MY 50 SHADES OF RAGE
Fuming at false child abuse charges that ruined his life, veteran DJ turns his ire on his accusers
broadcasting legend Paul gambaccini suffered a year of psychological torture when he was falsely accused of historic sex abuse against two teenagers. Last week he recounted the full horror of an official witch-hunt that left him unemployable, his possessions seized. now, in a passionate final extract from his troubling new book, he rages against the police and operation Yewtree prosecutors who smeared him – in the desperate hope of bolstering their ‘trumped-up’ case...
ON THE day the case against me finally collapsed – October 10, 2014 – I receive a call from a former lodger, a man I shall call ‘Moscow Paul’. What he has to tell me is explosive. A Metropolitan Police officer who flew to Los Angeles to interview him has called to tell him the case has been dropped and mentions the Met thought the chances of a successful prosecution were as low as three to five per cent. Seventy to 80 per cent is the current standard for a case to proceed to court.
I spent a year on bail for a three to five per cent chance? I HAVE l earned many things about the case since my solicitor Kate Goold acquired two troves of information from the Metropolitan Police.
One was a chronology of the case showing that the original allegation was made on April 4, 2013 (I was arrested on October 29 that year), the second was a partial case log containing the staggering revelation that on September 5, my case had actually been dropped for ‘insufficient evidence’.
The case was over before I even knew it existed – and was revived only when the first complainant, who I shall call ‘Primary’, then blurted out the name of a second d supposed witness to corroborate his claims that I had taken part in a variety of sexual acts with them between 1978 and 1984, when they were teenagers. The log never states that ‘Secondary’ was interviewed. Therefore, he may never have made a formal, admissible, allegation. This may explain why the police refused to offer me a transcript of his evidence.
I don’t know when the police learned about Primary’s past form of making a supposedly false sexual allegation while still at school. Was my year on bail really based on an allegation from an unreliable witness coupled with a tenuous allegation from a man only introduced after the case was dropped – or did the police hope that, as in many prior Yewtree cases, press coverage would encourage fresh allegations?
In February 2015, 14 months after sackloads of my possessions were seized, the police say they are to be returned by two officers. I tell them to leave the items in the foyer. No, the policemen would like to talk to me.
I got it. They wanted to say sorry. And so, in only slightly guarded terms, they did.
‘I genuinely hope you’re going to be OK,’ one said. They knew they had been given a bad case.
With previous Yewtree investigations, publicity had encouraged new allegations from the public. In my case, no one else came forward.
I asked if they knew about their witnesses’ backgrounds. ‘We know everything about both of them,’ he confirmed. ‘It’s impossible to find out what’s in somebody’s head.’
This was as remarkable an experi- ence as any in a year of inconceivable events. Two police officers had pilgrimaged to my home to confirm that I had been wronged.
Their behaviour contrasted with that of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe. Given a golden opportunity to apologise or declare my innocence when asked about my case by John Humphrys on the Radio 4 Today programme, Hogan-Howe chose instead to go into a defence of interminable police bail.
I have been told again and again the police feared I was going to sue them. This said two things. First, the police know I have reason to sue. Secondly, they are afraid of lawsuits, so refuse to admit any error.
For months, I resist all interview requests. My wounds are so raw that I am in danger of turning any discussion into a rant. Then, I receive an invitation to testify before the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee on the use of police bail.
So begins one of the most unpleasant weeks of my life. I write an article for submission to the committee which could have been subtitled Fifty Shades Of Rage. I show it to Kate Goold and my husband, Christopher. They freak.
Chris suggests I simply supply a timeline: the dozen dates showing the details of my arrest and numerous rebails. This proved to be the single most important contribution I have made to the cause:
The Metropolitan Police arrived in force at my home at 4.38am on October 29, 2013. They arrested me,
I was always rebailed on days when there was major Yewtree news. The CPS were sitting on me indefinitely and did not want people to know
took away sackloads of belongings and presented me with risible allegations. I was given a report date of January 8, 2014.
On December 13, Chris saw on social media that I had been rebailed until the end of March. I had not realised a person could be rebailed without knowing it.
The Metropolitan Police passed papers to the Crown Prosecution Service on February 10, 2014. The CPS said it would offer a definitive decision on March 26. On March 20, they rebailed me until May 7. On May 2, I was bailed until July 7, because the CPS needed to obtain ‘information from third parties’.
It was obvious, since the case against me was fictitious, the CPS hoped someone else might come forward. This is a particularly sinis- ter aspect of unlimited bail – the hope that if someone is held out in public long enough, a new person will eventually accuse him.
On June 30, I was rebailed until September 15. The reason given was that the police needed to reinterview my accuser. At the end of August, I learned my accuser had never been re-interviewed.
In fact, I was bailed until the day after Dave Lee Travis’s retrial was due to end. I believe the CPS did not want the jury to know that a former Radio 1 DJ was innocent and that it uses individual cases as pawns in a public relations chess game.
When it became obvious the Travis trial would go beyond September 15, I believed I would be rebailed again. On September 12, I was – this time until October, 6 a date that was later extended until October 13.
September 12 was also the day when charges were lodged against Dr Michael Salmon, who worked at Stoke Mandeville hospital when Jimmy Savile was there.
The pattern was now clear. I was always rebailed on ‘win days’ when there was a prominent Yewtree development, hence a deluge of publicity that overshadowed my case. I was also rebailed on the day Max Clifford was sentenced and on the day Rolf Harris was convicted. The CPS was seemingly sitting on me indefinitely and did not want the public to know. The MPs on the committee, having read my timeline, were in disbelief at the number of times I was bailed.
Many people, in expressing sympathy, have emphasised the element of loss. Considering both cancelled income and legal expenses, the financial total is more than £200,000, which I can never reclaim. BBC Radio stopped paying me the moment I was named in the press. I became instantly unemployable, and received no new offers.
I resolved to survive and managed to lose a stone. But every day I suffered six or more rage attacks, which resulted in a fear of walking across bridges because I did not wish to find myself halfway across The Thames from my South Bank home in the midst of a rage attack.
Most of my long-term relationships with organisations were also lost. Charities I had helped to found or fund ignored me. The Labour Party, for which I raised funds for more than 25 years, shunned me. Only five organisations stood by me. I will support them for the rest of my life.
There is a greater loss. I have lost my faith in the British justice system. No one loves a country more than someone who has chosen to live there. When I came here from America at 21, I believed Britain had the world’s greatest culture, both high and popular. I was sure Parliament was the greatest legislature in the English-speaking world. Imagine how much I loved this country. Imagine my disappointment when it betrayed, psychologically tortured and abandoned me. My unqualified love for Great Britain has been qualified.
Great Britain persecuted me from October 29, 2013, to October 10, 2014. Its agents entered my home in the middle of the night, took away my possessions, arrested me on trumped-up allegations, disgraced me in the national media, deprived me of employment and kept me on bail for 12 months even though they knew they had no case against me.
These are the actions of a totalitarian state. But the most amazing thing is that no one involved thinks they live in a totalitarian state. They are oblivious to the roles they played in my persecution. This includes police officers, journalists, the CPS and the organisations that shunned me for fear of taint.
None of them originated the witchhunt, but all went along with it because to resist it demanded more courage than they could summon.
The people of Great Britain have always been wonderful to me. They gave me a home, a quality education and a career beyond my dreams. They were personally kind whenever I met them. They deserve better. I hope they fight for it. I hope they get it.
They said it couldn’t happen here. It happened to me. Unless there is reform, it will happen again. It could happen to you.
What are you going to do about it?