Lord rennard and his apology

[miasdaddy]

If nothing has been proved against him why apologise ? Surely that would be an admission of guilt and would be a meaningless gesture

"When people say that in this country someone is innocent until proven guilty, that is not strictly true. They are "presumed innocent" - the presumption of innocence is a legal principle to ensure people are tried fairly. It doesn't mean that we all have to go round pretending that someone is actually innocent when we all know full well that they aren't.

Good grief, do people really think like this? No, no and thrice no.

A person is absolutely innocent until proved otherwise, and the only body with the authority to prove somebody guilty is a criminal court"

But surely nobody believes that you cannot get disciplined or sacked from your job until you have been proved guilty of inappropriate behaviour by a criminal court?

Apologising would be an admission of guilt so I don't see how he can apologise.

The burden of proof used in many cases is often the civil 'on the balance of probabilities' as opposed to the criminal 'beyond all reasonable doubt'. An example of the former is permanent exclusions from school.

If he doesn't know he did something wrong then he's not fit for office.

If he knows he upset people, he should apologise.

As usual, I agree with cory

In 40 years of working (and fortunately only occasionally having encountered / observed creepy sexual harassers), I've never known one acknowledge their fault and apologise. There's always a torrent of blame aimed at the woman daring to complain and supporters and excusers popping up all over the place explaining why what the woman has alleged cannot be the case, has been misunderstood etc etc etc...... Very depressing

I strongly believe that an apology is not an apology if it contains the word if

Talking of supporters popping up, I note that Lord Carlile, who did so much to defend the rights of the innocent when acting as the independent reviewer of British anti-terrorism laws, has said that what poor Lord Rennard has had to go through "has made the North Korean judicial system seem benign, and anything done by Henry VIII’s thugs to extract confessions from Anne Boleyn’s courtiers gentle". Given that North Korea has just summarily executed Kim Jong-un's uncle and Anne Boleyn's courtiers had their eyes gouged out, that is a particularly repellent set of comparisons. Lord Rennard has had no physical coercion (nor even a hand on his plump derriere), has not spent a night in jail, has not lost his home nor his right to be called a sodding Lord. He hasn't even been subject to the kind of restrictions that his stout defender Lord Carlile used to excusepolice when reviewing the control orders regime. It's beyond parody, it really is.

Cory, I'm not sure why, but it seems you are deliberately missing the point.

The police have investigated Lord Rennard and found that he had no case to answer. If he apologises, then he will have (arguably) incriminated himself.

In the case of private individuals and private employers, this is very unlikely to be the case so an apology is very unlikely to carry the same ramifications for the apologising party.

The two are completely different situations - It is disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

It's a complete shambles. The party has been exposed because imho they couldn't be arsed to have workplace policies and procedures in place.

As I understand it, the complainants had to get a "beyond reasonable doubt" rather than a "balance of probabilities" - this they did not achieve and so, as a result, Lord Rennard, does not have to apologise.

Surprisingly, political organisations are, in my experience, often laissez faire in employment matters. I hope that this episode leads to proper systems in place to protect people who work in politics from the often suspect goings on from their employers....

I think the problem is that if he were genuinely innocent, would he not be incandescent with the people who have made the scurrilous accusations ?

It would seem he isn't.

The LibDems can surely choose who they do or do not want in their party.

I'd rather like to see the women of the party leave it, in protest at it being a safe haven for workplace sexual harassers who are clearly intelligent and well-connected enough to not get 'caught'.

And then starting a new party, run by women.

In fact - MNHQ - how about it? I hand this over to you!

I agree this is very shameful guilting someone in to saying sorry effectively sacking them because they won't say sorry when you really want to sack them over something you cannot prove.

You only say sorry if you don't something wrong it can't be proved he did so why should he say sorry if he's says he didn't do it.

Oh was like he would hate to effectively loose his job over the say so of someone else without the lack of any evidence.

Ancyfox

the no smoke with out fire thing dose not work with in British law

It's what can be proven not simply what's been alleged if we ran the country of sacking or locking people up on what's been alleged were would we be

North Korea, China ???

That's not my quote.

This is not a legal case; people are free to draw whatever conclusions they like from the available accounts and actions.

He does not appear to be denying the accounts, just that they amount to misconduct.

What is interesting is that one of the accusers freely admits that she was openly advised to flirt with Rennard by LibDems.