This is one of the most annoying things about all this post-Saville madness, aside from ruined reputations, it also makes it harder for actual victims to come forward, because they fear they wont be believed. Though I'm a Corrie fan, I watched the news of it all objectively, as there could have been a chance that he did it, it'd have been unfair to just write it off because I like him as Ken Barlow. I think there needs to be a change in the legal system to protect the accused party's privacy.

At the risk of sounding really harsh..I dont really think people should be believed really if they wait half a century to speak up, and then do it in groups.

IIRC some of the saville victims reported it to the police at the time but were ignored, THOSE people I have time for. Anyone who waits until 50 years later and mention of compensation in the press..well...

I bet he is guilty though

http://www.africastarnews.net/newsed...-in-rwanda.jpg

If only because of the... odd... excuses he was coming out with for the men involved in cases of historic sex offenses BEFORE he was accused, I sort of agree. He was babbling on publicly about how the girls involved "will have done something in a past life" to "deserve" what happened to them. I can think of no logical explanation for someone to say something like that, other than to justify something that they themselves have done.

He's been found legally not guilty though so it's all pure speculation. The vast majority of these cases will go nowhere in the courts - whether the allegations are true or not - simply because after so much time, most will be all but impossible to prove beyond reasonable doubt. There would really need to be hard physical evidence, or unbiased witnesses. When it's a case of "accusers word against defendants word", with no other evidence, it's highly unlikely to see someone found guilty.

Hell... the vast majority of CURRENT rape cases don't even go to trial through lack of evidence, and the conviction rate at trial is minuscule. Some will be false allegations but many will simply be because it can't be proven. That's the reason that it's estimated that most rapes are never even reported to the authorities: people know the likelihood of conviction is low, and the accuser is forever thought of as a victim, or worse, a liar, for nothing.

Proving something beyond reasonable doubt 40 or 50 years after the event? ... Very hard to do. It doesn't mean it definitely didn't happen, though. I personally think that's worth remembering.

a very fair and reasonable point. There is everything to gain for those who are rotten enough to make things up for monetary reward. its hard to believe but some people actually do this. christine and neil hamilton had that and the false accuser did go to jail. there really needs to be more justice meeted out for false accusers imo

You're joking right...???

Or do you know something the rest of the Country don't know ??

I agree with Livia as to the anonymity of the accusers and Bill Roache having this smear set alongside him for good now.

I think naming the person facing the allegations may well bring others who have been abused to come forward.
Sadly however,I also think,in cases like this one, that it could bring out people to also accuse who have no substance at all to their accusations but maybe to try to settle scores with someone.

Clearly this jury,only needing 6 hours time too,did not believe any of the accusers and for em that is good enough, justice has it seems been done in this case and I hope Bill Roache and his family can now get back to some normality.

I also think and wish it is was so too, that when someone has faced allegations such as this and have then fought a trial against them and then been found 'not guilty',that those who were the accusers then lose their anonymity at that stage and are named.

I think the public need to know who those acusers were and be protected against them making any false accusations against anyone else.

As much as I agree with your sentiments I personally do not think the accusers should lose their anonymity as it may be possible in some cases they were raped but there was not enough evidence to prove it so the victim would have gone through all that personal pain and humiliation for nothing and now face the prospect of being publicly named and accused of being a liar.

Also as they would not be believed in any future incidents they might become easy prey for sexual predators who know their previous history. Any future jury would be even less inclined to believe her story if she had already been publicly discredited and branded a liar on a previous occasion.

That is a good strong point Nedusa,I take that into my thinking now as to this.

I completely agree with you Vicky.

I think it should be the legal default that the press aren't allowed to publish the names of anyone involved in criminal investigations unless they are found guilty.

Of course they are and only now when its gone absurdly crazy are we all (men and women0 allowed to actualy say this
in previous years anyone who suggested there would be a lot of fake claims in order to try and make money were all brand misgynist woman hating sexists. yet again this is another poisonous by product of radical feminism, which is destroying lives and wasting 100s of millions of tax payers money and police time

but why do we need to hang these people out to dry to advertise this in order to encourage more to give evidence? if a perosn wants to come forward let them, I dont see why we should sacrifice the accused merely to act as a marketing tool for other accusers.
also time limits must apply...48 years? for goodness sakes.

tbh using a case like this isn't the best example to set a change on the law upon, with Will Roache it would probably always come out anyway, or there would at least be suspicion, because he's so famous. Like people would start to question why he suddenly hadn't appeared in Coronation Street the last few months.

I took on Nedusa's important point as to if accusers were named after accusing someone falsely then some could see that as a green light to commit crimes against them,in that those people could be seen as not to be believed again.
So I can be persuaded that they should remain anonymous.

However for me, that even moreso opens the dooor that someone accused falsely has to have some 'protection' too.
Which is why, I would like to see no naming of those accused until the actual trial and then only when the person accused either pleads 'guilty' or is found 'guilty' by a jury after trial.

As to someone found 'not guilty',that would end the naming and exposing the identity of the accused right up to the end of the trial and they then really can get on with their lives as near as possible untarnished.

As to those who have accused someone falsely and if someone is found 'not guilty' then the jury didn't clearly believe the accusers.
If not naming such people has to be the norm then I do think at the very least they should be punished for in effect, at the very least, 'wasting police time'.

To falsely accuse someone of anything they haven't done is wrong and to further testify in court to that is even more wrong.
In the accusations of rape,which is a very serious and dangerous thing to accuse someone of ,so to do so falsely demands in my view anyway some punishment for doing it.

That will then possibly deter anyone from accusing someone of something falsely and not cause more problems for those who were genuinely abused getting proper justice.
I still firmly believe anyone making a false accusations about someone should get some punishment for doing so.
I take on board not naming those who accuse falsely but they should not be able to get away with it,in my opinion.

thousands of men are falsely accused every year and the false accusers rarely very rarely get puniched for it. meanwhile the men who are falsely accused usually lose their jobs immediately, their reputation is in shreds and their lives destroyed regardless of their innocence or guilt. this is surely wrong

those who falsely accused should be named. its a criminal offence to bare false witness and to lie in court, not to mention slander and wasting police time and money

People would have suspicions of course but I just think it's completely wrong to publicly name and shame someone before the verdict has been given; and then when the verdict clears that person of all charges, the damage cannot be undone, there will be people who will forever accuse that person of crimes they were cleared of. Loads of actors take time off from soaps, all Coronation Street would have needed to have said would be "due to family/personal circumstances" if they'd even needed to have said anything at all.

I do agree with just about all you say there the truth.
However I took on board what Nedusa said, I can see that naming someone who had falsely accused someone of such a crime could then leave them open to those who would carry out such crimes.
Then also having the knowledge that these persons are not likely to be believed in the future.

I 100% agree with you that the person making a false accusation should be punished for doing so, for all the reasons you listed in your post.

The problem with punishing those who lie is that you can't really be 100% sure they are lying. I mean, quite a lot of rape cases get off because the accused says it was consentional when thats not the case but you cant prove that either.

If it can be proved that the accuser is lying though, I do think they should get the same sentence the person they accused would have got if they had been found guilty.

As is rape - and let's face it many, many men have got away with rape over the decades, and still do, as women were often not believed, their reputations torn to shreds whilst the same standards not applied to the men and the general mentality, still rife today, that boys will be boys and the girls asked for it in some way.

Men have had the so-called scales of justice weighed in their favour for centuries, but hark at the winging by some when perceived that those scales have now gone the other way. What goes around comes around maybe.

False allegations of any kind are dispicable, but far more men have got away with wrong doing in these kinds of crimes than women.

Sorry, but that has to be one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. What has the modern day justice system go to do with that of past centuries? Are you saying current day males deserve to have their names dragged through the mud because of how people behaved in past centuries?

Agree. Sometimes there is clear evidence that someone's lied. If there is evidence they should throw the bloody book at them because they're making a mockery of the pain of real victims.

Got to agree, Chewy.

Maybe not expressed very well but it isn't just about past centuries but pretty much the here and now as I would say still far more men get away with rape than women get away with making false allegations as double standards are still applied to women and many still believe the old 'she must of asked for it' garbage.

I am not condoning false allegations by any means, but it seems to me that the sexual mistreatment of women by men, past and present, can breed a lot of resentment in women.