Stalinism is alive
and well on the
Glasgow underground
John Cameron
The first black student to gain entry to Harvard Law School at the turn of the 20th century was a graduate of the relentlessly elitist Californian ‘hidden Ivy’, Pomona College.
It was therefore no surprise when I entered Pomona 50 years ago to face formidable black female academics – the forerunners of Condoleezza Rice and Michelle Obama. The civil rights movement was still in its infancy and they had to be wary in the south, but in the liberated atmosphere of western academia they were no shrinking violets.
During the 2008 election, I was more intrigued by Michelle than by her husband, who struck me as a smooth-talking Chicago machine-politician with unsavoury backers.
In the last century, the unwritten rules of presidential electionee-ring permitted no-holds-barred attacks on the candidate but placed his wife and family strictly off-limits. This broke down during the Bush-Gore election when the desperate Democrats targeted the Bush twins Barbara and Jenna, then at the universities of Yale and Texas.
Michelle will be a victim of Republican retaliation with muscular depictions already appearing of her as an imperious, vacation-obsessed, shopaholic Marie Antoinette. Her situation will not be helped by ‘The Obamas’, a book written by journalist Jodi Kantor which details the feuds between the first lady and key presidential advisers.
The Republicans will probably try to portray her as a cross between angry and divisive White House wives of the past and Britain’s loose-cannon Cherie Blair. I doubt this will faze her because, unlike her husband, she really is the invincible product of America’s slave plantations with a history of storming the bastions of privilege.
Hot-housed through Chicago’s ‘magnet’ school system, she went up to Princeton where she read African-American studies before gaining her law degree at Harvard Law School. She worked for a couple of years as a lawyer in intellectual property before opting for state administration as well as salaried board memberships as her husband’s status grew.
Racist labels could backfire because this high-profile African-American woman in a stable marriage is both a positive role model and a clear example of racial mobility.
Given the fruits-and-nuts-and-flakes on the Republican ticket, it is hard to see Obama losing, which may explain why Fox News is kick-starting a ‘Draft Hillary’ campaign.
Falsely accused of murder
and rape, yet the state
owes me no duty of care
Jim Fairlie
The following headline appeared in one tabloid on 2 January: ‘Corrie cast celebrate as soap star is cleared of raping child’. The star in question is Michael Le Vell – Kevin Webster in Coronation Street – who was arrested, in a blaze of publicity in October last year, after child sex allegations were made against him.
The alleged offence was supposed to have taken place years ago and Le Vell ‘strenuously denied’ the allegations. Greater Manchester police issued a statement: ‘A file of evidence was prepared for the Crown Prosecution Service who decided there was "insufficient evidence to charge"’. One doesn’t have to be a lawyer to realise that ‘insufficient evidence’ is not the same in the public mind as being ‘cleared’.
Between June and October 2011 I was in correspondence with Kenny MacAskill, cabinet secretary for justice, in an attempt to persuade the SNP government to change the law on third party duty of care. It is not generally known that, in Scotland, the law does not provide that third parties are owed a duty of care by public authorities or by those employed by them. What that means is that certain categories of victims of negligence, mendacity or wilful wrongdoing on the part of local authorities or their employees, are denied any redress through the courts because the guilty parties enjoy immunity.
In 1995, I was falsely accused of child abuse, rape and murder as a consequence of the application of the discredited Recovery Memory Therapy on my daughter Katrina. The therapy was applied as a consequence of earlier medical negligence. Both my daughter and I sued the health trust involved and I also sued Perth and Kinross Council for the actions of its social work department (SWD).
Katrina won an out of court settlement, with the health trust denying liability of course. My case was struck out because the court determined that I was owed no duty of care and, at the last moment, I very reluctantly dropped the case against the SWD having been given that advice. Thus, the person who receives the therapy can sue for medical negligence but the falsely accused is denied any legal avenue to gain redress, despite the fact the damage to their reputation, social standing and general life can be enormous. My reputation has survived but the financial cost has been horrendous and I was forced out of active politics for over a decade.
The damage can be so enormous that some never recover. In the context of gaining redress the damage is not only foreseeable but avoidable and is often created quite deliberately by psychiatrists, social workers et al, following their own agenda in the name of child protection. I have no knowledge of the circumstances of the Le Vell case but I am very familiar with the phrase ‘insufficient evidence’. Since becoming involved in the hell of the child protection industry, I have tried to help many other falsely accused parents, caught up in circumstances which are an exact replica of my own and in almost all of them, the phrase ‘insufficient evidence’ crops up. Unfortunately, the names of the falsely accused may have already been made public and the damage already done.
In my own case I was told the SWD was not prepared to pursue the case because there was ‘insufficient evidence’, when in fact the ‘evidence’ which they had amounted to a thoroughly discredited theory which relied in part on dream interpretation. I have lost count of the number of times I have publicly challenged the authorities, on radio, TV and in print to prove they were telling the truth but since their lies were contained in several letters sent to me and which I still hold, the challenge is unlikely to be met.
I can think of no other branch of the law which so blatantly refuses to even pretend to protect the innocent from the negligence and mendacity of public officials and where the ‘system’ is more important than natural justice.
The ‘expert witness’ employed by the health trust wrote two ‘expert’ reports, the first in April 1998 in which he stated he ‘thought’ he heard me say in a ‘radio or TV interview’ that I had been abused. In his second report of September 2007 he had no doubt that I had been abused. I met the ‘expert’ only once. Did he ask me if I was abused? No he didn’t. Did he ever hear me admit I was abused? No, he didn’t. Did he ever read that I had been abused? No, he didn’t. Was I ever abused? No, I wasn’t, but ‘experts’ in this field believe in another theory that those who have been abused are more likely to become abusers themselves.
When Lord Kingarth struck out my case he said: ‘I stress as a matter of law…I am required to decide this case within the boundaries of the law’. There is nothing I can do about my own case but the need to change the law is more necessary than ever as the number of falsely accused continues to increase.
Kenny MacAskill referred me to a House of Lords decision of 2005 which states: ‘Child abuse is a serious social problem and health care professionals (HCPs) play a vital part in combating the risk…it is best attacked by relieving HCPs of legal proceedings…Uncompensated innocent parents pay the price but that is a necessary price’.
I think that is an appalling judgement but consistent with the UK’s complete disregard for the welfare of the victims of miscarriages of justice. I can think of no other branch of the law which so blatantly refuses to even pretend to protect the innocent from the negligence and mendacity of public officials and where the ‘system’ is more important than natural justice.
I asked Kenny MacAskill three times if the SNP government agreed that innocent parents should continue to be victimised and made to pay the ‘price’ for the negligence and mendacity of public officials. Three times he refused to answer. I also asked three times how many innocent parents would be allowed to be victimised before the price was deemed to be too high. Again he refused to answer despite being informed that the number of families who have contacted the British False Memory Society (BFMS) has increased from 400 in 1995 to over 2,500 in 2011. Thousands of innocent lives have been damaged – to what end? How many children have been ‘saved’ by destroying so many innocent lives?
In an effort to get cross-party support, I contacted the other main political parties in the Scottish Parliament. The initial response from both Tory and Labour was encouraging but when pushed to comment on their respective party’s attitude to the 2005 House of Lords’ decision, the correspondence dried up. There was no response whatsoever from the Lib Dems.
In his darker judgement, Lord Clyde said: ‘Immunity may cut across the rights of others to a legal remedy and so runs counter to the policy that no wrong should be without a remedy; it should only be allowed with reluctance’. Third party duty of care is a wrong that is screaming out for a remedy.
Jim Fairlie is a financial adviser and former SNP official
