"Westminster paedophile ring" accuser jailed for 18 years

[Saracen999]

Carl Beech, serial liar and "source" behind many of the allegations against MPs, senior defence figures, intelligence service staff, etc, has been jailed for 18 years on 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and one of fraud.

He also, of course. cost the tax-payer a fortune, with a police investigation into his Westminster allegations alone running at some £2m.

But beyond that, he's directly and personally responsible for wrecking numerous lives, careers and repurations.

So ... does this finally present enough of a case to, first, change guidance to police on how to view allegations?

And .... is it about time that, short of an extremely good reason, people accued of the sorts of pernicious crimes this ..... exhaust pipe .... of an individual accused so many of, should be anonymous until at the very least being charged.


And the attitude of the police needs to change too. They seem to have over-reacted from being too sceptical about claims (pre-Saville, fir instance) to being prepared to take any old hogwash as gospel-truth, even in the face of growing mounds of evidence to the contrary.

Police investigating these extremely serious but pernicious allegations surely, IMHO, needs to take a dispassionately objective stance, twking allegations as neither true, nor untrue, until they do their due diligence and assess the credibility of claims.

After all, victims of false claims are just as much victims as those of actual paedophiles, and police need to remember the presumptive standard in tjis country .... innocent until proven guilty, and accusation <> proof of guilt.

Taking, and publicly declaring, these claims as "credible and true", as they did, not only wrecks the lives of those falsely accused, but could deter genuine victims from coming forward in case they are believed to be liars too, and in that case, they've been screwed over twice.

Police needs to take all such sexual assault claims seriously, but then they need to see where the evidence takes them. After all, eventuall, you are going to need enough to convince a jury, "beyond resonable doubt".

I'm thoroughly glad my jury service was over much less nasty crimes than this, but even so, it's quite a burden knowing you personally have at least part of what's required to take away someone's freedom, likely fir several years, and that is a heavy enough burden that I, for one, took "beyond reasonable doubt" seriously. Police do nobody any favours if they take false claims as true, any more than they do if they fail to take genuine claims seriously. They have a fine line to walk of doing a thorough and competent investigation but remaining objective and independent while doing it.



Mewnwhile, at least we got rid of some serious rubbish for a substantial part of 18 years. Good riddance.

[peterb]

Good job - justice has been served, although too late for some of those he accused who have since died.

Police attitudes do need to change. Innocent until proved guilty, and no trial-by-media.

[Xlucine]

After all, victims of false claims are just as much victims as those of actual paedophiles,

Paedophiles such as Mr Beech

[Saracen999]

Paedophiles such as Mr Beech

Depends on your definition. I was referring to those actualling and actively abusing children. As I understand it, Beech "made" a large collection of images, which usually means downloaded them and that, while unpleasamt enough, is a different cwtegory to those physically and directly abusing kids, which was what he was accusing others of.

But legally, yeah, I guess that makes him one. At the very least, it suggests latent inclination, but unless I missed it, I'm not aware of any convictions for direct abuse, which is what I sas getting at.

[matts-uk]

Hmm. Collecting images creates the demand, from what I've read.

Even so. The questions I would like to know the answers to.
1. How did he get a £20K victim payout from the public purse, and was it recovered. He is anything but a victim.
2. How did he get a job as an NHS quality inspector.
3. How did he get a job as a paediatric nurse.

18 years, 9 with remission. It's not enough.

[Saracen999]

Hmm. Collecting images creates the demand, from what I've read.

....

I've heard that argument, but I'm not entirely convinced. Is it a demand-pull or supply-push situation? Dunno. Did he join some pay-site, or free download? Would he have done anything if the opportunity hadn't been there? How hard is kiddie porn to find? And on that one, I don't know and don't want to, but a couple of TV documentaries suggest, sadly, nowhere near as difficukt as it shoukd be.

And even if there is a demand-pull, that will be an aggregate effect that tells us little or nothing about an individual case.

As for the sentence, personally, if he never got out it'd be too soon. And the same for all 'standard' paedophiles.

[Xlucine]

He actively produced the material:

It also became clear that Beech was a perverted voyeur - he had installed a recording device in a toilet to secretly film a young boy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49048972

[Corky34]

Why was the whole make sexual assault crimes public thing done in the first place? If I'm not mistaken the argument was because more people may come forward but if that's the case why not apply the same logic to other crimes, naming the accused does (IMO) seem to turn the whole innocent until proven guilty thing on its head and I'm inclined to say it shouldn't be done but I've never really heard of a compelling reason for naming the accused.