Double Standards

It's amazing what a difference a year or so can make.  At the height of the Jimmy Savile furore the question being asked was why the police, BBC and anyone else in a position of responsibility didn't take seriously and act upon the allegations made against the DJ during his lifetime.  There was (and still appears to be) a widespread assumption that all of the claims of sexual abuse made against Savile are true, leading to him being accused of hundreds, if not thousands, of offences.  The BBC, hospital authorities and (to a far lesser extent) the police, continue to be vilified for their failure to stop him.  Fast forward to this week.  Coronation Street actor William Roache is cleared in court of allegations of historic sex offences against young girls.  The testimonies of his accusers have been discredited in court, leaving them branded as, at best, fantasists, at worst, just liars.  The police and Crown Prosecution Service now find themselves vilified by the press and friend of Roache for bringing a case against him on the basis of these testimonies.

Now, I'm not apologist for Jimmy Savile.  God knows, I found him a creepy fucker when he was on TV during my childhood and I was always convinced that he must be up to something unsavoury.  I have no doubt that many of the allegations about his conduct are true.  However, none of that stops me feeling very uneasy about the double standards being exhibited by the press and many commentators with regard to Savile and Roache.  The fact is that many of the allegations against Savile date as far back historically as those against Roache and seem, on the face of it, to have a similar level of 'credibility'.  Yet in one case the police are lambasted for acting on them, in the other they are lambasted for not acting on similar evidence.  The difference, of course, is that William Roache is still very much alive and is, rightly, able to successfully defend himself in a court of law.  Jimmy Savile, on the other hand, was dead as a door nail before the allegations of his sexual misconduct became public, meaning that the press could happily accuse him of every sex crime under the sun with impunity.  Now, I know that might seem a bit hypocritical on my part, bearing in mind that I've banged out enough Savile stories on The Sleaze, but at least I don't present them as anything other than satire.  The media, on the other hand, present as fact what are actually still unproven allegations/  I'm not saying his accusers are liars, but as the Roache case has shown, testimonies based on events which allegedly occurred thirty or forty years ago are, in the absence of any supporting physical evidence or witnesses, are inherently unreliable.