Picking Up The Pieces
Nov. 10th, 2012 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloAt first we were all falling over ourselves to get Lord McAlpine's name out there and now we're all falling over ourselves to apologize to him. At no point- so far as I am aware- has there been a police investigation into the accusations made against him. He says he was never at Bryn Estyn and only in Wrexham once. Is anybody checking these statements? If he were as insignificant a personage as Freddie Starr we wouldn't simply be taking his word for it.
Like everybody else who's taken an interest in the case I was taken aback by Steve Messham's retraction of his accusation. It rather beggars belief that he never looked at a picture of his supposed attacker (famous man, pictures all over the Net) until the day before yesterday. I suggest- delicately- that there are various reasons why a person might want to change their story.
Still, there's no doubt that Newsnight's handling of the case was incredibly sloppy. It's as if they were rushing to correct the impression- caused by the shelving of the Savile expose- that they were a soft touch. Also, once again, it appears that the Director General had no idea in advance of the content of the programme. What, for heaven's sake, is a Director General for if he isn't aware of his organisation's out-put?
My main concern is that this foul-up over Lord M doesn't prejudice the investigation of the crimes committed at Bryn Estyn and other Care Homes. The fact remains that children were abused- systematically- and that many of the abusers have got away with it. Channel 4 News, last night, suggested that yet another Conservative high-up may be in the frame. I hope we don't go down that road again. If there are famous people involved I'd rather their names came out in the course of a proper forensic investigation and not because they're being particularly targeted. We've been burned once in a truffle hunt after celebrity abusers, let's not make the same mistake twice.
Like everybody else who's taken an interest in the case I was taken aback by Steve Messham's retraction of his accusation. It rather beggars belief that he never looked at a picture of his supposed attacker (famous man, pictures all over the Net) until the day before yesterday. I suggest- delicately- that there are various reasons why a person might want to change their story.
Still, there's no doubt that Newsnight's handling of the case was incredibly sloppy. It's as if they were rushing to correct the impression- caused by the shelving of the Savile expose- that they were a soft touch. Also, once again, it appears that the Director General had no idea in advance of the content of the programme. What, for heaven's sake, is a Director General for if he isn't aware of his organisation's out-put?
My main concern is that this foul-up over Lord M doesn't prejudice the investigation of the crimes committed at Bryn Estyn and other Care Homes. The fact remains that children were abused- systematically- and that many of the abusers have got away with it. Channel 4 News, last night, suggested that yet another Conservative high-up may be in the frame. I hope we don't go down that road again. If there are famous people involved I'd rather their names came out in the course of a proper forensic investigation and not because they're being particularly targeted. We've been burned once in a truffle hunt after celebrity abusers, let's not make the same mistake twice.
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Date: 2012-11-10 06:40 pm (UTC)