"It's a very difficult balance to get right. On the one hand, sometimes making public the details of the arrest can help to bring forward evidence and bring forward potential victims. Therefore it is completely in the public interest.

"Sometimes it is right to respect the privacy of the individual because the publicity around these sorts of arrests can be genuinely life-changing. There is no simple answer to this."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22549866

Correct comment. As someone who suffered from the publicity I found it inspires false allegations - and the more famous you are, the bigger the publicity, the larger the quantity of false allegations though I have to admit it was mainly exaggerations more than total inventions.

But exaggerations can be 99% true ("met him, visited him, listened to music, ate food, laughed, watched TV...") and only 1% false ("had sex").

As can the motives; genuine confusion (where matters were discussed rather than acted upon), desire for cash compensation or media interview fees, victim empathy and desire for an explanation for a failed life, revenge, jealousy, insanity, drugs, alcohol...

Like most things it is complex.

I think Constable Andrew Trotter is being ridiculous when he says that Stuart Hall would have been charged anyway.
The original complaint was the promo girl whose breast was possibly (probably) touched outside her clothing when Hall put his arm around her in a public place.
There is no way on earth someone would ever be charged with something so flimsy unless it was deliberate bait.

Quite correct, honey ... but the resultant publicity "encouraged" extra complaints.

Well put ITK

In The Know wrote:
Quite correct, honey ... but the resultant publicity "encouraged" extra complaints.

So they use the flimsy complaint as a way of getting around it when some police forces wont release the names until charged?
Is it a coincidence that the first complainant is a recently retired police officer?

...and in most cases now a 'flimsy complaint' so flimsy that if people knew who it was making the initial flimsy complaint they would say "Hang On A Minute!"
Hence it is so important for them for the accuser to remain anonymous

honey!oh sugar sugar. wrote:
Is it a coincidence that the first complainant is a recently retired police officer?

It would be interesting to know whether that particular force is on quota regarding performance ... or whether a few "arrests" would help the numbers?

welcome to Fascism by stealth...

# presumption of innocence is being removed by stealth

# legal aid is slashed

# police /prisons gradually privatised

# police can conduct fishing expeditions

# all service will be privatised

# citizens monitored by cameras 24/7

# the so-called 'media' will triumph (after being brought to a count for mass illegality) by still toppling troublesome politicians and producing banal fluff about "celebrities" and so on.

democracy was quaint while it happened.