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I would suggest that Mr Rozenberg is mistaken in this matter. I do not believe that there was any legitimate public interest in naming Sir Cliff.
Mr Rozenberg asserts that Sir Cliff was suspected of a serious criminal offence. Which of course, all sounds very murky, even if the BBC are basing their entire case on a "might-have-been". But I wonder if Mr Rozenberg is aware of the circumstances that led to Sir Cliff becoming a suspect of the aforesaid serious criminal offence? Fingerprints? No. Compelling witness testimonies? No. DNA? Definitely not. A man, hiding behind an "investigative journalist", concocted a tale about being abused by Sir Cliff at a Billy Graham rally at Hillsborough football stadium in 1980-81. He later changed this to Bramall Lane. The date was found to be in fact 1985. (All this is confirmed by the BBC's witness statements.) That's it. That was the extent of the evidence on which Sir Cliff became the suspect of a "serious criminal offence".


Do not suppose I believe that, despite its flaws, the allegation against Cliff should have been ignored...indeed I believe all allegations should be investigated. But I wonder, where lies the threshold at which a police investigation becomes public property? The second the allegation is made, does the accused become a "suspect"? Should we install videocameras in all police stations and set up a 24-hour Police Live TV channel, and watch fantasists like Operation Midland's Nick spew out their bile about the rich and powerful all day? Who'll be denounced today? A duke? An archbishop? A prince?

Or wouldn't it seem more prudent to let the police first establish facts, to see if there is any likelihood the accused would or could have done this, before blasting it across the entire planet? That was, after all, the purpose of the raid on Sir Cliff's home...to establish whether guilt was even a possibility.

Mr Rushbrooke, for Sir Cliff, stated that there was no public interest in naming him. But i would go further. I would contend that it runs COUNTER TO the public interest to name in the early stages of an investigation. Yes, if you name someone, more 'victims' come forward. The problem is, I would suggest that a huge number of them are liars. Freddie Starr had I think 14 false allegations against him, and Jim Davidson 8. All complete fantasy. The innocent Jimmy Tarbuck, Paul Gambaccini, Bill Roache and Micheal Le Vell also succumbed to the false allegation lurgy. Even those found guilty on some charges, also had false accusers. Rolf Harris and Stuart Hall both had further multi-allegation trials following their original convictions, none of which led to any additional guilty verdicts. The Met launched a grandiose murder investigation into VIPs living and dead, accused of rape, murder, mutilation...all on the phantasmagorical testimony of 'Nick'. Sir Cliff had additional allegations by a rapist, a blackmailer and a man who claimed that Sir Cliff assaulted him on a break from filming his "Wired For sound" video in Milton Keynes. He asserted that Cliff molested him on roller skates, having spent two hours rollerskating around a clothes shop. All this leads, of course, to a colossal wastage of police resources at a time when the country's resources are perilously stretched.


If you required the services of a policeman in South Yorkshire in 2014-2016, you were probably out of luck. They had probably all sojourned down to a clothes shop in Milton Keynes to look for roller skate marks on a 35-year-old carpet.

I am not suggesting that alleged offenders' names should be concealed indefinitely...indeed, all that Sir Cliff is asking for is that the naming be deferred to the point of charge. The BBC, in their 'defence', cited examples of guilty abusers who had been cornered, allegedly as a result of press publicity. Fran Unsworth must have namechecked almost every sex offender since Jack the Ripper, some of whom had committed the vilest of depravities. I find this distasteful and insulting to Sir Cliff. But I cannot imagine any of these individuals would have escaped justice by retaining anonymity until the point of charge. People like Barry Bennell and Gary Glitter were already notorious, and had rap sheets longer than the Nile. Stuart Hall, whom the BBC namecheck a lot, was charged on the same day his house was raided, which is what happens when there is actually evidence. What about Savile? He got away with it 1) because various institutions did not report what they knew to police, and 2) because the police did not properly investigate what did get reported. It was not because the media failed to sensationalise an allegation in its early stages.


Furthermore, as Mr Hart and Miss Hodgkins report, the manner in which the BBC sensationalised Cliff's house raid greatly increased their tort. With a helicopter filming blue-gloved policemen through the window rifling through Sir Cliff's belongings and incriminating footage of bags full of property, they shredded a flawless reputation in one fell swoop. This, of course, was what they wanted. Their dream. Their finest hour. They paraded his name around like trophy hunters...the more beautiful and powerful the prey, the sweeter the triumph. Let's face it, Gary Glitter didn't make a good scoop. Announcing he was under investigation was akin to revealing that the Pope was a Catholic. Forget shooting bluejays - the BBC wanted to kill the mockingbird - the beautiful, untainted songbird.