Max Clifford gets 8 years sentence

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-2725931 .

So PR guru Max Clifford gets a sentence of  8 years allegedly for sexual assaults on women. With good behaviour "inside" he will be out again in 4-5 years' time. What do I think? No real views, but he was tried on the evidence before a  judge and jury and found guilty, so he must serve his time according to English law.

This is one of the Operation Yewtree trials that has led to a conviction. I assume the evidence must have been convincing, whereas in many other trials it depended on very old, and somewhat hearsay, evidence that was never going to convince a jury, beyond reasonable doubt, of the defendant's guilt. In English law a man is innocent until proven guilty: the onus is on the prosecution to convince the jury of the evidence beyond reasonable doubt i.e. it has to be good and solid evidence.

My view is that a lot of people are getting on the compensation bandwagon now and many cases should not be brought to court.  If the evidence is strong and recent, then yes, but hearsay evidence that is 50+ years old, when our public morals were very different is not on.  In my place of work 50 years ago, the moral climate was quite different. Many a girl had her bottom pinched or was wolf whistled. I am not saying this was right, just that our standards today are different. What was acceptable then may not be by our standards today.

I also have a problem that it is only now these cases are coming into the open. Surely if a person was a monster 40 years ago he should have been brought to justice then and not in 2014? The argument that people would not have been believed then are not that convincing in really serious cases

 My views - you may well hold differing views.