Geezer whilst I agree with much you say you cannot condemn the media as a whole on the basis of the Sun or indeed any other individual paper, we need the media to help and inform us. Once the Police, Government, the BBC, and others in the Establishment start lying and covering up who else have we to help and inform us? Ok sometimes they get it wrong but I'd rather have a free media that sometimes makes mistakes rather than one controlled by the very forces that seek to subjugate us.

I agree and would defend the right of a free press to the hilt but am bitterly disappointed in the way they report some stories.

Take Richard. No doubt at some point a complaint of a sexual nature has been made against him. Perhaps hinting there was recoded evidence such as a video tape (hence the search) anyone could have made this complaint and I suppose the police are duty bound to investigate. Why then is the search beamed live into my front room showing the police officers arriving, departing and conducting the search? What was the point of it?

Is the evidence any more that an allegation and the police feel duty bound to have to investigate it because most of the time in the past they sat on their arses?
If it was you or I. The BBC or papers wouldn't have been interested and consequently no friends, neighbours or colleagues would be aware unless we decided to tell them of the experience. Not so in the case of Richard? Everyone now knows and some are casting negative aspirations such as live by the media die by the media!!

Hang on all that has happened is that his place has been searched and some are already drawing negative conclusions.

Remember Freddie Starr and Jim Davidson. Allegations were thrown at them too nothing was found and charges were never forthcoming. The damage to their careers was immense and it will stick.

Recall this interview with Starr? The interviewer was taking the view no smoke without fire and asked Starr pretty much what he had been up to. He was annoyed and rightly so.
Look how haggard he looks. The media have done that to him. Pretty much everyone in the Country thinks him guilty of something.



Going back to Saville. Some clever reporting and we have learnt that from a hi level NHS investigation Saville was engaged in acts of necrophilia and used to remove glass eyes from corpses in mortuaries. This is the way the press reported it and what most people have come to believe.

The official report (which is at the link below) says nothing of the sort. It mentions that a (young) nurse recalled a story that Saville dictated a story himself late at night on a ward shift saying how he used to wheel the bodies around in the mortuary 'and play with them' this is all there is on the subject and it is easy to see that in the way the story was delivered that it was banter and nothing else. The report also contains a lot of maybe's and perhaps Saville did this. Plenty of allegations but nothing substantive where he can be pinned down to a time and place.

Again with Harris. Convicted and sent down, the evidence (which we have discussed before) on this board seems very weak. Of the two witnesses which could actually place him at a time and date one had already sold her story to an Aussie newspaper for £40k and the other was party to an very acrimonious split (including the denial of Harris to fund a very expensive venture£100k+) at the end of a long relationship. Both these people had axes to grind.

So where are we with all this? Plenty of celebs are up there front and centre in some cases being sent down whereas the people that matter are being left alone as the public attention is being diverted elsewhere.

If you asked the average person about paedophiles today you would get names like Stuart Hall and Rolf Harris but I suspect very few could name just one dead politician who has such allegations against him.

Link to NHS report on Saville. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... report.pdf

There are some interesting historical photos of events at the Leigh Park Community Centre but couldn't see any with celebrities signing autographs. (Perhaps should be on the Rolf Harris thread but as he was mentioned above ...)

http://leighpark.weebly.com/history-and-memories.html

If my link is more suited to the other thread about the Rolf Harris case I will move it there later. It just seemed to back up the fact that no evidence has been found of an appearance by Rolf Harris at the Leigh Park Community Centre where an assault by him on an under-age girl was said to have taken place. I had found the website some time ago and looked at the photos. There seemed to be nothing relating to well-known people signing autographs there and so, when I read Geezer's comment, I thought that this related to his mention of Rolf Harris and so contributed by providing the link.

I hope this explains my reason for posting it here.

Marian

That's fine Marian, it'ss all on the same sort of subject.

That's a subjective view, in my opinion they should be left to report it anyway they wish as long as it's within the law. If what they report is incorrect then anyone wronged can take them to court and no doubt win a big payout. Not all newspaper stories are pretty or nice to read but that's what you get with a 'free press', a whole range of stories and reporting styles.


Harris was found guilty by the jury on the basis of all the evidence presented so who are we to question their decision? I understand he is going to appeal the verdict, let's see what happens.

The trial was held at Southwark Crown Court.

How many of that 12 do you reckon had a good enough grasp of English to officiate the role with due dilligence?

To show how weak some of the evidence was one of the charges Harris was convicted of (by this jury) was of a sexual assault at the event referred to by Marian as above.
The prosecution provided no evidence that Harris was even at the place on the day, the witness (who made the complaint) couldn't remember the date and placed it across a span of 2 to 3 years.

I have been puzzled as to how someone holding a piece of paper in one hand and a pen in the other signing an autograph could do anything else at the same time.

I have also been thinking that if there had been an occasion, (which there wasn't), for my daughter at a young age to go onto a crowded, small stage to get an autograph, I, as her mother, would have been watching to make sure she was alright. I am sure other mothers would have done the same.

What are you trying to imply geezer? I trust there isn't a touch of racism creeping in here. If you're now questioning the jury then you're moving into a new ball game; from attacking the media you're now attacking our legal process. The defence can and often do have a say into the composition of a jury and the defence were obviously content to proceed with the case on the basis of the jury members chosen.

I tend to agree. I would think the potential for behaviour warranting a prison sentence in such circumstances is pretty limited.