There's no business like show business
Leverhulme • Tuesday, February 11, 2014 Britain gripped by old codger sex trials ... Coronation Street star has no memory of his accusers ... For Leverhulme, the world seems upside down ... "Judge Grendal" asks, where was the judge? ... London Calling
Ken Barlow, aka Bill Roach - world's longest running soap star
Sometimes you have a feeling that something is wrong, but you just can't identify what it is.
For those brought up in the law on the dangers of hearsay; the need for time limits; the value of corroboration; and the notion that juries stand for common sense - the world now seems upside down.
There has been a series of what they quaintly call "historic" sex offence trials in Britain in recent months. More are to come and at around £500,000 they are not cheap.
Old men whose hands now wander of their own accord are paraded in front of their accusers for crimes alleged to have been committed decades ago.
Even celebrity wobble-boarder Rolf Harris is due his day in the stocks soon.
But, the big trial that has gripped the nation since the middle of January has been the sex charges levelled at William Roache, an octogenarian actor who, until the court hearing, looked much younger and who happens to be the longest-running soap star in the history of the world as we know it.
Bill, as he is called, joined Coronation Street in 1960 and as the sanctimonious but habitually unfaithful Ken Barlow he's been popping into peoples' fantasy worlds ever since.
In 1991, Roache won £50,000 in damages when The Sun called him boring and unpopular with his fellow stars.
However, he had to pay £120,000 in costs because he had rejected an offer of the same amount before the trial.
He sued his lawyers for negligence and was later declared bankrupt.
He's now into meditation, chanting and druidical practices.
But, let us return to the show-business trial.
Six women plucked up the courage to nail Bill for unreciprocated acts of love in the 60s.
You know what they say about the 60s: if you can remember them, you weren't there.
Well, Bill couldn't remember the women. That was his defence.
The prosecution case had more holes than a beehive.
But the judge, Sir Timothy Holroyde, who is known for prosecuting Chinese cockle-pickers, showed what he thought of the Manchester jury very early in the innings. He warned them repeatedly that they were not trying Ken Barlow.
Louise Blackwell QC, the defence barrister, also must have thought the jury was on the borderline.
She asked the judge to discharge them twice - once because the summing up had been biased (even though it seems His Lordship had only got to the end of the prosecution case); and the second time because the jury might have read media reports that a woman called Tracey Shelvey had recently fallen from a roof after her attacker had been acquitted of rape.
The submission was to the effect that the jury might have had difficulty disentangling her name "Louise Blackwell QC" from "Kate Blackwell QC".
Kate - the other Blackwell QC
Kate Blackwell QC was involved in the Brewer case which was heard a year ago (reported in Justinian Feb 2013).
The complainant in that case committed suicide. Comparisons had been drawn between the Shelvey case and Brewer, and Miss Kate's name had been mentioned in reports.
As a lawyer, one must be neatly attuned to how the great unwashed think.
Ann Whyte QC: splendid one sentence cross-examinationThe prosecutor Ann Whyte QC spoke to the jury as if they were discerning Guardian readers.
In her opening speech, she said:
"Are they (the complainants) all manipulative fantasists riding on the coat tails of the nation's post-Saville crisis of conscience?"
To use an old line:
"In the dimly-lit hostelries and flesh-pots of Stockport and Wigan, they speak of little else."
By the way, Ms Whyte was responsible for one of the most splendid one-sentence cross-examinations in history.
The defence called Anne Kirkbride, who is Roache's on-screen wife Deirdre Barlow.
The gravelly-voiced siren's TV wedding to Ken in 1981 out-rated Chas and Di's. It should be said that Deirdre had a brief nuptial with a Turkish barman along the way and ended up in the jug.
Kirkbride spoke gushingly. Roache was helpful and supportive to her and was always "the perfect gentleman". Blackwell asked her to describe Roache in a word and she replied "Lovely."
Whyte rose to cross-examine.
"In 1965, you would have been about nine?"
"That's about right."
Travis: jury told not to be swayed
Across the country in London the judge in another celebrity, historic sex-offence trial of the DJ Dave Lee Travis told the jury not to be swayed by the verdict in the Roache case. Presumably they were thick too.
It seems it's not only the legal profession that thinks juries are not to be trusted.
This week, the government proposed legislation aimed at potting jurors who have the temerity to research information online.
By the way, William Roache was acquitted on all counts and is going back to Deidre.
* * *
I talked to a friend of mine who has been at the bar for many years. She had a few thoughts on these sex trials, which I'm keen to share.
Let's call her Judge Grendal. Here's what she has to say ...
"A number of recent trials, or witch-hunts, have only served to remind me how out of touch I am in this 'brave new world'. One question which hasn't been asked so far as the Dave Lee Travis and Roache trials are concerned is: where was the judge?
It is no surprise that the CPS would have adjudged the prospects of a conviction as more than 50 percent where the complainant indicated - in a case which had little evidence to support her allegations from the start - that she had no recollection of ever having been sexually assaulted at all (and let us not forget that we're not alleging the use of drugs or alcohol by the defendant to bring about that state).
It is a mere disappointment that prosecuting counsel will no longer say to the CPS 'get real'. Much, much worse is where the judge cannot, at the beginning of a trial, say to the prosecution - 'I've read the papers and imagine that you will be taking a view on Count 1, yes?'
Judges certainly used to. It was called 'giving an indication' by which one recognised the charge would not survive the journey to the jury-room.
Back then judges were a little more than admin assistants having to tick boxes in order to satisfy the taxpayer they were getting their moneys' worth.
In Constance Briscoe's trial the judge allowed an application by the Crown to cross Briscoe on her bad character.
Briscoe is a member of the bar and part time judge.
What was the bad character evidence? That she'd signed a colleague out of a two-day Judicial College course so the colleague, voted judge of the year by Western Australia's female lawyers, could catch a flight to pick up her award in Perth.
This was adduced as evidence of a propensity to be dishonest.
Really? The signing or socialising with Australians?
I could say something about the absence of the judge in the sex-grooming cases and the Nigella Lawson case too.
I have a real problem with historic sexual abuse claims as you can probably tell.
Of course, there are clear examples where it is right to pursue the perpetrator notwithstanding the time lapse, but we've gone for the celebrity and the front page of the tabloids, not for the offence.
The risk is that in doing so we've undermined the effect of what we're really trying to do which is to bring the guilty to justice.
Rennard: sad old guffer
Which leads me on to Lord Rennard and his accusers.
I question whether these women should be given the platform to make allegations of harassment years after the event.
It wouldn't be unfair to say the behaviour complained of was at the lower/scraping-the-floor end of the scale.
These were grown, educated, robust professionals, each wanting to make her way in politics. If they were not able to manage the unwanted attention of a sad old guffer then they were in the wrong business from the get-go.
Welcome to the future."
Sex offences, Sexual harassment
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