Quote of the day 16th October 2015

"We have now reached the point where there are crimes for which there is no defence. To attempt to refute an accusation against oneself – or to try do to do so on behalf of some one else – is to invite condemnation, or accusations that you yourself are complicit in the crime."
 
"We have a name for it. We call it “victim blaming”. To even dare to suggest that someone is innocent is to engage in “victim blaming”. To claim that an accuser may be wrong, or mistaken, or themselves motivated by malign intent is to engage in “victim blaming”. To say “I don’t believe the accuser, I believe the accused” is to engage in “victim blaming”.

"We have now got ourselves into a place where the fundamental principle underpinning our system of justice – the presumption of innocence until proof of guilt – has been turned on its head. With certain “political crimes” there is now a presumption of guilt until innocence can be proven. In fact, we’ve gone beyond that. This “victim blaming” culture is now reaching such a toxic critical mass that even to try to mount a defence against accusations of the vilest crime is of itself to bring accusations of committing a vile crime. “Don’t you understand? When you challenge the account of a 'survivor' you make it harder for other survivors to come forward. And that means you’re effectively letting the abusers go free. Which makes you almost as bad as the abusers yourself."
 
"This is insanity. Almost literally. In our desire to right historic wrongs we are contaminating the present. We have replaced the judicial process with trial by social media. We are tearing up basic principles that have underpinned our legal system for centuries, such as the presumption of innocence and the right to a defence. We have politicians acting like prosecutors, journalists acting like judges, prosecutors acting like policemen, and policemen acting like politicians."

(Dan Hodges in a Telegraph article which you can read here.)

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