Jimmy Savile, Stuart Hall and Barbara Hewson

Barbara Hewson has been pilloried this week for an article she wrote for Spiked Online.

The gist of her well reasoned argument was that accusations of relatively mild sexual misbehaviour by stars years ago, stars who are now elderly, are being used in a wave of puritanical vengeance by police forces and pressure groups.

She quite reasonably argues that certain investigations in this climate of moral outrage go against the most fundamental principles of our judicial system. The complainant automatically becomes the victim and the presumption of innocence, in cases of alleged paedophilia and other cases of sexual assault, is being abandoned.

The point she makes that caused wild headlines and huge media interest was at the very end when she suggested lowering the age of consent to 13. I recommend reading the article in full and have provided a link below.

The full article can be read here.