[no subject]

Editor-At-Large: Celebs? Who cares if they're trashed?
Perfect for BBC2
Janet Street-Porter
19 January 2003


When four police officers burst into my Chelsea flat
in the late Sixties and ransacked it, I wasn't
completely surprised. Nor was I astonished when they
triumphantly produced a tiny piece of hash they had
undoubtedly planted in the back of a wardrobe. Nine
months earlier the police had paid a visit and broken
my front door down

without a search warrant. On that occasion they had
found a couple of tabs of LSD, but charges had to be
dropped as their behaviour was unlawful. Now it was
payback time. But that was back in the glory days of
Chelsea CID's "war on drugs", when hardly a week
passed without a high-profile arrest, from the Rolling
Stones to the Beatles. There was this "us and them"
feeling, that a small section of the police force
resented the clothing, sexual freedom and opinions of
a group of popular entertainers whom they saw as a
threat to society and accepted standards of behaviour.
Somehow I briefly got caught up in all this, although,
being a small fish, my subsequent #5 fine passed
without any media attention.

Now, 30 or so years later, we seem to be in the grip
of another wave of McCarthyism, and this time the
police and sections of the media are determined to
have us believe that many famous people are engaged in
sexual behaviour of an unacceptable kind.

A similar number of police offers arrived at Pete
Townshend's house to search for evidence of his
involvement with a paedophile internet site as turned
up in Manchester to detain a suspect in the war
against terrorism. Let us be perfectly clear: Mr
Townshend has not been charged with anything, but the
fact that the police helpfully told a member of the
press that he was "tearful" already has placed him in
the dock. A member of the police no doubt also
helpfully leaked Townshend's name to the Daily Mail,
providing it with its story in the first place. We are
told "other well-known people" are on the list of
6,500 British subscribers whom the police are
investigating. They are said to have arrested 50
police officers, but, apart from the two connected to
the Soham case, the other 48 have not made the front
pages of the Daily Mail and other tabloids. Are they
listed in the Police Federation's magazine? It would
be nice to know.

Of course, we live in the age of the celebrity, but
the current collusion between the police and certain
sections of the media marks a new low. Michael
Barrymore, another prominent entertainer, was forced
to answer or deny no end of questions raised by his
ex-wife and the tabloid press that had nothing to do
with the death of Stuart Lubbock but everything to do
with trial by media. Now Mr Barrymore has won a fresh
inquiry into what happened to the body of the young
man once it reached hospital. But I do not expect any
apologies to flow from anyone in his direction,
whatever the outcome. We seem to take pleasure in the
destruction of a once-adored public figure with public
failings.

Now, another popular entertainer, Matthew Kelly, aged
52, has been publicly arrested by police after a
performance in pantomime in Birmingham and held in a
police station overnight. Why? Was he likely to
abscond, or can't famous people be questioned like
normal non-violent detainees in daytime? Mr Kelly has
been questioned about allegations relating to abuse of
young boys in the Seventies. Tam Paton, former manager
of the Bay City Rollers, was held at the same time.
The London Evening Standard regaled its readers last
Thursday with the front-page headline "More TV stars
facing arrest", presumably a prospect that will sell
lorryloads of papers. I don't condone the abuse of
children in any shape or form. But are we not
witnessing a re-run of the kind of police frenzy I was
swept up in all those years ago?

In the early Seventies Matthew Kelly would have been
in his early 20s  I don't believe he was a Catholic
priest at the time, either. If the "young" boys in
question turn out to have been 16, will this whole
affair have merited the miles of column inches it has
produced? In the current battle to sell newspapers in
an advertising recession, let's be clear that the
reputations of innocent men (until proved guilty) seem
to be fair game. And speculation about more pop stars
and MPs being on any kind of list held by PC Plods at
porno central will keep the story on the back burner
until another "well-known" name is leaked. One might
be clearing up burglary in inner cities, another
dealing with beggars. But I forgot: they are not
likely to be celebrities, whose "reputations", once
besmirched, count for so little.


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