The Guardian: Guilty Until Proven Innocent

[Brian Cady <brianinatlanta2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

On line at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,877201,00.html

Victims of a nudge-nudge culture 

The number of those who are guilty until proven
innocent is growing 

Mark Lawson
Saturday January 18, 2003
The Guardian 

A new club has opened up in Britain. It's rare to
apply to be a member, although Pete Townshend of the
Who just has. Usually, the newspapers put you up for
entry. It's a guild of the possibly guilty, a union of
the accused. Let's call them the Innuendi. 
There are two membership lists: the named and the
unnamed. The TV presenter Matthew Kelly entered the
first register when he was questioned by police over
allegations of child sexual abuse, which he denies.
Pete Townshend joined him, when he was questioned
during the (unconnected) Operation Ore investigation
into downloading paedophile pornography from an
American website. 

The anonymous roll of membership of the Innuendi is
currently led by a "top television presenter" and "two
former Labour ministers" who, according to some
newspapers, are among the next subjects of the
Operation Ore investigation. Also in the unnamed
category - though in an entirely different field - is
the "top England footballer" who, according to back
pages, ran up a #30,000 gambling debt during the World
Cup. The names of these supposed criminals and
miscreants are freely circulating in chatrooms and
will eventually lead to their upgrading to the
official membership lists. 

While what happened in a card school is probably the
player's own business, anything that occurs with
schoolboys isn't. Let's be clear that if any men have
committed the crimes for which they're being
investigated, there should be no escape or pity. But
note that word "if". It should be written in
five-foot-high letters of fire in the sky. 

The objection to the setting up of the Innuendi is
that the hostile media profiles, editorials, calls for
sacking and ostracism which used to follow criminal
conviction now follow arrest and questioning.
Interviewing suspects under caution is a routine part
of police procedure, but the public is now encouraged
to assume that this means guilt. This is simply wrong.
The gleeful assumption in some newspapers that Kelly's
television career is now over would have been
questioned even in the Soviet legal system. 

For unidentified members of the club, different issues
arise. Most textbooks on law for journalists warn
against the risk of "group libel". Never write blanket
defamations along the lines of "it would surprise me
if any Olympic gold medallist had not taken drugs"
because you invite suits from those whose urine has
always been pure. 

Yet, in the nudge-nudge culture, group libel has
become endemic. Barely freed from suspecting any "top
television presenter" of raping women, we now find
ourselves idly speculating about their possible abuse
of boys. Political coverage is complicated because any
"former Labour minister" who comes on screen may be
one of the tabloid-alleged paedophiles. Watching the
TV news these days has become like playing Cluedo. 

But innuendo is subject to the same objection as the
death penalty: that the pursuit of the guilty snares
innocents as well. Last autumn, the dirty-linen
laundrette in television plausibly identified at least
seven leading presenters as potential serial rapists.
It perhaps tells us something about the balance of
depravity in the medium that industry rumour
identifies only two serious contenders as the "top
telly host" who is supposedly about to be arrested for
downloading paedophile porn. 

Beyond the legal and moral objections to the games
which some newspapers and websites play, a bigger one
is that they don't play straight. Their biggest
professional foul is what's become known as "Doing a
Flitcroft" after the insistence from sections of the
press that a married footballer seeking to prevent his
adulteries being published was a "top premiership
player" and a "household name". Days of suspecting
football's superstars ended when it was finally
revealed that the philanderer was a name only in the
household of the unfortunate Mrs Gary Flitcroft. 

Before John Leslie was named as the subject of rape
allegations, newspapers supposedly protecting the
man's identity hinted that he was "one of television's
biggest names" and "married and living in the home
counties", none of which applied to Leslie, although
this profile fitted innocent others. (In a similar
linguistic trick, the police description of the
allegations against Matthew Kelly as "historic" - cop
jargon for a long time ago - was used by some
journalists with the modern implication of
unprecedented.) 

Yet at least those people falsely numbered among the
Innuendi suffer their irritation in private. For
people who are publicly inducted into the club, the
consequences are horrible. Are we really happy to live
in a culture in which people have their careers
wrecked before any charges are made against them? And
where, even if charges do follow, the trials may well
become untenable because of the level and nature of
publicity? 

There are bigger consequences for our culture beyond
the threats to the legal system and the ancient
presumption of innocence. Recent events mean that all
asylum seekers and all Arabs living in Britain are
about to join the Innuendi. 

That bloke on the telly is probably a pederast. Don't
listen to his records: he's a pervert. That footballer
may well be a gambling addict. The African bloke next
door is a terrorist. Contempt for legality and
morality has created a climate in which we are
constantly encouraged to suspect.

-Brian in Atlanta
The Who This Month!
http://www.thewhothismonth.com
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