Today it was announced that William Roache (the long standing actor who plays Ken Barlow on Coronation Street) was acquitted of two rapes and four indecent assaults on five separate women.
Today it was announced that William Roache (the long standing actor who plays Ken Barlow on Coronation Street) was acquitted of two rapes and four indecent assaults on five separate women.
The allegations against him were splashed over the front pages of all the red tops in this country, and across centre page folds of the broadsheets were almost full page photos of the 81 year old actor looking harangued, stressed, suspicious and nervous.
However you looked at it, he seemed almost guaranteed to be guilty—five different women, him being a renowned womaniser in his younger days, the (deliberately chosen?) shifty looking pictures all seemed to point towards the man living out the rest of his life in jail.
Yet, today we find him cleared of all charges because of evidence which “lacked credibility,” some of the women claimed various things which were found to be impossible and inaccurate.
So where does this leave poor Bill Roache? For the last few months he’s been dragged into a court case in which he has always vehemently denied all allegations, he has been away from his role as Ken Barlow for the entire time (and probably won’t be written back in immediately) and has generally had a pretty stressful time for someone of his age.
Questions of justice
If Roache has had his name dragged through the muck by these women who claimed rape then why can’t he simply sue them for defamation? The definition of defamation says that a statement which defames someone “tends to lower them in the estimation of right thinking people.”
Hasn’t this court case done this, even if he has been acquitted? After all, being associated with being a rapist is never a good thing—what if people didn’t see the result of the trial and only remembered that he was on trial for rape?
In a quick tally of people’s opinions of Bill Roache I found that most people still thought he was a stand-up citizen but a good few people did say that they would never quite see him in the same way. Will he always be tainted by the same brush?
Michael Jackson lived with the moniker of “paedophile” until his death despite being innocent and Michael Le Vell (another Coronation street star acquitted of similar allegations to those of Bill Roache) has now taken to heavy drinking following a long and bitter trial last year which saw his life torn apart.
So why doesn’t Bill sue? The question is unfortunately answered by statute—the law protects the identity of those making allegations like these in order to make sure they’re not scared to come forward but it also protects the statements they make in court as being privileged (which means they are exempt from being defamatory).
In short, Bill Roache has absolutely no way of earning retribution for the crimes I would say have been done to him. There is something seriously wrong with the law in this country when someone has had their lives completely ruined by spurious allegations such as these and then can do absolutely nothing about it.
People can argue about smoke without fire or debate with me on the topic of the reliability of the justice system (which is of course just as fallible as the evidence which could prove the outcome of a trial) but to me it seems wrong that someone can simply make up allegations against someone and take them to court without there being any sort of repercussions.
Where is the justice in that, justice system?
What do you think of the verdict? Have your say in the comments section below.
