..................and Jim lost out on a Celebrity Big Brother pay-day as a result of this. For what it's worth, I think he would have been a key player in the house given his strong views and personality. Think there would have been fireworks. If proven innocent (which I fully expect) there should be a basis for a legal case re loss of earnings. Where will this witch-hunt end? I can see every british male B/C list act from the 70's and 80's hauled up for some shenanagins with a female from their past. I'm all for nonces being brought to justice but cases where an adult female complains about a grope more than 20 years............how can that ever he prosecutable all this time later??
I'm losing count of the amount of times I've said so it must be getting boring, the press should not be reporting arrests for this sort of offence only convictions. Once this sort of news comes out it will affect a persons (male or female) ability to carry on a normal life. The rules have to change.
Exactly. Allowing the accuseds face to be bandied across the media is clearly wrong and i have no idea why it is still allowed.
How can a woman accuse a man of a sexual offence, and whether guilty or not, that mans name is made public whilst the womans name (even if the guy is found to have done nothing wrong) never makes it into the public domain?
I think that if an investigation, arrest or charge of someone is reported in the papers and they are subsequently found innocent, the report of their innocence should legally be at least as large and prominent as the reports of the accusations. No more burying innocence away in the small print - it should be every bit as bold as the accusations were. I think that may encourage editors think twice about giving so much weight to such stories.
This debate about Mr Davidson has ignited several themes. I sympathise with his family at this time. Although older than he, I grew up in the same area of SE3. We share one tribal allegiance (the Addicks), however, as others have stated on this forum, I nether endorse his style of humour nor much of his politics. The principle of 'innocent until proven guilty' has been largely eroded nowadays by 'trial by media' fuelled by salacious gossip and innuendo. Being arrested entails the taking of DNA and fingerprints. I believe these are kept indefinitely, even if the person arrested is later not charged or is acquitted. This existence of a national DNA database recalls conversations I had in the 1970s with high ranking individuals from the security services. They always used to say 'tongue in cheek' that they kept files on everybody! One person in their sights was Sir Cyril Smith, who was later revealed to have a distinctly unpleasant side to his nature. This begs the question, how much evidence Special Branch et al had gathered on other 'celebrities', including Savile. Security files are generally embargoed for many years and then they may be redacted to conceal sensitive information.
I think that if an investigation, arrest or charge of someone is reported in the papers and they are subsequently found innocent, the report of their innocence should legally be at least as large and prominent as the reports of the accusations. No more burying innocence away in the small print - it should be every bit as bold as the accusations were. I think that may encourage editors think twice about giving so much weight to such stories.
Never gonna happen. Leveson is battleing to get apologies given any prominance. This is when the papers have simply lied rather than the person later being found innocent. The papers are refusing to do this so they are never ging to give prominance to the sotry of an arrest of someone famous who was later found to be innocent.
The only way to force editors and owners to re-think is to not buy papers when sensationalist stories are published. And given how much sales currently shoot up for thos issues, this is also unlikely to happen.
I'm losing count of the amount of times I've said so it must be getting boring, the press should not be reporting arrests for this sort of offence only convictions. Once this sort of news comes out it will affect a persons (male or female) ability to carry on a normal life. The rules have to change.
True, look at the stick Dave Jones still gets for what we're shown to be completely baseless allegations.
The Police have a duty to investigate allegations - its a simple as that. Its up to the CPS to decide to pursue a case in court and a jury to decide whether somebody is guilty. That's how it works.
All the Police are doing is their duty.
Investigating an allegation is one thing. Arresting someone is quite another. Why couldn't he be allowed to just co-operate with them? He was bailed anyway. I think there are countries you can't enter legally if you have been arrested.
The point I think is that nobody should be arrested just on the say so of another person. The argument that it helps others to come forward is flawed. There is no way of telling if your accuser has a history of malicious accusations because he or she is granted a right to anonymity that you are denied. Just hope it never happens to you!
Investigating an allegation is one thing. Arresting someone is quite another. Why couldn't he be allowed to just co-operate with them? He was bailed anyway. I think there are countries you can't enter legally if you have been arrested.
The point I think is that nobody should be arrested just on the say so of another person. The argument that it helps others to come forward is flawed. There is no way of telling if your accuser has a history of malicious accusations because he or she is granted a right to anonymity that you are denied. Just hope it never happens to you!
I am sorry but this is nonsense. I am sure if you think hard enough, you can think of any number of scenarios where arresting a suspect on the say so of somebody else is warranted, indeed very sensible.
What I object to is the unbalanced publicity that accrues to the person arrested, when their name is emblazoned across the news media. If the Jim Davidson stuff turns out to be nonsense, to some extent, the damage to his credibility is done.
The Police have a duty to investigate allegations - its a simple as that. Its up to the CPS to decide to pursue a case in court and a jury to decide whether somebody is guilty. That's how it works.
All the Police are doing is their duty.
Investigating an allegation is one thing. Arresting someone is quite another. Why couldn't he be allowed to just co-operate with them? He was bailed anyway. I think there are countries you can't enter legally if you have been arrested.
The point I think is that nobody should be arrested just on the say so of another person. The argument that it helps others to come forward is flawed. There is no way of telling if your accuser has a history of malicious accusations because he or she is granted a right to anonymity that you are denied. Just hope it never happens to you!
Sorry Bryan but the days of "helping police with their enquires" are over and have been since the introduction of PACE back in the 80's. The alternative is that a suspect coughs to an offence but the case is later thrown out because the due process hasn't been followed. Would you be happy with that instead?
Once again you have made the point that the police have in some way solicited publicity without any evidence that this has actually happened.
Investigating an allegation is one thing. Arresting someone is quite another. Why couldn't he be allowed to just co-operate with them? He was bailed anyway. I think there are countries you can't enter legally if you have been arrested.
The point I think is that nobody should be arrested just on the say so of another person. The argument that it helps others to come forward is flawed. There is no way of telling if your accuser has a history of malicious accusations because he or she is granted a right to anonymity that you are denied. Just hope it never happens to you!
I am sorry but this is nonsense. I am sure if you think hard enough, you can think of any number of scenarios where arresting a suspect on the say so of somebody else is warranted, indeed very sensible.
Yes, loads. But I get the impression that this isn't one of them.
Investigating an allegation is one thing. Arresting someone is quite another. Why couldn't he be allowed to just co-operate with them? He was bailed anyway. I think there are countries you can't enter legally if you have been arrested.
The point I think is that nobody should be arrested just on the say so of another person. The argument that it helps others to come forward is flawed. There is no way of telling if your accuser has a history of malicious accusations because he or she is granted a right to anonymity that you are denied. Just hope it never happens to you!
I am sorry but this is nonsense. I am sure if you think hard enough, you can think of any number of scenarios where arresting a suspect on the say so of somebody else is warranted, indeed very sensible.
Yes, loads. But I get the impression that this isn't one of them.
Yet another post based on knowledge that is not in the public domain and a host of assumptions.
Your impression is worth doodlysquat without being in possession of what the actual allegation is, what evidence is available or not, whether any suspect or witness is a flight risk, whether a further delay would result in the loss of evidence or opportunity and a 100 other factors that an investigator would have to take into account.
Investigating an allegation is one thing. Arresting someone is quite another. Why couldn't he be allowed to just co-operate with them? He was bailed anyway. I think there are countries you can't enter legally if you have been arrested.
The point I think is that nobody should be arrested just on the say so of another person. The argument that it helps others to come forward is flawed. There is no way of telling if your accuser has a history of malicious accusations because he or she is granted a right to anonymity that you are denied. Just hope it never happens to you!
I am sorry but this is nonsense. I am sure if you think hard enough, you can think of any number of scenarios where arresting a suspect on the say so of somebody else is warranted, indeed very sensible.
Yes, loads. But I get the impression that this isn't one of them.
The thing is we, who are not in possession of the details, cannot pick and choose who should or should not be arrested. The law is there, the Police role is to uphold the law, follow the evidence and arrest if they feel it is warranted.
I repeat - my concern is over the adverse affect the publicity of the arrest may have on the reputation of that person. I think on balance, I would prefer the names to be witheld, at least until the person is charged, if not until the outcome of the case. There are difficult judgements to be made here.
The adverse affect on someone's reputation is down to the rest of society and the way we process the information. It's up the rest of us to learn not to hold convictions not allegations against people.
Name who? The alleged victim? FFS! Just because the CPS decide there isn't enough evidence to get a conviction, doesn't necessarily mean that the victim is making it up. If there is evidence that they are maliciously making the allegation that's one thing, but generally things aren't that black and white.
Investigating an allegation is one thing. Arresting someone is quite another. Why couldn't he be allowed to just co-operate with them? He was bailed anyway. I think there are countries you can't enter legally if you have been arrested.
The point I think is that nobody should be arrested just on the say so of another person. The argument that it helps others to come forward is flawed. There is no way of telling if your accuser has a history of malicious accusations because he or she is granted a right to anonymity that you are denied. Just hope it never happens to you!
I am sorry but this is nonsense. I am sure if you think hard enough, you can think of any number of scenarios where arresting a suspect on the say so of somebody else is warranted, indeed very sensible.
Yes, loads. But I get the impression that this isn't one of them.
The thing is we, who are not in possession of the details, cannot pick and choose who should or should not be arrested. The law is there, the Police role is to uphold the law, follow the evidence and arrest if they feel it is warranted.
I repeat - my concern is over the adverse affect the publicity of the arrest may have on the reputation of that person. I think on balance, I would prefer the names to be witheld, at least until the person is charged, if not until the outcome of the case. There are difficult judgements to be made here.
It's a pity that only a few of us were of that mind when the 9 were arrested for incidents that are alleged to have taken place after the Fulham match. You'll remember that Sky TV and Kavenargh turned up at the arrrests first thing in the morning. Perhaps now we can agree that the club were wrong to become involved in such actions.
The thing is we, who are not in possession of the details, cannot pick and choose who should or should not be arrested. The law is there, the Police role is to uphold the law, follow the evidence and arrest if they feel it is warranted.
True. I am not discussing any particular case, just saying that more evidence than someone's say so should be necessary in relation to a 20 year old crime. I am not able to comment on whether that is the case in relation to JD , obviously.
Actually I can't think of many scenarios when little more than a pointed finger would justify an arrest. Evidence that a crime had been committed at all would be a good place to start. Again, perhaps that exists in all these cases. I think I must leave it at that.
Comments
Exactly. Allowing the accuseds face to be bandied across the media is clearly wrong and i have no idea why it is still allowed.
How can a woman accuse a man of a sexual offence, and whether guilty or not, that mans name is made public whilst the womans name (even if the guy is found to have done nothing wrong) never makes it into the public domain?
The principle of 'innocent until proven guilty' has been largely eroded nowadays by 'trial by media' fuelled by salacious gossip and innuendo. Being arrested entails the taking of DNA and fingerprints. I believe these are kept indefinitely, even if the person arrested is later not charged or is acquitted.
This existence of a national DNA database recalls conversations I had in the 1970s with high ranking individuals from the security services. They always used to say 'tongue in cheek' that they kept files on everybody! One person in their sights was Sir Cyril Smith, who was later revealed to have a distinctly unpleasant side to his nature. This begs the question, how much evidence Special Branch et al had gathered on other 'celebrities', including Savile. Security files are generally embargoed for many years and then they may be redacted to conceal sensitive information.
The only way to force editors and owners to re-think is to not buy papers when sensationalist stories are published. And given how much sales currently shoot up for thos issues, this is also unlikely to happen.
What I object to is the unbalanced publicity that accrues to the person arrested, when their name is emblazoned across the news media. If the Jim Davidson stuff turns out to be nonsense, to some extent, the damage to his credibility is done.
Your impression is worth doodlysquat without being in possession of what the actual allegation is, what evidence is available or not, whether any suspect or witness is a flight risk, whether a further delay would result in the loss of evidence or opportunity and a 100 other factors that an investigator would have to take into account.
I repeat - my concern is over the adverse affect the publicity of the arrest may have on the reputation of that person. I think on balance, I would prefer the names to be witheld, at least until the person is charged, if not until the outcome of the case. There are difficult judgements to be made here.
@jimdavidson118: @BenHamer21 I'm ok it's a mad world werer gonna win da fa cup innit
All the Davidsons are charlton till they die.
Hope it all works out well for you
The thing is we, who are not in possession of the details, cannot pick and choose who should or should not be arrested. The law is there, the Police role is to uphold the law, follow the evidence and arrest if they feel it is warranted.
True. I am not discussing any particular case, just saying that more evidence than someone's say so should be necessary in relation to a 20 year old crime. I am not able to comment on whether that is the case in relation to JD , obviously.
Actually I can't think of many scenarios when little more than a pointed finger would justify an arrest. Evidence that a crime had been committed at all would be a good place to start. Again, perhaps that exists in all these cases. I think I must leave it at that.