An opportunity for fantasists and liars
Widdecombe
BACK in 2015 I wrote on this page that by standing outside Ted Heath’s house and appealing for “victims” of the late prime minister to come forward and accuse him of sexual abuse, the police would be attracting “the usual crop of fantasists, revenge-seekers and money-chasers”. Oh, how right I was.
Forty-two allegations were received but only seven are now deemed sufficiently credible to have warranted Heath being interviewed.
The time and money expended on the other 35 were wasted. Among those the police dismissed were 19 cases where evidence undermined the claims, three where the accusers decided they had identified the wrong man, 10 where the complaints were not made by the accusers themselves and one claim so bogus that there was a likelihood of prosecution against the man making it.
Of the seven cases which survived the investigation the most horrendous was the alleged rape of a boy of 11. That is at the top of the scale of sexual iniquity but now it transpires that the alleged victim is a convicted paedophile described by the judge as a predatory sex offender, with a history of lying including a false confession of murder.
Indeed his complaint had already been investigated and dropped by the Met. Unsurprisingly he has mental health problems.
IT IS beyond belief that the Chief Constable of Wiltshire Mike Veale, who has overseen this operation, said at a press conference that he did not know whether any of the seven were criminals when the most serious complaint of all came from a man of this background and in jail. He admitted that some of the complainants (whom he insists on calling victims) were “challenged”.
Thank heaven for a free press which can tell us what the police won’t. Maybe there is yet more to come.
We owe it to the remaining six alleged victims and to the reputation of a dead man who cannot defend himself if they are not, to sort out the mess and the evidence – which the police admit is uncorroborated – needs to be independently reviewed and the credibility of accusers thoroughly tested.
WHY ARE CHILDREN DOING SATS TESTS WOUND UP TO SUCH A PITCH?
A SATS test was so tough that some pupils cried and a quarter could not finish it. Ofqual says it was unduly hard and may have been difficult for some pupils to “access”.
If that is an example of Ofqual’s own understanding of the English language perhaps it should itself be sitting a few tests. Clearly if the pupils took the exam then they did have access to it. I think Ofqual meant “understand”. So what was difficult? The test for 10 and 11-year-olds included words such as rival and parched. Nay, one head even said that “archaic” words such as ancestor would be too tough even for some secondary school pupils.
If she had said “forebear” or “forefather” was archaic I would have agreed but ancestor is not difficult and certainly not archaic, which means no longer used. Tracing ancestry is a well-known term and I cannot believe it would be unfathomable to the average secondary pupil.
As for children sobbing, who wound them up to that pitch? This was not the 11-plus defining future education but a test designed to monitor the school as much as an individual child. The atmosphere should have been calm, not stressful.
There were also complaints that the tests were too hard for special needs children. For pity’s sake! Sats cannot be aimed at every individual. They can test only whether pupils are generally reaching a prescribed standard.
How wonderful it would be if some teachers would accept challenges instead of resenting every effort to raise standards.
I tried the words “rival” and “parched” out on some children and none of them burst into tears.