Larissa Nolan: We can’t descend into era of Salem witch trials

COLLATERAL damage is the latest buzzword among those who have delusions of themselves as righteous crusaders. The phrase describes injury inflicted on someone other than an intended target yet, despite its gravity, it is used in an offhand way by advocates of #metoo.

It is trotted out dismissively in response to concerns about innocent people being found guilty by lynchmob justice.

Dropped by those who are so misguided, they are ready and willing to throw away the ancient right of the presumption of innocence, revered by true liberals as the basis of a civilised society, fundamental to the Irish legal system and internationally recognised as an essential safeguard to protect all.

If you support victims, you support the rights of the accused; it is a principle that cannot be parsed. In essence, all the wrongs of the world’s dark history have come about due to it being discarded. The victim who has this human right taken away from them can only be seen in hindsight: just like we could only identify the injustices towards Joanne Hayes and Maurice McCabe when it was too late, for them.

Disturbingly, there is a concerted effort – by those with no understanding of its value – to paint the idea of innocent until proven guilty as a technicality to protect those accused of sex crimes.

It’s not. It’s there to ensure a just society that encourages lawfulness and respect for others. In criminal law, Blackstone’s formulation describes why it is imperative, not just from a moral point of view, but also from a practical one: “It is better that 10 guilty persons escape, than one innocent suffers.”

According to William Blackstone, the 18th century judge and politician: “When innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, the subject will exclaim: ‘It is immaterial whether I behave well or ill, for virtue itself is no security.’ If such a sentiment were to take hold… that would be the end of all security whatsoever.”

Those who are against a fair justice system are using coercion and intimidation to browbeat others into accepting their ideology of conviction without trial by portraying those who stand for the rights of the accused as “victim-blamers”.

They are authoritarians masquerading as progressives, who effectively want to drag us back to the Middle Ages. Right-thinking people must resist it at all costs, for the good of all society.

I took part in a live audience debate last month at which an elected representative publicly condoned the fact that some innocent people would be accused in the wrong.

Let’s think about what a false allegation of sex assault or rape would mean: the destruction of their lives, careers and reputations, untold personal torment, a horrific injustice that would appal anyone with a shred of empathy. But it was fine, the individual argued, if certain people got “thrown under the bus” once it meant the political aim was achieved.

An audience member who claimed to have a legal qualification, challenged my definition of the presumption of innocence as a human right as “factually incorrect”.

It is a fact – listed as Article

11 in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights: the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, according to law. Why would someone, in 2018, argue against a legal principle that is one of the most important achievements in the history of civilisation? That arguably protects the vulnerable and minorities more than it protects anyone else?

Maybe because they had backed themselves into a corner with their previous catchphrase, the literally nonsensical “I believe you”, which was grossly offensive and damaging to rape victims and to women as a whole. It is a disgrace to foster a culture where all accusations of rape are automatically believed – a backwards system that demeans women as being incapable of ever telling lies, or as more virtuous than men. Furthermore, if you believe everyone, there are bad people on the planet who will take advantage of that entrenched stance. The next tactic was to silence those who stood up for people accused without proof, with the

sinister warning that: we don’t know what’s yet to come out about the person – so be quiet, or you’ll be hung next for supporting a pervert. But that’s just piling speculation on top of speculation.

A pervasive fear of speaking out against this mass hysteria meant I was the only one on that debating panel – and in the room – on the anti #metoo side, despite most in the real world agreeing with my perception of it as divisive, open to exploitation and ultimately unhelpful to victims, as they do not truly get redress.

IN the public eye, feminist icon Margaret Atwood (inset) has compared #MeToo to the Salem witch trials, stating: “(Like) the Salem witch trials, you were guilty because accused.” Germaine Greer has criticised it, saying women should react immediately, not retrospectively, and that they need to be supported to go through court.

Liberal comedian Bill Maher lashed the movement’s finger-pointing as modern-day McCarthyism, saying: “I’m down with #MeToo, I’m not down with #mecarthyism. Justice requires weighing things, that’s why Lady Justice is holding a scale and not a sawn-off shotgun.”

The #MeToo mass hysteria and the resultant injustices that are an inevitable side-effect of it are eerily similar to the events in ‘The Crucible’ – and anyone who rejects that parallel has simply not seen ‘The Crucible’. Watch it.

It makes clear how now, more than ever, we need to protect this principal that is a cornerstone of our criminal justice system.

As protagonist John Proctor states, while refusing to confess to something he did not do and sacrifice his reputation to save himself: “Because it is my name. Because I will never have another in my life.”

You might think you’re safe – if you’re a woman, and so assumed as automatically exempt from being a sexual predator due to gender. What need have you to care for the destruction of identity and of the soul caused by a false allegation of this magnitude?

But eventually the finger will point not directly at you perhaps, but at your husband, your father, your brother, or your son. Then tell me how you feel about collateral damage.