Paul Gambaccini: police used me as 'flypaper' for almost a year
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Version 0 of 1. The broadcaster Paul Gambaccini has told MPs he was used as human “flypaper” by prosecutors for almost a year in relation to a now-dropped allegation of historic sex abuse, with his arrest publicised in the hope that other people would come forward to make allegations against him. Gambaccini told the Commons home affairs select committee on Tuesday that he ”enthusiastically supported” moves to introduce a 28-day limit on the use of police bail after being unable to work for an entire year because of the publicity surrounding the ”completely fictitious” allegation. He forfeited more than £200,000 in lost earnings and legal costs during 12 months before police and prosecutors told him there was no case against him. The former BBC Radio 1 DJ, who has since returned to work on BBC Radio 2 and 4, said that after his name had been leaked to the press his income suddenly went to zero, except for hosting the Ivor Novello awards. He also voiced his suspicions that his bail kept on being extended repeatedly because detectives working on Operation Yewtree – the investigation into historic sex offences launched after the exposure of Jimmy Savile’s crimes – did not want juries trying other celebrity sex cases to hear that a former Radio 1 DJ had been cleared. You are exposed, in the first place, so that other people will accuse you… You can see the pattern in all the cases. “I faced the full weight of the state with unlimited financial resources for 12 months with no reason,” said Gambacini. “It was a completely fictitious case, a science-fiction case which would have required time travel, and I don’t have a time machine,” he told the Commons committee. The broadcaster said that he had been targeted by his accuser because “I was the famous person in his neighbourhood”. He was arrested on 29 October 2013 and police handed papers to the crown prosecution service on 10 February 2014 but it was 10 October 2014 before he was told that there was no case against him. “In other words the crown prosecution service sat on me for eight months after the police had given them their papers.” Related: Keith Vaz sidelined as Paul Gambaccini show overruns His bail was extended seven times during that period. He claimed that each time coincided with important developments in Yewtree, such as the sentencing of Max Clifford, the conviction of Rolf Harris and the date on which Dave Lee Travis’s trial was due to end. “I do believe – though I don’t have any evidence for this – that they were just sitting on me until Travis was finished.” Asked if he felt there had been a “concerted attempt” to link him with other unconnected cases, in the hope that publicity would prompt other alleged victims to come forward, Gambaccini said: “Oh, of course. You are exposed, in the first place, so that other people will accuse you … You can see the pattern in all the cases. You are exposed in the press. Stephen Fry called it the ‘flypaper’ tactic, where they put up a human being as a piece of flypaper and see what gets attracted to it.” But the director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, denied that the CPS had been ”sitting on” Gambaccini’s case file doing nothing. She told the MPs that it was an extreme case in which in a lot of issues had needed to be “bottomed out”. She said that the 28-day proposed limit, now being consulted on by the home secretary, Theresa May, was too short and it was not appropriate for decisions to be made in haste: “We don’t live in a world where everything lands in our laps at the first opportunity,” she said. The MPs also heard evidence from Chris Eyre, the chief constable of Nottinghamshire and the lead spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers on police bail. He said that the limit on police bail should be as long as necessary for inquiries to be pursued. He said that only in 2% of cases had suspects been on police bail for longer than six months. |