Yewtree has obviously become a complete farce.
Detective Chief Superintendent Keith Niven, who is leading Operation Yewtree, has said: “The Metropolitan Police take all allegations of sexual abuse very seriously. We fully investigate every case and
once sufficient evidence is obtained investigators work with CPS lawyers and a decision whether to charge is made.”
This is absolute nonsense -- look at the cases of Freddy Starr and in particular Rolf Harris at the moment. I've discussed my opinion on the Harris case
in the dedicated thread linked here , but I think the way that case has been handled shows how this entire operation is travelling a very dangerous path.
Here's what I mean: one woman in the Rolf Harris case claims he molested her when she was "7 or 8" at a community event in Leigh Park, Hampshire.
Yewtree and local investigators exerted a tremendous amount of effort in the search for ONE shred of evidence that Rolf appeared where and when the accuser said he had. They found NONE. Not a thing.
Not deterred, they expanded the search to several years --either side-- of 1968-9 (which is when the accuser would have been 7 or 8) and found NOTHING.
Not to be deterred, they took the case to trial, and put on the stand two 'witnesses' who said they remembered Rolf appearing in the area along with Diana Dors and Sid James.
Somehow, it escapes the far-reaching tentacles of operation Yewtree that Dors and James appeared in Leigh Park somewhere between 5 years and a decade apart, in completely different locations, neither of which was the same place as that in the accuser's claim. So -- how does the testimony of these people back up the accusation? It doesn't, of course, but that does not stop Yewtree putting them on the stand anyway!
Apparently, the --incredibly-- unsupported testimony of this complainant was somehow considered strong enough to go to trial. Why??
Well, IMO, it's because the accuser's story fit a "pattern" that Yewtree wanted to promote as evidence for Harris's guilt, a somewhat desperate measure taken because the four complainants in his case have extremely shaky stories -- one was paid 60 grand by the media pre-trial, for her (ever-changing) tale of woe, and the one who slept with Rolf until she was --29-- years old had every reason to throw him under a bus, including being replaced by a rival and being refused a large sum of money she asked him for after their affair ended. Which as "coincidence" would have it, is right around the same time she first started declaring that Rolf molested her as a child.
In the case of Freddy Starr, 13 charges were laid - 12 were dismissed due to "lack of evidence" (one has to wonder how far into the negative these charges actually had to go, in order to be declared not worth prosecuting, in light of the Rolf case mentioned above) and ONE case was dismissed because -- get this -- while there was deemed to be "enough" evidence to go to trial, it was "not in the public interest" to pursue it. Excuse me?! How, precisely, is it not in the public's "interest" to see a sexual assault charge *with (supposedly) enough evidence to convict* proceed to court?!
The "throw enough mud and something will stick" approach evidenced here is a disgusting farce. It's no way for historic cases to be approached.
As a victim of "historic" and horrific abuse myself, I am the last person who would ever stand up for rapists and pedos.
But I *WILL* make a stand for justice, where I percieve the judicial process to be compromised, or completely farcical. As it has become, with Operation "YouToo".
