Noel Clarke

Haven't attacked any victims. Don't even know the name of any victims.
Haven't defended him either. I have literally no idea whether he is guilty or not. I'll leave that for the courts to decide

 

This.

 

Can you say he’s 100% guilty? No but all logic suggests he’s a wrong un.

This is a long investigation with 20 different women making allegations against him. There’s countless successful actors & actresses posting about it & his co-stars are even speaking about it. He has a terrible record of falling out with people he’s worked on in previous films & shows.

It’s a shame for me as I’ve liked him & enjoyed a lot of his films & shows over the years but the evidence is pretty conclusive.

 

I see John Barrowman is now being cancelled on twitter for exposing himself. I wonder if Chef Ramsey will also be cancelled as there are similar stories.
Sorry if it's off topic I didn't want to make a new thread.

 

I don't know why some people get personally abusive on threads like this. One person has. It's supposed to be a thread discussing a contemporary issue where people are trying to explain ideas but there is an undercurrent of anger in here which is unpleasant. Threads like this are good because they help us to see different perspectives.
For what its worth I don't like trial by media and in a 'perfect legal system' world it shouldn't happen. However we should sometimes praise the media for bringing stuff like this to light and getting it into the public domain. The police have historically shown themselves to be slow in reacting to issues like this (in my opinion) and something has to change culturally regarding both sexual abuse per se and bullying from anyone in a position of power. So, on balance with this one I think its right Clarke is called out. If it also speeds up a 'fair trial' then that is also a good thing. Remember if it wasn't for the Guardian putting this out there any nasty behaviour by Clarke would probably have continued. As I say, on balance I'm glad he's called out. 20 allegations is a lot and the culture needs to change anyway.

 

Let’s just clear something up re the ‘number of false allegations’.

There’s no legally agreed description and the number on the stats actually includes a high proportion of cases where cases were dropped due to lack of evidence (common in sexual assault and rape cases).

In fact if you flip this thread on its head, and only count successful prosecutions for false allegations, the number is vanishingly small.

I hope that helps with perspective @Redhelen

 

The issue is, and it is a massive issue, that you can’t improve the number of convictions without also falsely convicting innocent people. You’re right of course that there’s often a lack of evidence in these sorts of cases, which goes both ways. Some will be not convicted when they should be, which I’d obviously love to stop happening, but also that results in a lack of closure if there is a false accusation. Constantly hanging over the accused’s head. It shouldn’t be that way and legally it isn’t, but in the modern world with social media etc, it absolutely does.

I don’t know what can be done though. Innocent until *proven* guilty is a fundamental part of the justice system. I just don’t see how convictions can increase without locking up an insane number of innocent people. Until they come up with a lie detector that is admissible in court I don’t see how anything can change. Locking up innocent people, especially of such a heinous crime, is never something that should be viewed as an acceptable risk in my opinion.

I’m not talking about the Noel Clark case here at all by the way. I’m talking just in general.

 

That is precisely why I think there shouldn't be anonymity. It allows a pattern to emerge if people are encouraged to come forward that is more likely to result in the truth coming out in court. Sexual predators rely on their victims being too scared, embarrassed etc to speak about it.im certain not advocating locking innocent people up.

 

In theory I don’t disagree, but in reality all that happens is that as soon as an accusation is made, regardless of whether it’s true, the accused is presumed guilty on social media, or in the media etc for celebrities. After that point, it doesn’t matter if it’s actually proven guilty or not, the life is ruined.

I told the story yesterday of the person I know that committed suicide after a false allegation. The accusation against him was physically impossible to have happened, but it ruined his life over a multi-year span and directly led to his death, despite the actual police action being over in a couple of months at the most.

 

And of course so does the after effects of aexual assault. I'm sorry about your friend though and I do see where your coming from.

 

It's really difficult given the evidential difficulties in proving/disproving consent. But we absolutely cannot and should not reverse the burden of proof to a point where an accusation is treated as true until the accused disproves it. That would be crackers, and completely out of line with the fundamental principles of our legal system.

 

Agreed mate, Priti Patel seems to have got away with it....

 

We don't want trial by Twitter but I think that if 20 different women accused me of being sexually inappropriate with them I might realise that I was the one in the wrong.

 

But there’s nowt to worry about, because even if you admitted the wrongdoing, people would still take to social media to defend you.

 

On the subject of how would it feel if our own sons/daughter was involved in things like this. Has anyone else gone to great lengths to drill it into their sons not to put themselves in a position where they could even be accused of something like this? I'm thinking about things my mates and I used to do, like taking women absolutely out of their trees that we had pulled in town home. At that point, it's literally one word against another. I've told mine to make sure h doesn't do things like that, as I am terrified of it happening to him. If it's a totally baseless accusation(no contact at all, for example), then you just have to put your faith in the legal system, I suppose.

I'll do the same with my daughter when she's old enough, too.

 

Unfortunately that doesn't stop false allegations. People have been accused of awful crimes when they haven't even been near the other person at the time.

 

Yeah, I understand that.

I think I'm trying to minimise the risk though. If he doesn't do the things we used to do, then it takes the "unable to give consent" issue out of the equation(as an example). Nothing is ever going to stop all false allegations(unless you punish the one who makes said allegation with the same punishment their victim would have got if found guilty, which can't happen as it would stop real victims risking coming forward), so minimising the risk sounds a good idea to me...

 

Disappointed in Noel, if this is true.
He’s come a long way from playing Wayne’s unknown son in the 90s reprise of Auf Wiedesehen Pet. Getting a BAFTA last week.
In a 1985 interview, published after his death. Gary Holton (Wayne) spoke of having sex with a 13 year old daughter of a woman he was seeing. At her insistence, to introduce her daughter to sexual activity. I wasn’t much older when I read that & it didn’t seem so bad at the time. sorry to ruin Gary’s dudeness, but that’s so wrong.

 

That is really bad. Was there ever a time in out modern society that something like that could be considered "OK"?

 

Never. Just my teenage naivety. Mandy Smith was 13, when first seeing Bill Wyman. I always thought that had something to do with him leaving the Stones. Lest everybody’s past gets digged up. The Beatles are probably not totally guiltless either.