Jess Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, tweeted it was “unfathomable” that the Tory MP in question had retained the whip.
Sigh.
Rishi Sunak’s spokesman said on Friday it was right that allegations of rape and multiple sexual assaults made against a sitting Tory MP had been passed onto the police.
Allegations are allegations. We have a system for working out whether they’re true or not. The punishment comes after the proof……
Some people want us to be guilty until proven innocent.
Us but not, of course, them.
Yes, we have systems: plea bargaining, waiting times, costly court procedures, public denouncement, proof-of-compliance regulations, CPS discretion, and enough crimes to ensure you can charge people with something. Not to mention regulators with no separation of powers.
Our system is better than tortured confessions, but the idea that it works out the truth of allegations is laughably naive.
There is a real problem when your first rape trial was delayed due to prejudicial media coverage and then is stopped due to jury misbehaviour, and the prosecutor then decides that the mental health of the alleged victim, who’s credibility investigators had doubts about, is too fragile for a second trial.
Before the first trial, the alleged victim had become a media celebrity and was treated as a victim rather than an alleged victim.
For the accused, who will not now have an opportunity to clear his name in court, his life will be for ever be tainted, with many happy to believe in his guilt.
https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/03/greatly-concerned-prosecutor-warns-potentially-unlawful-disclosures-brittany-higgins-bruce-lehrmann
As opposed to withdrawing the party whip but continuing to enjoy the support of MP’s such as Keith Vaz, Rupa Huq etc etc.
Incidentally I don’t recall hearing as much as a squeak from the charming Ms Phillips when another Conservative MP left the scene of a traffic accident. It’s a puzzler.
Ah… the Clowns are still running around in the ring, it seems…
In other news, I see that c**t Sajid Javid is stepping down at the next election. Not soon enough but better than nothing…
https://news.sky.com/story/sajid-javid-stepping-down-at-next-election-12760151
There was a case locally where a case got to the 3rd mistrial before being dropped, on one occasions the judges summing up and failure to answer a substantive question from the jury were the problem and in the other 2 the judge moved to mistrial based on prosecutions behaviour and prejudicial comments during the trial
The process is the punishment
Today’s news is that Conor Burns has had the Whip restored after Conservative Central Office has reviewed all the evidence available – one nameless source said that it had seen him put his hand on a man’s thigh and he gets sacked prior to the investigation, his reputation pretty much destroyed. Mr Burns describes it as a “stitch-up” aaaaafter the Whip is restored.
Modern version of a poison pen letter.
Jess Philips seems keen on conviction and sentencing before trial based on poison pen letters.
You do know that it is alleged that Jess Phillips takes small children, peels the skin off them, and feeds it to her cats?
This allegation means she must be suspended from the Labour Party immediately.
(Of course, the allegation might be the result of delirium, insanity, or just plain old malice. But I identify as a woman this evening so you must believe me.)