If a policeman stops you, accuse him of raping you and force him to arrest himself.

Now that virtually any well-known male entertainer of a certain age is arrested for alleged sexual offences, it is becoming clear that this is more a culture war than a set of proper criminal investigations. This does not necessarily mean that all the allegations are false — look at Stuart Hall — but it does suggest that a new way has been found of ruining people’s reputations before anyone has established their guilt. The undeniable fact that so many of the men accused wore deplorable clothes in public all through the 1970s is not, in itself, proof of iniquity. Enraged by Leveson, the press argue that naming people being investigated for sex crimes is a brilliant way of smoking them out. Possibly it is, but it is also an unfair process because the anonymous accusers can do damage with impunity. The new doctrine that one must believe victims assumes that anyone who says he or she is a victim is.