Branded like Cliff

I’M NO fan of Sir Cliff Richard, but I, too, have been wrongly accused of being a paedophile and the local Wellingborough (Northamptonshire) police have been useless in following up my pleas for help.

Worse, as time went on (and on and on), even my wife of more than 50 years, mother of our children and all-round good egg, was beginning to have her doubts. What she has been put through I will never forgive.

However, being only an elderly bloke of no fame (though now, locally, ill-fame) the police, supported by Northamptonshire’s chief constable, thought it right to ‘presume’ that as some feral kids and their equally feral parent had come forward with some accusations then they must be true. It came to light subsequently that a convicted paedophile had been rehoused in our street. Some local parent put two and two together and came up with five.

Name and address supplied.

SIR CLIFF RICHARD is right about his reputation being permanently tarnished (Mail). A police investigation ending in ‘No further action’ isn’t an exoneration. The police position is one of ‘insufficient evidence’ not ‘no evidence’. The false allegation is considered evidence.

If the accused works in the public services, their lives will be destroyed even if the investigation is dropped. It will be recorded on the police national database and made available to employers.

STEVE JONES, Swansea, Glam.