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| Though Bernard Hogan-Howe kept his job, he could yet lose his reputation | Though Bernard Hogan-Howe kept his job, he could yet lose his reputation |
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| Credible and true. Three small words, but they have come to haunt the Metropolitan police. Fourteen months ago, at an emotional press conference, Detective Superintendent Kenny McDonald used those words to describe the allegations of a man who claimed children had been raped and perhaps even murdered by a circle of paedophile politicians in the 1970s and 1980s. | Credible and true. Three small words, but they have come to haunt the Metropolitan police. Fourteen months ago, at an emotional press conference, Detective Superintendent Kenny McDonald used those words to describe the allegations of a man who claimed children had been raped and perhaps even murdered by a circle of paedophile politicians in the 1970s and 1980s. |
| To hear him say those words, and urge any other victims to come forward, was to feel the chill creeping into one’s bones. Until then, the story felt faintly fantastical; but surely senior police officers wouldn’t make such unusually unequivocal statements for good reason. Suddenly, I felt ashamed for not having taken it more seriously. After all, the police clearly believed poor Nick, the anonymous accuser. Or did they? | To hear him say those words, and urge any other victims to come forward, was to feel the chill creeping into one’s bones. Until then, the story felt faintly fantastical; but surely senior police officers wouldn’t make such unusually unequivocal statements for good reason. Suddenly, I felt ashamed for not having taken it more seriously. After all, the police clearly believed poor Nick, the anonymous accuser. Or did they? |
| On Wednesday, with two chief suspects in what has become a network of overlapping inquiries publicly exonerated, and the tabloids baying for an apology on behalf of Lords Bramall and Brittan, the Met commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, came out swinging. His men had had little choice, he hinted; they were under orders to believe victims of sexual violence unconditionally. No less an authority than Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) had said that “the presumption that a victim should always be believed should be institutionalised”. | On Wednesday, with two chief suspects in what has become a network of overlapping inquiries publicly exonerated, and the tabloids baying for an apology on behalf of Lords Bramall and Brittan, the Met commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, came out swinging. His men had had little choice, he hinted; they were under orders to believe victims of sexual violence unconditionally. No less an authority than Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) had said that “the presumption that a victim should always be believed should be institutionalised”. |
| One can see why. The failure for so long to hear or believe victims of abuse is one of the great betrayals of our age. As the NSPCC pointed out on Thursday, the fear of being disbelieved still discourages victims from coming forward. Belief is an article of faith for survivors, and any suggestion that they might be viewed more sceptically risks undoing decades of good work. | One can see why. The failure for so long to hear or believe victims of abuse is one of the great betrayals of our age. As the NSPCC pointed out on Thursday, the fear of being disbelieved still discourages victims from coming forward. Belief is an article of faith for survivors, and any suggestion that they might be viewed more sceptically risks undoing decades of good work. |
| Yet while we know false rape allegations are vanishingly rare, they’re not nonexistent [see footnote]. Suspects have rights, too. Should rape be the only crime that comes with this extraordinary moral obligation to believe? The good news, of course, is that actually it isn’t. The line Hogan-Howe quoted is drawn from an HMIC report on the integrity of crime statistics more generally. It relates to a recommendation that all crimes be recorded as such the minute they’re reported, rather than investigating first and only recording them if the story basically holds water. Earlier in the report, the integrity of rape and sexual offences statistics are identified as a particular concern, but so are statistics for burglary, robbery and violence. | Yet while we know false rape allegations are vanishingly rare, they’re not nonexistent [see footnote]. Suspects have rights, too. Should rape be the only crime that comes with this extraordinary moral obligation to believe? The good news, of course, is that actually it isn’t. The line Hogan-Howe quoted is drawn from an HMIC report on the integrity of crime statistics more generally. It relates to a recommendation that all crimes be recorded as such the minute they’re reported, rather than investigating first and only recording them if the story basically holds water. Earlier in the report, the integrity of rape and sexual offences statistics are identified as a particular concern, but so are statistics for burglary, robbery and violence. |
| It’s not just rape victims the police were told to believe, in other words, but all victims – at least until there’s evidence otherwise. People who claim to have been robbed but are really trying it on with their insurance companies, say, would be equally entitled to the initial benefit of the doubt. And interestingly, the report was published a few days after Nick first went to the police (although before those fatal three words were uttered). In fairness to Hogan-Howe, there is clearly confusion among some officers over where the burden of proof now lies in rape cases. But it seems likely that confusion is rooted rather deeper in his own force. | It’s not just rape victims the police were told to believe, in other words, but all victims – at least until there’s evidence otherwise. People who claim to have been robbed but are really trying it on with their insurance companies, say, would be equally entitled to the initial benefit of the doubt. And interestingly, the report was published a few days after Nick first went to the police (although before those fatal three words were uttered). In fairness to Hogan-Howe, there is clearly confusion among some officers over where the burden of proof now lies in rape cases. But it seems likely that confusion is rooted rather deeper in his own force. |
| As he pointed out, the former Scottish solicitor general Dame Elish Angiolini published a review of his force’s handling of sex offences last summer. Buried in it is a paragraph expressing her surprise on hearing that it was “police policy for officers always to ‘believe the victim’”. This was, she said, fuelling resentment among officers who felt they had to “continue to investigate cases regardless of whether the allegation was true”. | As he pointed out, the former Scottish solicitor general Dame Elish Angiolini published a review of his force’s handling of sex offences last summer. Buried in it is a paragraph expressing her surprise on hearing that it was “police policy for officers always to ‘believe the victim’”. This was, she said, fuelling resentment among officers who felt they had to “continue to investigate cases regardless of whether the allegation was true”. |
| She traced the problem back to a Met policy note in 2002, requiring officers to “accept allegations made by the victim in the first place as being truthful”. On the face of it, that’s simply asking officers to treat victims with respect and empathy when they first make a complaint, and doesn’t stop them going on to test the evidence as rigorously as anyone would expect. | She traced the problem back to a Met policy note in 2002, requiring officers to “accept allegations made by the victim in the first place as being truthful”. On the face of it, that’s simply asking officers to treat victims with respect and empathy when they first make a complaint, and doesn’t stop them going on to test the evidence as rigorously as anyone would expect. |
| But if that seems like a statement of the bleeding obvious, it’s worth remembering that note was written in the middle of a national outcry over dismal rape conviction rates and over the insensitive and indifferent service many victims got from the police. Forces across the country were under intense pressure to clean up their acts. If officers feel they’ve lost some of their ability to exercise their own judgment in rape cases, that’s partly because such judgment was often woefully exercised in the past. | But if that seems like a statement of the bleeding obvious, it’s worth remembering that note was written in the middle of a national outcry over dismal rape conviction rates and over the insensitive and indifferent service many victims got from the police. Forces across the country were under intense pressure to clean up their acts. If officers feel they’ve lost some of their ability to exercise their own judgment in rape cases, that’s partly because such judgment was often woefully exercised in the past. |
| The obvious question is what, if anything, all this has to do with Operation Midland, the investigation into the alleged VIP paedophile ring. Was McDonald genuinely convinced that Nick’s terrible story was true, or did he feel obliged to say so? And given this was an intensely politically charged investigation, launched against a background of feverish interest in historical child sexual abuse and raging distrust of a Westminster political establishment,what guidance, if any, did he get from superior officers? | The obvious question is what, if anything, all this has to do with Operation Midland, the investigation into the alleged VIP paedophile ring. Was McDonald genuinely convinced that Nick’s terrible story was true, or did he feel obliged to say so? And given this was an intensely politically charged investigation, launched against a background of feverish interest in historical child sexual abuse and raging distrust of a Westminster political establishment,what guidance, if any, did he get from superior officers? |
| The commissioner is perhaps lucky that the tabloids are baying for the wrong apology. The idea that he should say sorry because Bramall is a war hero who should never have been put through this is emotive and understandable, but it’s wrong. Jimmy Savile raised millions for charity and Lord Janner campaigned tirelessly on Holocaust remembrance; if we’ve learned nothing else from these cases it’s that nobody is above suspicion. Imagine the public uproar, the never-ending conspiracy theories, had accusations against powerful figures been peremptorily dismissed. | The commissioner is perhaps lucky that the tabloids are baying for the wrong apology. The idea that he should say sorry because Bramall is a war hero who should never have been put through this is emotive and understandable, but it’s wrong. Jimmy Savile raised millions for charity and Lord Janner campaigned tirelessly on Holocaust remembrance; if we’ve learned nothing else from these cases it’s that nobody is above suspicion. Imagine the public uproar, the never-ending conspiracy theories, had accusations against powerful figures been peremptorily dismissed. |
| One’s heart goes out to the families put through a tremendously distressing ordeal, but there is a strong sense of the establishment only now waking up to what ordinary people who are unjustly accused have always had to live with; the breakfast raid, the neighbours whispering, the gnawing fear, the inexplicably long wait to be cleared. If the tabloids were demanding an apology for everyone who has ever been put through that, they might have a point. | One’s heart goes out to the families put through a tremendously distressing ordeal, but there is a strong sense of the establishment only now waking up to what ordinary people who are unjustly accused have always had to live with; the breakfast raid, the neighbours whispering, the gnawing fear, the inexplicably long wait to be cleared. If the tabloids were demanding an apology for everyone who has ever been put through that, they might have a point. |
| Yet it does not feel as if Hogan-Howe is out of the woods yet, for all that Theresa May on Thursday extended his contract for a year. He is not responsible for whatever mixed messages his officers may have absorbed in 2002, but he has been in charge for the last five years. That’s long enough to watch the pendulum swing, as he himself said yesterday,from moral panic over paedophiles going undetected to accusations of witch-hunts against the innocent; long enough that the ultimate responsibility for finding a balance lies with him. Nick isn’t the only one whose credibility may end up on the line. | Yet it does not feel as if Hogan-Howe is out of the woods yet, for all that Theresa May on Thursday extended his contract for a year. He is not responsible for whatever mixed messages his officers may have absorbed in 2002, but he has been in charge for the last five years. That’s long enough to watch the pendulum swing, as he himself said yesterday,from moral panic over paedophiles going undetected to accusations of witch-hunts against the innocent; long enough that the ultimate responsibility for finding a balance lies with him. Nick isn’t the only one whose credibility may end up on the line. |
| • This footnote was appended on 15 February 2016 to provide a link to an Open Door column, “Reporting on historical sexual abuse allegations requires great care”, which discusses the use of terms in connection with historical sexual abuse cases, including “false rape claims”. | • This footnote was appended on 15 February 2016 to provide a link to an Open Door column, “Reporting on historical sexual abuse allegations requires great care”, which discusses the use of terms in connection with historical sexual abuse cases, including “false rape claims”. |