Is Operation Yewtree a witch-hunt? That is apparently what Terry Gilliam and Chris Tarrant think. Gilliam described it as "like something you'd expect to find in the former Soviet Union", and Tarrant said he "found what was happening terrifying".
There isn't any suggestion that Tarrant himself has anything to fear from the investigation.
Operation Yewtree's record is mixed. Freddie Starr, Jim Davidson and Jimmy Tarbuck were all arrested (Starr four times) before being told they would face no further action. Dave Lee Travis was tried on multiple counts and acquitted on most of them, the jury being unable to reach a decision on the others. Michael Le Vell and William Roache were acquitted. On the other hand both Max Clifford and Rolf Harris have been convicted and others are pending.
Is this, as an article in the Guardian suggests today, a "vindication" of Operation Yewtree? Well, yes and no. But mostly no.
Firstly, Yewtree is sometimes guilty of applying today's thou-shalt-not-touch standards to the very different social mores that applied in the 60s and 70s. Rape then would be rape now, but some of the other behaviour would have been regarded as boorish rather than criminal. One of Rolf Harris's victims complained that he had "groped her bottom". I'm afraid that's just what people did. Perhaps they shouldn't have, but as one of the people who complained about Dave Lee Travis said in court, at the time she did not regard his touching her as a sexual assault. That says everything you need to know about changing standards.
Secondly, although you'd expect prosecutions to have a failure rate, Yewtree's is rather high. It has left wreckage behind. And even leaving aside the trauma of an early morning arrest, the shame of the investigation and the crippling legal fees, once you are arrested for a sexual offence you never get your reputation back. People will always wonder, "Did he really do it after all?"
Thirdly, a long trial costs the state an awful lot of money. Does such a high failure rate justify the cost?
Fourthly, for the last 18 plus months rather a lot of Metropolitan Police officers have been tied up trying to find out what ageing celebrities did the last century. To say that these officers can't be in two places at once is not to minimise the misery and suffering of people who have lived with the memory of serious sexual assault for a long time. It's merely to acknowledge that other people are suffering now and serious criminals are walking free because Met Police officers are working on Operation Yewtree instead.
(Of course the police must love it, because they get to meet TV personalities and their cases are all over the papers. Much more glamorous than bringing your run-of-the-mill scrote up before the beak.)
As it happens I know a number of lawyers who've been involved in Yewtree cases, some on the prosecution side, some on the defence. There is a clear consensus. Other important police work - particularly in relation to gangs - is being neglected. The CPS are incompetent and badly prepared. Some of the prosecutions look desperately thin (one complainant said she had been in a car with the accused and thought something must have happened, but she couldn't remember what it was). And lastly, Operation Yewtree is happening because senior officals, under pressure from the commentariat, wanted to be seen to be doing something about sex crime.
So Operation Yewtree marches on. But potting the elderly Rolf Harris is a poor sort of vindication.
