Michael Le Vell, 46, the father of two, has been a star of British soap "Coronation Street" for almost thirty years. Mr. Le Vell was accused and arrested for a years-old sexual assault claim of a girl, but is "delighted" to have been "completely exonerated." after he was cleared following a police investigation. The star said he was now planning to carry on working and put the incident behind him.
Mr. Le Vell now reveals that the ordeal made him suicidal. “At times, I felt like throwing myself under a bus. I was in a bad way,” he said.
Going forward, he fears that mud sticks. He said, “People will always think, ‘There’s no smoke without fire,’ even though it was a complete lie.” He has called for a change in the law which would stop anyone accused of sexual assault being publicly named. He said, “No one should have to go through what I’ve been through. These are the worst sort of allegations anyone could face. Saying I raped a kid, it’s just horrific. It’s wrong that people can be named like this. It’s been worse for me because I’m well-known, I’m high-profile. Things need to change.”
Mr. La Vel makes a point worthy of serious, and not politicized, public discourse. If rape is a "different" kind of crime that warrants automatic anonymity for rape accusers (by law in the UK and by compact of members of the news media in the US), then it is also a "different" kind of crime for the presumptively innocent men and boys accused of rape. If rape carries a unique stigma justifying anonymity for accusers, it also carries a unique stigma justifying anonymity for the wrongly accused. There is an argument to be made that it should either be all or nothing.
This case prompted Brian Reade of the Daily Mirror to write the following:
". . . men accused of serious sex offences should have the same rights as their accuser and only be named if they are found guilty.
"We’ve seen it happen to pop stars like Paul Weller and Mick Hucknall, soap stars such as Ben Freeman, reality contestants like Jack Tweed and footballers Frank Sinclair, Paul Dickov, Keith Gillespie and Jody Morris.
"Identified as an alleged rapist when they were innocent. And it left them all devastated, angry and disgraced, after being accused of the most sickening of crimes before the case was anywhere near court.
"This is how football manager David Jones, who was cleared of 14 sex abuse offences against boys, defined his agony when his year-long ordeal which cost him his job, was over: “It killed my father and took away my children’s innocence. I would rather have been up for murder.”
"Sir Paul’s brother Mike McCartney was forced to fight devastating allegations that he sexually assaulted a waitress at a family gathering. It was thrown out the second it got to court. Matthew Kelly was arrested over allegations of child sex abuse. No charges were brought, but he was suspended by ITV and became the butt of “paedo” jokes that I still hear comedians crack today.
"How can famous men be allowed to hide behind super injunctions that cover-up their private sins yet innocent men can be named and shamed before they are even investigated by police?
"I understand the argument that naming a genuine rapist may encourage other victims to come forward. I appreciate the woeful conviction rate, and the need to improve it.
"But I don’t accept that innocent men can have their lives ruined, possibly out of malice, while those who allege a crime are never named.
"None of us has a clue how it feels to be falsely accused of raping a child, fearing everyone who looks at you believes there’s no smoke without fire.
"Only the wrongly accused know what it’s like to see your family shamed, to have the only thing that is truly yours, your good name, stolen, and to be powerless to say anything in your defence.
"Why should Michael Le Vell have been put through that?
"Why should the phrase 'quizzed over child abuse' sit permanently in his press cuttings? And all because someone may possibly have invented something which left his reputation looking like child-molester Sidney Cooke’s.
"This law attacks our most fundamental human right – the presumption you are innocent until proven otherwise – and is nothing short of inhumane.
"It is surely time we showed some humanity."
SOURCES:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/columnists/reade/2012/01/05/men-accused-of-serious-sex-offences-should-only-be-named-if-they-are-found-guilty-115875-23679829/
http://primetime.unrealitytv.co.uk/coronation-street-star-michael-le-vell-who-was-suicidal-over-rape-allegations-calls-for-law-change/
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4046996/Michael-Le-Vell-I-wished-to-die-over-rape-lies.html
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11 comments:
My false rape accusation was so obviously false. that the question needs to be asked why Did law enforcement spend 100's of man hours supposedly investigating it??
I believe its because in a culture of " bureaucratic pork bloat capitalism" that its money and federal pork bloat dollars that are driving the false rape industry.
If law enforcement started charging false rape accusers, false rape accusations would dwindle, and then the pork bloating dollars to law enforcement would fallow.
If nobody says the truth, It never gets said.
Pork bloating dollars funneled into law enforcement in return for faulty, inflammatory, manufactured statistics is problematic.
"If nobody says the truth, It never gets said."
--- Well said my friend.
"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
--- John
Aharon
That was a very tender and heartfelt appeal.
Hopefully, this will be the start of the groundswell we've been waiting for.
The logic behind anonymity for those accussed of rape or sexual assualt is clear and obvious. Yet the likes of Harriet Harmen insist, as part of some vindictive "Gender War", that men should be shamed and have their lives ruined, guilty or not.
The motivation of these Gender Feminists is in part the simple raw emotional satisfaction of seeing the other gender suffer, and also that the threat of FR can act a tool to give women more social power.
In the present political climate politicians have little option other than to kowtow to the Feminist juggernaut of a lobby machine.
It's all very shameful
S in Boston - ”If nobody says the truth, It never gets said.”
Unfortunately, you continue in your own bad habit of substituting personal biases and fevered imagination for “truth”.
Example:
”its money and federal pork bloat dollars that are driving the false rape industry.
This is, of course, simply a part of your unending effort to deflect blame and responsibility away from the women who freely chose make FRA; and to suggest that save for the free-flow of money from Fed-to-state, FRA’s would largely vanish.
Of course (as you’ve been told time and time again now), there is not, nor has there ever been, a mechanism in place for law enforcement to profit directly from federal monies based either on the number of rape cases they investigate, nor the amount of time and money they spend on those investigations. Federal monies are doled out via a competitive bid process, and are (which will come as no surprise to anyone with the basic intelligence to understand feminist rape-culture thinking) targeted NOT towards law enforcement continuing “business as usual”, but rather towards “new and innovative” programs designed to better and more aggressively pursue (supposedly, at least for public consumption) the elimination of violence against women. To simply fund normal police operations would be, to them, to suggest that the imagined problem doesn’t need to be addressed in new and innovative ways (can you really imagine a gender-feminist in the SGI arguing that the rape-crisis/rape-culture could be dealt with by just paying police to investigate more?)
The reality (even though all evidence now suggests that you may well lack the capacity to fully understand it) remains that there is “zero” incentive for any police department anywhere, in any instance of a rape allegation, to spend any significant amount of time properly investigating it. The number of reported crimes they will report to the UCR is in NO WAY contingent on their doing any investigation at all. And the expense for each and every investigation is borne entirely by them alone.
And, even though you may not be able to comprehend why, this is what has/had been the long-running problem with law enforcements response to rape claims – that they FAILED to fully investigate, and simply bought the stories that women brought to them, and acted as if the her word alone was enough to fully solve and resolve the case.
Falsely accused men who are cleared are typically thusly cleared ONLY by the police doing their proper job of investigating, even if the underlying intensions of the investigators had been to build their case against the accused. And even the call to charge women who make FRA’s will require that investigations be undertaken to prove that they are lying, and doing so knowingly and willingly.
Again, likely beyond your comprehension, but what you are suggesting as an alternative is that law enforcement begin to act as advocates for men who are accused, and to simply reject the claims of the women without investigation. Also beyond you, but there are many practical reasons why this will never happen. It was bad enough when many police agencies and individuals reflexively acted as advocates for women making accusations, and two wrongs will never equal one right.
I think it’s abundantly clear that Pierce and Steven have always and only called for the equal consideration of both men and women, irrespective of which side of an allegation they may be on (women have also been falsely accused). Simply believing all men, and discounting the words of all women is NOT the answer to the FRA issue.
Such would be but an empty and mindless misogyny, and even the suggestion of it herein tends to reflect badly upon this site and could compromise the vital and important functions this site is now (successfully) serving in disseminating good and accurate information.
”If nobody says the truth, It never gets said.” by MCA, Scott, or Yogi Berra?
You mean if somebody says the truth, it gets said? God, that's brilliant.
Slwerner, you cannot win an argument against a broken record ==== stuck on pork bloated dollars.
Why u guys pickin on Gender-Raunch guy. I know him, and he's very sensitive. He cries when lucy pulls the football away from Charlie brown every time he tries to kick it.
They'll never get anonymity,Not for awhile anyway,The feminazis have been working against it since day one,Just look at Lisa Longstaff & Women Against Rape,-One of their core objectives is to prevent anonymity for the presumptively innocent men,-They succeeded before & they'll probably succeed again,-We still should try & work for it though.
Terrific work! That is the type of information that should be shared around the web. Disgrace on the {seek engines|Google} for now not positioning this put up upper! Come on over and consult with my website . Thank you =)
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And now he's been charged for the same offences. Must be those blasted FemiNazis/Socialists who are to blame...not the fact that the CPS think there's enough evidence to make a conviction possible. Any case that gets to this point has a huge amount of evidence pointing to the guilt of the defendant...which does not necessarily mean they are guilty of course, but the CPS will not prosecute without a reasonable chance of conviction. Given that the conviction rate for rape is approximately 5%, how many cases never even get this far?
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