On the proviso that he’s not guilty, how the hell do 5 random women suddenly accuse someone of that? Does one decide to do it, then 4 others hop on the bandwagon?

The sad thing is that regardless of the not guilty verdict, it’ll be a long time before his image recovers, if at all. Same for that other guy from Coronation Street (not that I’ve ever watched it)

It would be a real tragedy if all these accusations against celebrities turned out to be a witch hunt in the wake of the Saville scandal.

However if they’re guilty then they should serve hard time.

Unfortunately it’s something that can be hard to prove at the best of times (see that lass who topped herself the other day), add a 60 year gap between alleged offense and trial and it’s near impossible…

As he said “there are no winners”. It is possible to have a series of false allegations especially against a famous person, equally with a number of seperate allegations you wonder if there is some truth in them. I think it was correct to bring him to trial but he’s been cleared so we accept that.

I was talking about this the other day, i couldn’t understand how they could ever prove it after so long, unless several independent witnesses came forward. But you’d have hoped if there were witnesses they would have said something at the time.

Don’t know what to believe…….

The problem with all these cases is that there isn’t any evidence. I’m amazed that any of them have made it to court. All they all amount to is

Case for the prosecution: you did this
Case for the defence: no I didn’t

Someone may well guilty, but the ability of anyone to prove that guilt, decades down the line is a very difficult, if not impossible proposition.

I doubt any of these high profile cases will end in guilty verdicts

They managed to find Stuart Hall guilty so time isn’t always a barrier

Even the “you did this” evidence didn’t come across as being too credible;

In court, the woman making the rape claims changed her mind about how old she was at the time.

Another woman initially told police she was warned about Mr Roache by actor Johnny Briggs, who played Mike Baldwin, but when it was discovered he was not in the show at the time she said the warning had come from a different actor.

A fifth indecent assault charge was dropped due to insufficient evidence after the woman, who accused him of abusing her in his car, told the court she had “no actual memory” of the episode.

Deidre will be pleased, she may even get her stuffed marrow out.

They managed to find Stuart Hall guilty so time isn’t always a barrier

Him pleading guilty presumably helped the case for the prosecution somewhat… 😉

They managed to find Stuart Hall guilty so time isn’t always a barrier

Hall confessed.

Him pleading guilty presumably helped the case for the prosecution somewhat…

Agreed, but I assume there was enough evidence other than the accusation to convince him to plead guilty, or possibly his conscience told him to do the right thing…

The problem with all these cases is that there isn’t any evidence. I’m amazed that any of them have made it to court. All they all amount to is

Case for the prosecution: you did this
Case for the defence: no I didn’t

Well there is more to it than that. Even in Scotland where corroboration is needed it is the case that separate crimes with single witnesses can corroborate each other where there are similarities in the facts and circumstances.

In the William Roach case it seems the jury who heard all the evidence were not convinced beyond reasonable doubt. That doesn’t mean that another case involving multiple single witnesses could not result in a conviction.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/scots-law-and-the-moorov-doctrine-1-1522450

The principle means that a number of offences witnessed by only one person can be grouped together to show a pattern of behaviour and then could be used in a court case.

The woman who said she was attacked twice – would you put yourself in a position for it to happen again if it was so bad the first time?

The principle means that a number of offences witnessed by only one person can be grouped together to show a pattern of behaviour and then could be used in a court case.

I’d imagine that with the amount of press coverage of these cases, any defence lawyer would have any case based on that as the main prosecution thrown out on day 1

20thebear – Member
The woman who said she was attacked twice – would you put yourself in a position for it to happen again if it was so bad the first time?

It’s not as simple as that.

Let me start this with the fact I don’t like Bill Roache. Never been able to stand him. However I can imagine that things must have been tough for him if he’s innocent in truth and equally difficult for the women of he was really guilty of the alleged offences. I wouldn’t like to be in either of their shoes at any time.

@ Lifer – It is if it did not happen, which we are to believe from the verdict.

A minor detail, and this is the problem with all trials,

He has not been found innocent, rather there isn’t enough evidence to say he was guilty.

How you intepretate this depends on who you are, innocent, no smoke with out fire etc etc.

TBH no one really wins a court case, the accusers are either liars or victims who haven’t had justice. The defendant is innocent or got away with it.

20thebear – Member
@ Lifer – It is if it did not happen, which we are to believe from the verdict.

Well that’s a different matter altogether. The sad fact is there are plenty of people who have been repeatedly abused who could have avoided being in ‘a position for it to happen again’. But for a myriad of reasons, didn’t.

I was on a jury recently in a case involving improper behaviour towards a minor. There was a strong feeling that the child’s family were embarrassed that their original complaint had gone as far as the Crown Court, it came across in the father’s evidence and the mother didn’t even come to Court. The defendant was a social misfit, intellectually challenged and I felt that the CPS had only brought the case because it was an easy scalp. The Police evidence was an utter shambles. I was absolutely astonished when eight of the jury voted for “guilty” before we had even considered the evidence.

Maybe Roach was guilty but he would have been just one of millions of men of his age who thought nothing of a bit of hanky-panky with a young secretary or junior colleague, so why aren’t millions of women bringing complaints against all the lecherous old men who touched them up thirty or forty years ago?

It would be a real tragedy if all these accusations against celebrities turned out to be a witch hunt in the wake of the Saville scandal.

That would be a right bloody surprise that would.

he would have been just one of millions of men of his age who thought nothing of a bit of hanky-panky with a young secretary or junior colleague

My (late) dad grew up in Liverpool and worked on the door of the Cavern in the sixties

When all this stuff started coming out, he commented that there would be arses twitching all over the place given the shennanigans that went on in the decade of groupies, the pill, and free love!

Let’s not forget this little snippet

“Coronation Street star William Roache has apologised after he appeared to suggest sex abuse victims are paying the price for their behaviour in “previous lives”.”

BBC Linkage

Let’s not forget this little snippet

“Coronation Street star William Roache has apologised after he appeared to suggest sex abuse victims are paying the price for their behaviour in “previous lives”.”

BBC Linkage

That just makes him an idiot though, which wasn’t an offence the last time I checked.

Let me start this with the fact I don’t like Bill Roache. Never been able to stand him.

How well do you know him.

i dont doubt that a young tv star surrounded by significant numbers of adoring young ladies made hay. frankly which of us males wouldnt.

on the she says he says basis of the evidence and that been the only evidence then i couldnt condemn anyone to prison for what effectivly would be the rest of his life

my real concern is for the timescale.. most of these claims surrounded eventse of 55-60 years ago.. its likely that non of the jury members would have even been alive then and so would not be able to reflect on attitudes/behaviours/ laws of the time.

in 1960 would someone be tried for sexual assualt that had allegedly happened in 1900.. i dont think so

That just makes him an idiot though, which wasn’t an offence the last time I checked.

And for all our benefits, I hope it never is 😀

That just makes him an idiot though

True, but it may also have made some of the alleged victims think about what may (or may not) have happened to them and they finally decided to come forward.

True, but it may also have made some of the alleged victims think about what may (or may not) have happened to them and they finally decided to come forward.

Apparently the first one came forward immediately after that footage surfaced…

On the proviso that he’s not guilty, how the hell do 5 random women suddenly accuse someone of that? Does one decide to do it, then 4 others hop on the bandwagon?

Something that I was unaware of until a lady on the radio mentioned it this morning was that victims of sexual crimes can claim compensation from the government. For sexual assault (non-rape) it can be a few thousand £££ (that increases massively for actual rape and/or if it can be proved to have resulted in severe mental issues). Possible motivation there…

Another woman initially told police she was warned about Mr Roache by actor Johnny Briggs, who played Mike Baldwin, but when it was discovered he was not in the show at the time she said the warning had come from a different actor.

Yeessss. She probably thought their offscreen relationship was just like their on screen one whereas in reality they were good friends.

Apparently the first one came forward immediately after that footage surfaced…

To teach him a lesson for his (being kind) somewhat misguided views? then others thought they’d join in?

Very odd situation with it’s whole basis of prosecution relient on hearsay because lets face it no one can prove it did/didn’t happen.

Yet cases where actual bodily harm or GBH go un prosecuted, despite evidence, just because they are deemed one word against another (erm as above then) My casing point the Lad on the moped who kicked a cyclist off thier bike and the cps did bugger all about it.

🙄

The CPS do seem to be applying a completely different set of criteria to other criminal prosecutions. I don’t know if this is due to the profile of the defendants, and the obvious amount of coverage it would receive.

The irony of that thing being that they’re usualy notoriously timid about prosecuting rape cases. Someone more cynical than me might suggest that those two things were linked

The CPS do seem to be applying a completely different set of criteria to other criminal prosecutions. I don’t know if this is due to the profile of the defendants, and the obvious amount of coverage it would receive.

I would imagine that in the wake of the Saville scandal they’re under pressure to “do something” about these allegations. So far we’ve had

Jim Davidson
Bill Roache
Kevin Webster

all cleared

DLT
Rolf Harris

Still on trial?

I would imagine that in the wake of the Saville scandal they’re under pressure to “do something” about these allegations

My suspicion is that its a case of ‘anyone at CPS making the decision to drop the charges would have this hung over their head forever, so we best can avoid that responsibility by putting it to a jury’

Similar scenario to the case I describe above.

Very odd situation with it’s whole basis of prosecution relient on hearsay because lets face it no one can prove it did/didn’t happen.

That’s not what hearsay is, hearsay evidence is second hand evidence.

A states that B groped her. That is A’s evidence.

C states that A told her that B had groped her. C’s evidence is hearsay – they didn’t witness the act, they were later told about it.

While hearsay evidence is of limited use in court, it is occasionally relevant and admissible, and can assist in assessing the credibility (whether that be honesty or accuracy of recollection) of a witness.

This is why the ‘culture’ of the time should allow victims to come forward without fear of persecution close to the time of the crime. In cases where action is taken quickly, the chances of accurately proving or disproving allegations are far greater than decades down the line where the basic line of Q&A goes thus:

“Twenty years ago, he groped me”

“No I didn’t”

“Yes you did”

“No I didn’t”

Etc

One good thing to emerge in recent times is the general ability for genuine victims (who are often at the margins of ‘society’ and were less likely to be believed), to come forward.

Obviously this also increases the likelihood of false accusations, so it is never clear cut.

Truth be told after Saville CPS and the establishment must be seen to be upholding the law and common decency; irrespective of who gets hurt.

What motivates someone after 30-40 years to come forward is a little more difficult to fathom….