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Wednesday 23 September 2015

Sun Sewel Coke Sting Busted

Back in July, the Sun clearly thought it had caught Lord Sewel bang to rights, with a headline that simply read BUSTED. The peer had been snapped in what appeared to be the act of snorting cocaine. The sub-heading “Cops probe peer’s hooker drug romp … Sewel resigns as he’s pictured in bra” told readers all they needed to know: he had been caught by Rupe’s downmarket troops, and was therefore guilty.
However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, that was not sufficient evidence for a conviction to be so much as considered. And the Metropolitan Police did follow up on the story, with the BBC telling thatThe police raided a property in central London during their investigation, which was prompted by a complaint made about Lord Sewel's conduct”. So what did the cops have to say in conclusion?

The Met launched a criminal inquiry into allegations of drug-related offences involving a member of the House of Lords on Monday, 27 July … The investigation, led by officers from the Special Enquiry Team of the Homicide and Major Crime Command, has now concluded … Following a review of all the material, including a forensic examination of an address in central London, there is insufficient evidence to proceed with this investigation and the matter is now closed”. The Sun is not best pleased.
Today’s front page features at top right “YOU MUST BE COKING … Cops let off druggie lord”. The paper’s pals at the Guido Fawkes blog yesterday told a shocked readership “Lord Coke Won’t Face Charges”, before calling the story “developing”. But, sad to say, the story is not developing. It’s going nowhere. It’s dead. Morte.
That has prompted a thundering editorial, titled “Police farce”, and ranting “WE’VE heard it all now … Lord Sewel won’t be charged with drug offences due to a lack of evidence … Lack of evidence? He was pictured on our front page snorting cocaine through a rolled-up bank note … If that’s not incriminating, we’re stumped as to what is … If the Metropolitan Police was uniformly reluctant to go after the rich and famous, we could vaguely understand it. At least it would be consistently useless … But the same force takes spectacular punts on other cases - only to fall flat on its face - and credulously pursues unprovable cases of child abuse and murder with no evidence whatsoever … What a laughing stock it has become under Bernard Hogan-Howe”. Hogan-Howe, according to the BBC’s Danny Shaw, has suggested that the Sun’s evidence was crap.
Whine, sir? And, as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here. One, the Sun is making a whole series of logic leaps, and is taking the same line it often takes when kicking the CPS, which is not the Met. And two, all that this rant says to the public is that the Murdoch press can no longer count on the Met to bang people up on their say-so.

It was so much easier when Mazher Mahmood was working with what he claims were bent coppers, fitting up slebs and laughingly trashing careers. The good old days, when they could bung officers the occasional Bag Of Sand for stories, have gone for ever. The rule of the Sun ends at the exit door of the Baby Shard bunker.

And that is as it should be. Game over, Murdoch doggies.

8 comments:

Stephen said...

It's not illegal to have taken cocaine, is it? And that's all that The Sun can show. If it were illegal most of the cabinet would be liable.

rob said...

*A Sun lament*

We don't need no hokey cokey
We don't need to be in Mazher's zone
No hokey pokey in the bedroom
Rupert please leave our news alone
Hey! Rupert! leave our news alone
All in all it's just an eclipse of the wretched Sun
All in all it's just another dark day for the The Sun

Arnold said...

@Stephen. No. And the Sun couldn't show any more than it was a white powder. Only possession of controlled substances is.
I really can't understand why the Met even attempted to investigate. Or how they got a search warrant. That needs reasonable suspicion they will find evidence of a crime. Here, they must have been certain that any drugs had been flushed as soon as Sewel learned of the newspaper story. Did the learn nothing from the Nigella Lawson business?

Anonymous said...

Not inadjacent or irrelevant to all this is the fact that Hogan Howe is a Yorkshireman who worked his way up via Merseyside Police before he ended up next door to the gobshites in Canary Wharf, Westminster, Vauxhall Cross and Whitehall. All the while probably thinking he had joined the Establishment and was now invulnerable.

Poor old Bernie. Not that I could give much of a shit what happens to him or Sewel. Nor could I care less about Sewel's personal obsessions.

But I do look forward to the day when Murdoch turns on all his toady employees and makes them redundant. As it is, they quake in fear at the possibility. Which in the end is what makes them a cringeworthy gang of liars and far right propagandists. They sold their arses for the Murdoch shilling. Which makes anything Sewel might or might not have got up to look like a comedy sideshow.

Rivo said...

The line "...credulously pursues unprovable cases of child abuse and murder with no evidence whatsoever..." is interesting. Not only would one expect the police to be more diligent with serious offences like these (as opposed to happy fun times with hookers and blow which is pretty inconsequential), but The Sun's indignation about the Met's due diligence makes me wonder who in Uncle Rupe's inner circle might have some small skeletons in their closet that the Met's investigations are getting close to

PaulW said...

The Sun uniformly misunderstanding the difference between a picture of white powder and a statement from a forensic scientist confirming that they have tested the powder and it is cocaine (of whatever purity).

This was always going nowhere.

Andy McDonald said...

@ Rivo:

Very odd, considering how the Sun (particularly under the reign of Rebekah Brooks) made child abuse and paedophilia its particular target, and followed the line that such crimes were the most heinous, akin to having Auschwitz on your CV, the offences that no amount of jail time and rehabilitation could ever wash clean.

A line followed by much of the tabloid press, it should be said. Then suddenly (well, since the exposure of Jimmy Saville) there's lots of sneering references to nonce-finder generals, witch hunts, unreliable evidence, and it was all a long time ago so let's not make a fuss and who cares if some scummy kids in care got bummed because they were all going to end up as rent boys and street whores anyway, no great loss.

It's almost as if the great paedo-hunt was rather fun when it was the loner with the dodgy glasses lurking in the bushes. Then it gets a bit close to home, and like so many things, stops being quite so much fun.

hatty said...

"and credulously pursues unprovable cases of child abuse and murder with no evidence whatsoever"

As others have commented, this line is making me uneasy. If there is a tiny chance of bringing justice for, or prevention of further victims, the police are right to follow each and every lead. The police are right to pursue every case to let society know that it is unacceptable and they take it very seriously.

What were they going to prosecute the Lord for anyway? Badly fitting lingerie?