from one of the few (but growing) Voices of Reason...

www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-police-h...ion-midland-disaster

"You will be believed" is the most stupid, irresponsible thing I have ever seen implemented in
a justice system that should be "blind" at the point of investigation.

That said, the irony is that it was implemented for political reasons due to perceived failings towards sex abuse victims. Right aims; just went far too far.

To remove the politics from this the irony -again- is that Police need to be able to return to a common sense approach which embeds the principles of "blind" justice, but be able to do so free from the maelstrom of political and media castigation that currently awaits them at every "wrong" turn. I think a lot of people would be surprised to learn that privately a majority of them desire to do so.

This requires strong and principled political leadership which we have little of currently. But the campaigning efforts of some will mean this is increasingly likely in time.

Dominic Lawson’s “QAnon makes the U.S. a laughing stock. But was the Met’s belief in ’Nick’s’ fantasies so very different?” in today’s Daily Mail Online is also brilliant. However, there is one paragraph in this piece that I feel could easily be open to misinterpretation:

The reason for [Operation Midland] was that, in the wake of various police forces’ refusal to take sufficiently seriously the many complaints of sexual abuse levelled by young women against Jimmy Savile, the College of Policing promulgated a new doctrine, which was that any such complainant should ‘always be believed’.
Four complaints against Jimmy Savile had been brought to the police in 2007 and were dismissed. It was not until after the ITV "Exposure" programme and establishment of Operation Yewtree in October 2012 that many came forward including Carl Beech and they were believed. Particularly troublesome were the fishing tactics used to bring these complainants forward along with the emphatic assurances that they would be believed.

Operation Midland was set up in November 2014 in the wake of Operation Yewtree. It was a response to public hysteria and government pressure.

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-92606...different-QAnon.html