Though, naturally, they are highly critical about him, he'll be delighted (all he wants is publicity).

Any chance of posting a photo of the article?

And WikiWankas.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Williams-Thomas

Brendon O'Neill, paraphrased:

"There is Something Horribly Medieval About This Posthumous Pummelling of Jimmy Savile.

In the year 897 A.D. in one of the maddest moments of the medieval period, the Catholic Church dug up the dead body of Pope Formosus and put it on trial for perjury. It was known as the Cadaver Trial.

Now, more than a millennium later, we have another Cadaver Trial, though metaphorical rather than literal, in the shape of the posthumous pummelling of Jimmy Savile by a populist, self-appointed 'Witchfinder General'.

In all the metres of commentary that was devoted to branding him a pervert and a sicko in the the ITV documentary 'Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile', no one stopped to say: "Hold on. It has NOT been proven in a modern court of law that Savile sexually assaulted or raped anyone."

And no one has pointed out that it never will be, on account of the fact that Savile is dead, and dead people can't physically be put on trial like they were in 897 A.D.

The savaging of Savile is starting to smell like some of the crazed witch-hunts of old, from the Salem trials of the 1690s to the more recent hounding of modern families falsely-accused of being engaged in Satanic ritual abuse.

In all those cases, the thrill and kick that came from collectively denouncing the "evil" in our midst overrode any normal need to provide hard evidence and prove a case against the accused.

So it has been with Savile. We are dealing in allegations, claims, rumours. In a modern civilised society, that should never be enough to find someone guilty and have him forever branded a pervert.

Some people have said it is brave of the women who claim to have been assaulted by Savile to come forward and tell their stories
(covertly incited by a populist 'investigator' hinting at large compensation payments).

I'm sorry, but it isn't. Making serious accusations against a dead person who is in no position to fight back or plead or prove his innocence, 30 or 40 years after the alleged incidents occurred, is the very opposite of brave. Either by cash-incited accusers wth no personal evidence, or by a self-serving 'investigator' with no evidence but his carefully cultivated 'Me Too' mob - it's cowardly!"

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/brendan-oneill/...abuse_b_1939725.html

Someone upload a snap if they can please..just re-orded Private Eye but probably won;t get this issue out here in the boondocks.

Apologies all; I'm technologically incapable of adding a snap here. Dear Anna Raccoon used to do that for me but sadly she is no longer with us. Perhaps another poster could fulfil?

Maybe try uploading it to the "photos" section in the same way as you upload other photos?

Here's a thread from four years ago about a Private Eye article on MWT, with a link to the article in the "photos" section.

www.kingofhits.co.uk/component/option,co...w/catid,2/id,183985/

Yes Jo I do sometimes do that (the Forums won't accept such large content) but I don't like to clutter the Photos section with such stuff if possible. I tend to keep it for significant stuff which needs to be archived for possible future use. You have to remember; this site goes back to the mid 1990's and though we do upgrade it now and then, it is a bit ancient now. The PLUS is that it is still one of the most VISITED (though little posted, since Twitter and other short attention span sites started). We've existed for a quarter of a century and I hope will continue for at least another 75. Valuable Archive.

JK2006 wrote:
Apologies all; I'm technologically incapable of adding a snap here. Dear Anna Raccoon used to do that for me but sadly she is no longer with us. Perhaps another poster could fulfil?

Don't look at me. I literally don't know how to answer my new phone.

For anyone interested, this is the relevant excerpt from a full-page article titled "The Bulley Pulpit: A Hackwatch Special" in Private Eye No 1593, 3 -16 March. They let him off pretty lightly. Maybe thanks to his involvement in "exposing Jimmy Savile's crimes".

...

Wide of the Mark

Newsquest, meanwhile, deployed its group investigations editor - Mark Williams-Thomas, the former policeman involved in exposing Jimmy Savile's crimes a decade ago, who has made a good living out of staring sternly into cameras ever since - to provide an endless stream of TikToks, tweets and live video chats, some performed from the riverbank where Bully disappeared.

In these he wholeheartedly agreed with "my close personal friend", diver Peter Faulding, that there was "still no evidence she went in/is in the river" and declared "I just don't buy" the idea that her body could have floated downstream.

He also told viewers that Bulley's partner Paul Ansell should "come out...open his heart and if he opens his heart I think we'll all get behind him", and offered some "helpful" clarification to online sleuths who suspected foul play: "A number of people speculating Paul's interview #NicolaBulley partner was set up/coordinated by police with set questions - so it can be analysed by body language experts. This is NOT the case at all - these things just don't happen. That's reserved for TV, books & films."

While Williams-Thomas indulged in a bit of freelance coverage for Channel 5 and the Independent, staff across Newsquest's 250 outlets were strictly instructed to "direct our audience" to watch not just Williams-Thomas's video efforts, but also live press conferences on the case "via True Crime Newsquest on our YouTube Channel".

Williams-Thomas at least has some relevant expertise from a long-prior career to offer. Not so former pop star Peter Andre - but his opinion is that "It's such a bizarre story... there seems to be more questions than answers, that's for sure" , delivered in a Valentine's Day column for New! magazine, was covered at length in all its Reach plc stablemates and even had the Daily Mail and Sun hastening to catch up as well.

...

This documentary is doing the rounds on local news websites.

It teaches us nothing new but certainly feeds MWT ego. It's scary how Barry George was arrested, trailed and jailed for having a spec of gunpowder. I am probably covered with it all the time and I had magazines on guns and nature.