the pair of low lives who accused me had made the whole story up.

I say it again - why have they not been arrested? I had my life turned upside down on account of obvious lies: but when the truth emerged, nothing was done to the accusers and I am seemingly still persona non grata at the school where I worked for 30 years. How on earth does this stack up?

We live in an era of foolish credulity, despite our many technological and scientific advances. Nowadays, the surest way to destroy another human being is to smear him or her with a malicious false accusation, especially if it involves the sexual abuse of a child. Whispering (or tweeting) that someone is ‘a paedo’ is the modern equivalent of screaming ‘burn the witch’. And until liars, fraudsters and fantasists are held accountable for their evil actions, and are brought to justice, every single man, woman and child remains at risk from such false allegations and the perverted mentality of the mindless mob.