I am very confused - Lord Rennard

[Domus]

here

If he did what he's accused of, far more action than making him apologise is required.

If he didn't, why on earth does he need to apologise?

The current stance by Clegg and others is ridiculous? Or is it me? I'm not surprised he won't apologise as (legally) he's not guilty of anything. Surely if he makes any kind of meaningful apology that would really implicate him. (i.e. would be an admission of guilt) I'm sure no-one's going to be happy with an I'm sorry if I was misunderstood type of apology.

If "they" think he's guilty of something he needs to apologise for why are they entertaining having back at all?

Apologies if there are other threads-I did look!

Excellent news.

Right just Hemming to sort out and they might get a bit of my respect back.

You say excellent news, but I feel this will end badly for all concerned (which could still be excellent news depending upon your politics).

I read Lord Rennard's detailed statement and I reckon this could end up being Cleggy's Ed Balls/Sharon Shoesmith moment, and we all know how that ended up, a bloody shambles.

I wonder if the Jimmy Saville case has got everyone thinking that if you get enough folks coming forward making enough complaints, over a longish length of time then you can just automatically be guilty, end of? No need for a court or trial.

I don't think that you can compare the long, sustained, horrific levels of child abuse by Jimmy Saville to this

No, and I am not. Apologies if I worded that badly.

Allegations have been made. I don't think it's at all expected that the accused apologises before he is found guilty, it just doesn't make sense to me.

Well if I was veh cynical I would say they are putting pressure on him to apologise because they know he simply can't without implicating himself (and I agree it wouldn't satisfy anybody anyway), and therefore when he doesn't they'll have reason to remove the whip permanently.

That would explain all the dark conspiracy-related muttering.

On the other hand, if I was veh, veh cynical I would say that Clegg has only arrived at this position and abandoned Rennard after taking the activists' temperature (fucking hot, if anyone is in any doubt).

Although why they can't just remove the whip unilaterally anyway is an open question. Internal democracy in the Lib Dems is tortuous, but the whip has been removed from a peer before without undue difficulty.

I have no sympathy with the 'You are not guilty, now apologise' position. I do think the Lib Dems are in this mess because of mismanaging this whole affair for quite a while. Result: no justice for anybody.

Political hot potato. Legally no evidence, so cant adjudicate as guilty. Politically that is tbe "wrong answer". Cleggy is in impossible situation as his activists want him go be all moral and damn the legal niceties, Rennard is keeping a beady eye on potential litigation.

I think the main problem is having to find him guilty Beyond Reasonable Doubt. In an employment context, employees are dismissed for gross misconduct On the Balance of Probabilities - in other words, if based on the evidence it is 51% likely that the employee did it, that is sufficient to justify their dismissal. That would make much more sense within a political party too, otherwise you just have to put up with people who very probably did do the sexual harassment or whatever.

That's how I understand it Drom, there may not be enough evidence for a prosecution but there is for a dismissal.

I believe the women, I don't understand how 4 woman would possible lie about something like this. As Alison Smith's testimony shows, she complained about him 11 years ago and 6 year ago and nothing was done. This time something has to be done.

Domus

In sexual harassment cases, as in rape cases, there is no black and white solution.

Firsthand knowledge of it, unfortunately. Very often the judge tends to protect the accused because of the possible backlash of a conviction. So they try their best not to convict him and say that 'evidence was not enough'.
That is a grey area, usually. In my opinion Rennard had the financial means to pay for very good lawyers that clutched at straws to have the charges dropped.

My guess is that the accusers were all LibDem women, therefore the party peers KNEW Rennard was actually guilty and pretended his excuses.

You know what? One perv less in that coalition of derailed MPs........

I am also struggling to understand this.

Is his refusal to apologise because

• He doesn't think he's done anything wrong
• He has been advised that if he apologises, it will give 'ammunitions' to his 'victims' for civil law suit
• he believes that if he apologises he will be subject to a criminal law suit
• he says that he has actually done absolutely nothing wrong and accuses the women of lying?

Or all of the above?

All the above, I guess.

In theory, the LibDems, asking for his apologies, chose a side, women's side. Of course, if he apologised I guess there would be more speculation and a different insight into the matter. Not sure how that could lead to a criminal investigation, yet I wonder about a civil lawsuit. I am not a lawyer so I can't answer that one.

All but the third one. There's no prospect of a criminal action. The police looked at it and declined to proceed.

I know a large amount of what is going on here (I am not one of the women but close to many who are involved publically and otherwise).

A lot of people have not come forward publically but the Party are aware of them - as are the Police.

Not all the stories - even those in the media - are as simple as a 'hand on the knee'.

Had the bar been "balance of probabilities" rather than the much higher "beyond all reasonable doubt" I am totally convinced that there would have been a case to answer. The way the whole inquiry rules work is stacked against the plaintiff.

My opinion is that this is why Alistair Webster said that the evidence didn't meet the 'beyond all reasonable doubt' test but asked for an apology - he and others knew that the evidence would have passed the balance of probability test. We will never know what a hearing on those grounds who have had as it's result.

The previous occasion that the whip was withdrawn - Jenny Tonge - she admitted what she had said and IIRC stood aside voluntarily. The LD power structure is about as complicated as you can get but basically the Leader has very little power to do what they want. It all comes down to various obscure committees.

My information on why the report hasn't been released is that many people who gave statements (and there were many more than 4 on the women's side plus the rules apparently really restricted who was allowed to make complaints - have heard even down to only allowing those who made initial media complaints) did so on the promise of anonymity and in confidence. Some may even have been from women who have not yet stuck their heads up above the parapet.

In the same way that the Police do not hand over everything they have gathered in the way of evidence to the defendant when they decide not to prosecute, it would not be reasonable for Webster to hand over everything having decided not to proceed.

The LDs are a very small Party and even redacted a huge number of people would have been recognisable - hence requests for anonymity and confidentiality.

The Party made a monumental screw-up many years ago by not investigating and dealing with the situation. When he resigned and disappeared in 2009 people heaved a sigh of relief. The women felt that their main aim - protecting other young and vulnerable women - was no longer an issue.

Then he started drifting back in 2012 and getting involved in weekends away for young women candidates etc. There really was no way to get the Party to take things seriously other than going public - at great personal cost and with nothing to gain. These are not women who seek money, or publicity, just women who are fed up at people getting away with very unsavoury behaviour when they are in positions of extreme power.

Why won't he apologise?

My personal theory is that he actually genuinely believes he didn't do anything wrong and is the victim in all of this - and would continue to believe this even if you could provide video evidence of every single alleged incident.

A large number of his supporters seem to be taking the line 'so he felt them up a bit... so what? They need to grow a pair.'

One thing slapping the guy in accounts for feeling you up under the table - quite another the guy who holds your entire career in the palm of his hand and is known to take very strong likes and dislikes to people.

The perceived wisdom was that if he decided no about a potential candidate then they were finished unless they were lucky enough to land a winnable seat by chance while being rich enough to fund an election campaign and work it without help from the Party machine.

^^
No, it's the risk of a civil action.

liberalmess that's very interesting.

Lazeyjaney as others have said, there is evidence - the complaints from the women is evidence. The issue is the standard of proof.

It's not clear without reading the report what Webster meant when he talked about intent. Did Rennard admit the behaviour but say it was not harassment or he meant nothing by it? Or did he deny the behaviour altogether?

The party's behaviour in responding to the complaints now is more damaging than whatever Rennard did or even their previous failure to investigate complaints. Dismissing the women's complaints as unimportant or even "shrill" (FFS!) sends a very clear message that the LibDems don't listen to or care about women. I didn't even know before this all came up how poorly women are represented in the LibDems. Now it is very clear to see why that is the case.

It's very frustrating because what little I know of it shows that 95% of people in the LDs are hopping mad about him and wouldn't touch him with a shitty stick. Sadly for them while Labour and the Tories both have "friendly" media outlets, the LDs don't have anyone to give a view of the story without putting a spin on it e.g. "Clegg is cracking up" (I mean is he? really?) or "hundreds of peers cheered when the comeback was announced" (wikipedia will tell you they don't even have a hundred peers altogether, let alone hundreds of them backing Rennard).

They're a tiny party with a lot of rules and inhouse democratic processes (er, hence the name) which are definitely getting a thorough overhaul at the moment by the sounds of things. No ordinary workplace would be so hogtied by this kind of thing.

I suppose the problem is there's a big difference between grabbing someone's breasts and, say, standing too close to someone and breathing dirty words into their ear. (Not saying either of those things are part of this case cos I've got no idea, just thinking in theory.)

Bresat-grabbing is a crime (sexual assault) while ear-breathing isn't, it's just fucking horrible and odd. A functioning workplace disciplinary system would eventually sack someone for both behaviours. The problem here I think is that the internal disciplinary worked basically exactly the same as the criminal process, so there was no recourse for disciplinary action based "just" on him being a creepy fuck, assuming the assaults couldn't be proven (as the police had dropped it).

That's not true though is it Elephants? It appears that everyone in the party has know about him for years - they've been perfectly happy to work alongside him until recently. It's only since it's become public that they're all distancing themselves.

The interesting thing for me is that he has been very quick (less than 24 hours) to suggest he will take legal action against the party to stop then suspending him but very slow (11 months and counting) to take legal action against Channel 4 News and all the other media which have broadcast or published allegations against him. If he believes that the women say is not true, why hasn't he sued then and the media for libel? Or even threatened to? The burden of proof in libel is the balance of probabilities.

Domus that's not my understanding. He was tolerated and the whole thing fudged because he was the most powerful person in the party, more powerful than the leader.

But how did he get to be the most powerful if everyone was against him?

I don't know Dormus, but I would think if he stopped being "the boss" 5 or so years ago there must be lots of people even at the heart of the organisation who have come in since that time, there's been an election since then etc. Plus "the party" includes not just a handful of MPs and peers - some of whom obviously knew or heard rumours - but thousands of volunteers and local party workers who have about as much to do with him as the lady running your local Oxfam shop has to do with the boss of Oxfam.

So to say "everyone in the party has know about him for years - they've been perfectly happy to work alongside him" is just not true. Most of them have never really worked alongside them and it's become perfectly apparent that the vast majority (as I said) are hopping mad, hence suspending him yesterday. They're just people you know, most LibDems wouldn't want to work with a pervy, creepy git any more than you or I would!