Historic Sex Crimes - Is Enough, Enough?

This ongoing saga following the revelations about DJ Jimmy Savile, to some people has simply gone too far.  A number of people have court appearances or arrests hanging over them, so you cannot legally comment on them but there were two very recent high profile cases that have brought the cops involved into question.  Soap star Bill Roache was cleared of rape and indecent assault charges going back to the sixties.  My view is, how can you prove something going back forty or fifty years? Unless you tried to take action at the time by reporting any incidents to the Police, creating a record, how can you prove it?  it is simply one person's` word against another.

    The other was DJ Dave Lee Travis.  DLT was cleared on most charges of indecent assault, with the CPS yet to take a decision over a couple of outstanding charges the Jury could not decide on.  Some of these allegations went back forty years.  If you wanted to charge every guy who groped a woman, particularly after a night on the piss, you would probably have to charge half of the country.  And what about the women grabbing mens` balls?  Jokes began about the cops digging up Lord Byron and Francis Dashwood, men behind the Hellfire Club, and even poor old Caligula!

    One actual result was the conviction of TV host Stuart Hall for historic offences, where it was apparent they had corroborative evidence.  Another TV host, Matthew Kelly, was falsely accused by a male and was rightly acquitted.  Herein lies the danger; you can say anything about anyone, where you are tried by media and public opinion but your only chance lies in proving that the allegations are untrue.  Recently, on Jeremy Vine`s radio show, a woman said that women should put up with a bit of groping as it is a generational thing that has long gone on, yet, unbelievably, she objected to a shop selling golliwogs, condemning it as racist!  That`s right, it`s ok to have a guy grab your tits from behind, stick his hand down your panties but by god, golliwog dolls are offensive!!   Let us hope commonsense starts to prevail.