Max Clifford Denies Indecently Assaulting Women...again.

[mikey4444]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34584568

Not sure why he has to wait until next March to appear in court again on this charge ? Why the delay of 6 months ?

[andy-hughes]

Courts are booked up well in advance - sadly.

[naomi24]

Does it matter? He's in prison, isn't he? Hardly likely to re-offend at the moment.

[Sqad]

/////Not sure why he has to wait until next March to appear in court again on this charge ? Why the delay of 6 months ? /////

What's the hurry mikey.......he isn't going anywhere.

[jno]

there have been massive delays of justice in these abuse proceedings. I dislike Freddie Starr as a comedian, but nobody should have to wait 18 months for a case to go ahead - especially as, in his case, it didn't.

[mikey4444]

Of course Clifford isn't going anywhere.

I was thinking of the alleged victims in this case, and of the other witnesses...It seems cruel to expect them to wait another 6 months.

[Gromit]

Mikey,
If they have waited 40 years to come forward with an allegation, what is 6 months wait for the supposed 'victims'?

The whole historic abuse allegation industry has got out of hand. These cases are impossible to prove after such a long time, and their judgement are unsafe.

[New Judge]

For the second time today I absolutely agree with Gromit.

NJ retires for a lie down :-)

[Gromit]

NJ,
I might have to go for a pint or 4.
A Few other people have agreed with me today which is rare :-)

[Svejk]

Completely agree with gromit. I was reading (in the Times) that some of the campaigners have been using 'recovered memory therapy' to 'help' victims 'remember'.
You know, back in the day they'd have, fairly harmlessly, been having affairs with Napoleon & Cleopatra.

[Svejk]

^Lol, I wasn't jumping on a bandwagon. NJ's post wasn't there when I started my 1 finger typing.

[retrocop]

Blimey. I am in agreement with Gromit as well. Careful that Halo don't slip.We might make a right winger of you yet. :-)
I have noticed, Mikey,that you really have ants in the pants when it comes to criminal charges.
Part of the fun of the filth was to nick a villain and get him committed to the higher court for sentence and then 18 months later you got a message in the middle of your holiday with your family that you are required to attend Southwark Crown Court whilst you are enjoying a pina colada in Menorca and expected in 2 days time to attend to prosecute when you have hardly got a sun tan. Where is this mythical"Laughing Policeman" ?
You were spitting feathers over the length of the Pistorious trial and that wasn't in the UK!!

[retrocop]

Mikey
If your concerns are with the victims you wouldn't want an acquittal in your established opinion if there was a cluster *** due to hasty prosecution evidence would you?
I know it costs money but if you were before the beak you would want justice to be done no matter how long it takes you to walk free. :-)

[Gromit]

I am at a loss how the Crown Prosecution Service can think there is sufficient evidence to go proceed on a Prosecution based on uncorroborated evidence from half a lide ago.

Or how anyone is supposed to defend themselves from the question.... 'What you doing 38 years ago, 11 months, 25 days and at the drunken party after (X) gig?

[Gromit]

* Half a LIFE ago * pesky iPad Keyboard :-(

[retrocop]

Gromit
As if you give a toss. You rise in my estimations of you yet again.
Even though I was the real baddy on the prosecution for the crown team I often wondered when the defendant was asked,"and where were you on the
night of 5th November" I would think bloody hell thats a tough one. Was it the basement in the Houses of Parliament? :-)

[mikey4444]

Guys....we forget that Clifford is already in jail, for offences that he committed in 1977 !

So...enough of this of "denial offences committed years ago" !

If he is not guilty of these new allegations, then I am quite prepared to accept the court process.

[mikey4444]

Gromit....."The whole historic abuse allegation industry has got out of hand. These cases are impossible to prove after such a long time, and their judgement are unsafe"

Really ? Then all the perverts now in jail, like Rolf Harris, Stuart Hall, Clifford, etc are really innocent are they ?

You will be saying that Savile was hard done by next !

Is it any wonder that so many historic cases of sexual abuse went unpunished !

[New Judge]

“You will be saying that Savile was hard done by next !”

I’m glad you’ve mentioned Jimmy Savile, Mikey. He was not hard done by at all because he never faced any criminal charges, unfounded or not. There has never been any proof, to criminal standard, produced to support his wrongdoing. All there has been are allegations. A lot of them, I accept, but simply allegations nonetheless.

And I’m quite with the earlier posters here. It is a fundamental tenet in English law that you are entitled to see the details of the allegations against you so that you can prepare an adequate defence to them. How anybody can be expected to say what they did or did not do on a specific occasion many decades ago beggars belief. The passing of time does not lessen the seriousness of the allegations but it does reduce, considerably, the ability of those accused to defend them. The “interests of justice” are not being well served by these cases (remembering that the interests of justice do not only apply in one direction).

Of course none of us knows the details presented to the juries in the successful prosecutions mentioned. But on the face of it I am at a loss to understand how convictions were secured for these historical cases. The alleged victim says “I was assaulted by A. DiscJockey or A. FamousSinger on a Saturday night in 1973” and that seems to have been that. It would be impossible for the defendants to describe their movements on the date in question (and I struggle to see how even the victims can remember sufficient detail). But convictions were secured and it makes me extremely uneasy.

Add to this the number of cases where allegations have been made and either acquittals secured or (even worse) no action taken after keeping the suspects on police bail for many months, sometimes running into years, and the whole thing is sits extremely uneasily in my mind.

And it all began with unfounded allegations made against Savile after his death when they could not be properly tested. And, by the way, Jimmy Savile is still dead.