[for those who don’t know what this is about, a British TV star has been the subject of saturation coverage by the media over allegations of incidents, of at best appalling behaviour and at worst extreme sexual assault or very possibly rape. SDMB have asked us Brits not to name him, as libel laws are very different in the USA from Britain. A quick trawl through the websites of the British Red tops (or even the broadsheets or indeed the BBC) will give you all the information that you need)]
I am not debating the guilt or otherwise of this man’s situation. As I understand it several women have now gone to the police to make formal accusations of assault of a sexual nature. I would normally say that justice should take its course.
He has also not issued any writs for libel. He has been sacked from his main TV job for refusing to answer these allegations.
What I am interested in is if it would be possible for this man to receive a fair trial. From what I have read I understand that there is no forensic evidence or independent witness verification of these incidents and the man concerned claims that all such acts were fully consensual. The women did not go to the police at the time.
As such this will come down to a jury weighing the statements of witnesses and deciding accordingly.
Since the first allegation (which did not name him) he has been the subject of initially a nudge-and-wink whispering campaign amongst media types, then the internet. (For instance I first heard his name in this context the day before the initial allegation). Then he was named “by accident” on a TV show and the London Evening Standard adopted the device of reporting the “accident” to reveal his name.
Since then he has not been off the front page of any of the tabloids and all today lead with his sacking. He has also been photographed snorting something at his house, apparently boutros. At least that is the assumption.
Given the level of coverage, all of it negative and the all-pervading nature of this coverage there is surely no one in Britain who has now not heard of him and of these allegations.
So can he receive a fair trial?
If not can he be tried at all?
If he cannot does that mean that any woman who may be a victim of his alleged attacks is denied justice because of the tabloid feeding frenzy?
While there may be hardly anyone who hasn’t heard about it, that doesn’t mean that everyone has already made judgment. I would think that a number of people would take this media circus with a grain of salt and still have open minds. Whether the prosecution and defense will agree that the jury is unbiased may be interesting to watch for.
I’m wondering what happened to being innocent until proven guilty. As usual, we’re seeing a trial by media, but what else can you expect from the tabloids? Once they set their sights upon a particular person, they will find all the “dirt” they can to drag their name through the mud. Of course, they don’t want to sway public opinion, it’s all done in the name of journalism and keeping us all informed as to what’s going on in the celebrity world :rolleyes:
One thing which really doesn’t sit well with me is that none of the other alleged victims said a single word until all this business with a certain Swedish blonde hit the news. Why did so MANY women keep quiet about what happened for all these years, and why did they suddenly decide to change their tune when a celebrity got involved? The word “bandwagon” springs to mind, although perhaps I’m just being cynical here.
By no means do I wish to trivialise rape - if he really DID do it, I hope he gets sent down for a long, long time. But if he DIDN’T do it, he still isn’t going to be in all that great a position. I can’t see any TV exec ever employing him again… mud sticks and all that. While we may take the tabloid coverage with a grain of salt, there are a lot of people who blindly believe everything they read and take it as gospel.
It may even be that his lawyers aren’t issuing writs so they can use the current publicity for just that reason - to claim a trial is prejudiced.
No - I don’t think right now he could receive a fair trial.
But by the time he goes to trial - if he goes to trial - it will be a long time in the future, and once an arrest is issued, or a warrant for arrest, that means “proceedings are active” and there can be no more reporting until the trial starts (you have qualified privilege to cover trial proceedings in the UK).
The guy has been the headline story on http://www.thesun.co.uk for over a week now. Newspapers generally have been getting bolder naming sex crime suspects ever since the notorious name-and-shame campaign by the News of the World over child sex offenders - IIRC they got away with it.
He may be guilty as alleged, but he may well not be, it is not unknown for starlets to “use” their “assets” and regret it afterwards.
He has been tried in the media, and there is absolutely no statement that he could possibly make that would clear him or ease suspicion, how does one prove a negative ?
He has been treated pretty shabbily, I await an eager attack from some person who thinks I’m being sexist.
The media have largely decided that if enough of them gang up on him then he will not dare sue, myself I believe this is called bullying.
If there is a police investigation and there is enough circumstancial evidence that could convict him then the media have imperiled the case against him by their irresponsible actions.
He can argue that he cannot get a fair trial and anyway the huge attention that this has garnered will hamper investigations, there may be some women, recent victims perhaps, who now feel they cannot come forward because of all the glare.
All that has happened is that “that bloke on the telly” has filled the pages of some lazy bastard editors of the scum press.
Even if he is responsible for attacking women, those publications should be fined exceedingly heavliy for jeopardising the investigations.
You might have though the Lee Bowyer fiasco would have taught them a lesson, but no. There are dozens of comparable cases and they didn’t learn from those either. The only real danger to a free press in the UK is the behaviour of the tabloids themselves.
But they aren’t breaking any law and can say practically anything they like until or unless legal proceedings begin. It’s inevitable that their reporting will have some extrajudicial effect on the opinion of potential jurors, but it’s also impossible to measure what that effect is. It’s impossible to predict whether the central figure here will get a fair trial, and only those directly involved will know whether the outcome is just or not.
But one fact is certain - he’s gone from a job earning ~£200k pa to zero overnight entirely because of rumours circulating about him, and that’s not right.
I’m not convinced that this isn’t right – he has, after all, the opportunity to defend himself, and if he were to sue and win you can bet that his award would be huge and his career not unduly affected.
(And BTW isn’t everything one might read in a tabloid (or even in some respected periodical) rumour of one degree or another?)
For the record, I think we have appalling standards in the tabloid press, who frequently invade an individual’s privacy for cheap copy, but, reporting allegations of a serious crime against a particular celebrity who trades on a clean-cut image is fair game.
I’m not convinced that this isn’t right – he has, after all, the opportunity to defend himself, and if he were to sue and win you can bet that his award would be huge and his career not unduly affected.
(And BTW isn’t everything one might read in a tabloid (or even in some respected periodical) rumour of one degree or another?)
For the record, I think we have appalling standards in the tabloid press, who frequently invade an individual’s privacy for cheap copy, but, reporting allegations of a serious crime against a particular celebrity who trades on a clean-cut image is fair game.
On topic, I also do not think that the reporting is necessarily prejudicial. Tabloids say “he raped women”, isn’t that what the prosecutors would say.
I personally am capable of distinguishing between press-reported "facts"and truth beyond all reasonable doubt, as, I suspect, are the vast majority of potential jurors.
If anything it probably made them bolder. From memory; didn’t they get fined something like £50-100K for Bowyer which would leaave them in profit from the extra sales.
The News of the Screws had him all over the cover and inside five pages. What do they stand to lose? £100K?
The mail paid £700k to a certain ex weather girl for the book that started all this.
It remains to be seen why he hasn’t tried to sue the papers, and in any case there’s no connection between justice and ability to make a libel action stick - look at Jeffrey Archer, Elton John etc. etc. Of course it’s not true that everything we read in the tabloids is rumour - it depends on how much evidence there is to back up a story, which is the basis of the libel laws anyway.
By mentioning that he could always sue the papers if he doesn’t like being smeared there’s an implication that his failure to do so is an admission of guilt to some degree. I have opinions of my own about this man that I’ll keep to myself, other than to say that he might find them less than flattering.
But for the sake of example, let’s see if we can spot any common trends in these three cases:
[ul]
[li]Sexual assault charges are brought against clownish former MP Neil Hamilton and his wife Christine. Accuser preferred to approach PR guru Max Clifford rather than the police. Money paid to accuser by tabloid newspapers for story. Court case thrown out due to lack of evidence.[/li]
[li]Inducements paid by Metropolitan Police to prosecution witness in the Damilola Taylor murder enquiry. Evidence presented in court by witness found to be inconsistent and extremely unreliable. Case collapses after enormous public expense.[/li]
[li]Now, payments made by tabloid newspapers to certain women who had preferred to approach PR guru Max Clifford rather than the police in connection with accusations of serious sexual assault against a well-known person. Statements made by those women splashed all over the tabloids.[/li][/ul]
After murder and paedophile activity, accusation of serious sexual assault is mud that seems to stick particularly stubbornly. IMHO, the only time the papers can justify using their influence to spread such accusations is if they can indicate that the police have been slow to bring a prosecution of their own. Of course we all know that this is not their motivation where celebrities are concerned - they’re only interested in sales. The punishments need to be in proportion to the damage done.
Back to the Bowyer matter - the cost of the original trial plus the retrial was estimated at £15m od taxpayers’ money; Bowyer and Woodgate were reported to carry legal bills in excess of £1m each; The Sunday Mirror was fined £75,000.