>A former MP who was jailed for sexually assaulting two women told a court he is looking at supermarket shelf stacking and building site work to pay back his prosecution costs.
>Charlie Elphicke was the MP for Dover when he was found guilty of sexually assaulting two women, including one he chased around his home chanting: "I'm a naughty Tory." He told the court he was in a "very difficult and embarrassing situation" and finding it hard to get any job.
If he does get a book deal, I'm sure he'll be in the black again in no time. Who doesn't want to read the life story of a sexual deviant who chased women around his house actually fucking uttering the words "I'm a naughty Tory!". That sounds like something a middle aged Will Mackenzie from the Inbetweeners would say.
This seems quite high to me even accounting for tax and miscellaneous cost like subscriptions and buildings. You might talk about some Yankee perception that the public sector is wasteful but it seems to me like the CPS is trying to turn a profit rather than operating as a public body that claims back some costs in the interest of the taxpayer.
>>38380 >it seems to me like the CPS is trying to turn a profit rather than operating as a public body that claims back some costs in the interest of the taxpayer
I'm reluctant to call into question your clearly spectacular powers of deduction but the CPS received £20.6m in awarded costs last year (from 370,415 prosecutions). It spent £608m.
>>38413 >An unnamed Conservative MP
>The Conservative Party said he had been asked by the chief whip not to attend Parliament
So can't we just see who doesn't show up for Prime Minister's Questions tomorrow? It's a male Conservative in his 50s. Nice of the party not to name him, but it just makes us all want to know who it is, and it's going to be very easy to work out in the next 24 hours. Especially when every innocent fiftysomething Tory shows up at the House of Commons tomorrow by hook or by crook to prove it's not them.
>An allegation of rape against a Tory MP was made by a male politician who was a teenager when they first met, The Telegraph understands, amid growing pressure on the Conservative Party to name him.
>His name - as well as those of MPs misidentified - has been widely circulating on social media. The confusion prompted one MP falsely identified on social media to make a show of remaining in Parliament, enjoying lunch on the Commons terrace.
>The MP was arrested on suspicion of rape, sexual assault and indecent assault as well as abuse of position of trust and misconduct in public office. The alleged sexual offences are reported to have been committed between 2002 and 2009, according to the Metropolitan Police.
>The Telegraph understands that the MP first met the alleged victim, 20 years his junior, when he was a teenager. At the time, the MP was in his 30s.
>It is claimed the two men became friends but fell out in 2019, according to a number of sources familiar with the case. In January 2020, police received a report “relating to alleged sexual offences having been committed between 2002 and 2009”, which are said to have occurred in London. Police spent the day on Wednesday with the alleged victim at his home.
>One senior Conservative Party source said: “The relationship between the MP and the young man was well known in his local party circles, well known in regional party circles, and well known at Conservative Campaign Headquarters. Everyone knew about it because it had been going on for years.”
>One senior Conservative Party source said: “The relationship between the MP and the young man was well known in his local party circles, well known in regional party circles, and well known at Conservative Campaign Headquarters. Everyone knew about it because it had been going on for years.”
Sounds a lot like that Jimmy Saville thing. Everybody at the BBC knew that ARE Jim had a predilection for groping underage teenagers, and people were talking about it under their breath for years, but nobody did anything about it.
>>38434 So what do you do with the other two years. What kind of sordid sex acts require an 18+ participant - did he take him into the bushes and have him adopt a child while wearing a fur-suit? Sit in on a learner driver practicing while wanking? Fly a chartered commercial jet up his arse?
>Also the press know who he is but won't name him even though there are no rules preventing it
The way I understand it, he has yet to be charged with offences officially. And until that materialises, there is at least the theoretical possibility that the allegations could end up amounting to nothing and not causing a criminal investigation to go forward. In that case then, newspapers and other media would open themselves up to libel lawsuits by the accused.
>>38438 >In that case then, newspapers and other media would open themselves up to libel lawsuits by the accused.
It's not libel to correctly report that someone has been arrested and to correctly report the offences involved.
>It used to be that if an MP was arrested, the Commons Speaker would have to tell the House – either in an oral statement or by “laying” a letter in the House of Commons Library. This meant the arrested member’s identity quickly became public knowledge.
>But in 2016, the rules changed at the recommendation of the House of Commons Standards Committee. The Speaker is no longer obliged to tell the House of a member’s arrest, and can only do so if the MP agrees.
>The Committee’s rationale was that the previous arrangements were incompatible with a person’s right to privacy under the European Convention on Human Rights and other elements of UK law.
>They said they wanted to bring the rules around naming an arrested MP in line with standard practice for naming an ordinary member of the public in such circumstances. Official guidelines say that police will only name an arrested person if there’s an exceptional reason to do so, like a threat to life.
The fact that Parliament passed these new rules about what to do with one of their own if they get arrested is obviously a bit like the frogs moving to drain the swamp.
>>38440 Controversial but correct opinion: ZXC was wrongly decided. Someone involved in serious bribery shouldn't be allowed to escape scrutiny just because the charges are made to go away by way of settlement or the SFO not having the funds to proceed properly.
Now if you'll excuse me, that whisky won't come to my lawyering armchair by itself.
>>38447 What, pray tell, is the "punishment" of which you speak? The only people "punished" by either answer to the question in ZXC are those who dare to speak uncomfortable truths about rich people.
>>38449 At the risk of repeating myself, what is the "punishment" that they receive for their arrest being reported? If someone's wrongfully arrested, surely it's even more in the public interest that the fact of their arrest is reported. I don't know about you, but I think the public has the right to know if police are going around arresting people wrongfully.
You're not wrong fundamentally, but consider the social punishment that comes with being accused of offences in the realm of sexual misconduct. I'm not saying you won't have to carry stigma with you if you were wrongly accused of a bank robbery or physical assault. But when the offence in question involves sexual abuse, especially that of minors, then whether you receive a first-class acquittal or not, there's always going to be that lingering doubt for many people if you just simply got away with it.
It's a touchy subject, but criminal allegations can be false and made up. If you somewhat verifiably had sex with a minor between the ages of 13 and 16, then naturally there isn't going to be much wiggle room. But rape or abuse allegations between adults can be just as career- and social life ending, even if they are completely disproved.
If the plot thickens and somebody is charged and tried in court based on substantial initial evidence, then it starts to become a different story.
>>38450 > If someone's wrongfully arrested, surely it's even more in the public interest that the fact of their arrest is reported.
When's the last time you saw a massive news story saying, "BREAKING NEWS: Suspected paedophile is innocent"? That's not a story anyone's going to care about. Everyone will pay attention to the news story about someone getting Yewtreed, but a news story that they're innocent is barely even worth reporting unless it's Cliff Richard. It's very bad to report that someone is only suspected of a crime. It worked with Jimmy Savile because it meant a lot of other victims realised that they weren't the only one, but that means it also worked because he actually did it.
This is basically what I meant. Social punishment means if you look guilty, you are guilty. And it also ties into the presumption of innocence. Naturally at its core, it means that a court and law enforcement must treat you as potentially innocent even if there is strong suspicion that you committed an offence, for as long as you haven't been proven guilty in a court beyond reasonable doubt.
Blurring the lines between accusations on the one hand and presenting those accusations as quasi-fact on the other hand is at least highly morally questionable. And I think the reasoning behind modern privacy laws and what they say about when the name of a suspect can be divulged to the public very directly goes back to the idea that you're not really fully presumed innocent if the press gets to have a field day with you before you've even seen the charges against you in writing.
>>38456 Those poor innocent lads,it must have been awful to be fitted up for a murder that they totally didn't do and definitely weren't recorded boasting about.
>>38458 You'll notice he was neither a rich person nor an MP, so the press ran with his name with glee, unlike the mysterious bribe facilitator ZXC or the Tory rapists Mark Francois and Andrew Rosindell.