I stand by what I have said for 26 years: ANGLU FARRUGIA FORCED ME TO SIGN A FALSE CONFESSION WHICH HE WROTE HIMSELF

Published: October 7, 2010 at 4:57pm
Maybe this is what they mean by revisiting Labour's history

Maybe this is what they mean by revisiting Labour's history

“There’s the King’s Messenger. He’s in prison now, being punished: and the trial doesn’t even begin till next Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last of all.”

“Suppose he never commits the crime?” said Alice.

“That would be better, wouldn’t it?”

– From Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll
This morning, the magistrates’ court handed down what can best be described as an interesting judgement in the case The Police vs Daphne Caruana Galizia.

This was my prosecution over the course of seven years for writing of my experiences at the hands of Police Inspector Anglu Farrugia, under 27-hour detention and interrogation, during the dark days of Lorry Pullicino in 1984, when I was 19 years old.

I had written about those experiences several times before, but Farrugia went ballistic when I wrote about them again on 15 May 2003, while he was campaigning to become leader of the Malta Labour Party following Sant’s second electoral defeat.

I wrote that he wasn’t fit to lead the party because the person who leads the party will one day become prime minister.

And Malta cannot have a prime minister who, in his days as a police inspector, forced a 19-year-old girl to sign a false confession which he himself had written, telling her that if she did not do so, she would be returned to the pitch-black cell, with faeces-smeared walls and a metal bucket for a lavatory, where she had been kept for the past 27 hours.

The magistrate said in his judgement that it was my word against former inspector Farrugia’s, and so I had not proven beyond doubt the facts of which I wrote. Because of that, he convicted me for criminal defamation and fined me.

But how could I have proved the facts? The only witness was Anglu Farrugia himself.

By the magistrate’s reasoning, all those who are ill-treated under interrogation – and like me, there were so many back then – cannot ever speak or write about their experiences because the only witnesses, should they be sued by the perpetrators or prosecuted by the police on their behalf, are the perpetrators themselves.

And the perpetrators are obviously going to lie through their back teeth, just as Anglu Farrugia did. Perhaps the magistrates’ court thinks I am in the habit of going about signing confessions to 11 crimes I did not commit, including attacking a police officer – PC 710 – who grabbed me by the throat, hauled me off the ground and punched me in the chest during a demonstration against the government’s – ahem – education policies.

The extraordinary thing is that the magistrate ignored a judgement handed down in 1984 by the then magistrate, now judge, David Scicluna, who recognised the truth of every word I said when I testified before him, and threw out of court the ‘confession’ that Inspector Anglu Farrugia produced as evidence against me, because it was false and obtained through the use of threats.

I remember Magistrate Scicluna back in 1984 being visibly appalled to hear me describe my treatment at the hands of Inspector Farrugia. I, on the other hand, just counted my blessings: I had got out alive and with my limbs in one piece. Others had not.

I stand by everything I wrote. I have been consistent in my version of events since 1984. It was not only my right to describe those events and to say that, because of them – and for other reasons – Anglu Farrugia is not fit to be prime minister. It was my duty to do so. It would have been a dereliction of that duty to conceal the sordid circumstances of my iarrest and interrogation at the hands of Anglu Farrugia, on not one but 11 trumped-up charges.

Further proof of his lack of fitness to lead the Labour Party or become prime minister is his use of the police to silence journalists or exact retribution against them. The fact that a law exists does not mean you should use it. Britain repealed its criminal defamation law last year, but long before that it had become a dead letter. Can you imagine the consequences for David Miliband if he were to ask the police to prosecute somebody who wrote something about him, after his brother beat him to the Labour leadership?

He would be eaten alive by the media.

But Malta is not a real democracy. There is no culture of democracy or of free expression. Forty-six years after the end of colonialsm, the mentality remains that of frightened serfs.

People in general do not understand what democracy is, but think it is a vote in a general election or a referendum. They fail to understand that for democracy to exist, freedom of expression must come first – that when a sentence like this is handed down, it has significant and negative consequences for the country as a whole.

Our rights to free expression – which saw a brief moment of glory back then – are being systematically eroded more effectively than when the Labour Party used to burn down newspaper buildings and Opposition Party clubs and ransack the homes of those who opposed it. We joined the European Union only to end up with the mentality of a North African state. Look at the criminal defamation map of the world and you will see what I mean.

Across the entire European Union, only eight people were sentenced for criminal defamation over the course of three years, and they were all in Spain and Poland.

That is why I am appealing against the judgement. If the appeal fails, I will go to the Constitutional Court. And if that fails, I am taking my case to the European Court of Human Rights.

I will also upload, on a regular basis starting frrom this evening, the article that is at the centre of this particular storm, the article which Anglu Farrugia, in his deluded self-belief, thinks was responsible for his not being chosen as party leader. Because Labour’s delegati read what I write before they take a decision, I don’t think.

It’s double jeopardy: you can’t be tried for the same crime twice.

I repeat: Anglu Farrugia forced me to sign a false confession which he had written himself. And then he lied about it to save his skin.




50 Comments Comment

  1. WhoamI? says:

    Well, good luck Daphne, sincerely. The problem is that with such people around, you are spending more time in court than being productive. I support your mission, but I feel that you must also wake up to the reality that whatever happens in this country will remain politically biased. Nehhi il-politika, u ma jibqax fuq xiex nargumentaw. It’s so so sad.

    Kollox jiehu slant politiku, jekk hux il-power station, jekk hux il-kwistjoni ta l-LRP issa, il-bust ta Lorenzo Gonzi, jekk hux il-kaz ta affidament tat-tarbija t’Ghawdex (Chris Said).

    I give up, but I admire that you don’t and won’t.

  2. Harry Purdie says:

    Hang in there, girl. Elephant Man’s Creed: ‘If the truth won’t set you free, then lie.’

  3. joseph spagnol says:

    Daphne Caruana Galizia found guilty of criminal libel

    by di-ve news – [email protected]
    Court — 07 October 2010 — 13:35CEST
    Columnist Daphne Caruana Galizia was fined €1,165 after being found guilty of criminal libel in a case instituted by the police after Labour deputy leader Anglu Farrugia filed a police report.
    Dr Farrugia had asked the police to institute court proceedings against Daphne Caruana Galizia for the publication of an opinion piece on the Malta Independent under the title ‘The anything goes party’.

    The article was published on May 15, 2003 after Dr Farrugia submitted his nomination for the Labour leadership election. In the opinion piece, Ms Caruana Galizia said that she was mistreated by the then Police Inspector Anglu Farrugia.

    On his part, Dr Farrugia objected to the comments made by the columnist and Likening the allegations to character assassination.

    Handing down the judgment, Magistrate Silvio Meli said that Dr Farrugia was right to have felt libeled since he was attacked in an exercise of militant journalism with the intention to harm his reputation.

  4. Ray says:

    In civilized countries, YOU should sue him and not the other way round.

  5. JP Bonello says:

    Anglu Farrugia should be ashamed of himself!

    But be careful. You may not be tried twice for the same act. But be sure that reloading the article amounts to the same act. Just be careful, you know, nothing more.

    Solidarity.

    [Daphne – Let him try. He should read up about the Streisand Effect first.]

  6. Mary Borg says:

    Seems like lying is a hobby for the PL people. What did Jason say under oath last Monday? He didn’t know you’re a journalist? According to the article below, he knew what you did in 2008. Oh but I forgot that he is a man of integrity.

    http://archive.maltatoday.com.mt/2008/01/20/t4.html

    • La Redoute says:

      Jason Micallef is a man of integrity – that is Consuelo Scerri Herrera’s opinion.

      The rest of the right-thinking world do not have to agree.

      You need to ask – was she thinking through her head or with her camel hoof?

  7. Spiru says:

    Yes Ray, but we’re not. Good luck.

  8. Joseph Micallef says:

    This judgement is an insult to collective history.

    Can I ask if Anglu Farrugia contradicted you whilst under oath?

    [Daphne – Obviously, he did. It’s what the case was all about.]

  9. Mike Wagstaff says:

    Hope you go all the way to the European Court. Criminal libel laws are a way by which those “in authority” seek to sit on dissent. If anyone feels libelled they should sue in the civil courts where the standards of proof are different and the magistrate could have decided which version of events was most probable.

    However your decsion to pursue this matter will have the “silver lining” effect of keeping the deputy leader of PL in the news for all the wrong reasons.

  10. TROY says:

    Gadget was always a bully in uniform and now he’s getting frustrated because his dream of becoming Labour leader has been shattered by the boy from Burmarrad. Dream on, Lino.

  11. VR says:

    Please campaign for Anglu Farrugia to be Deputy Prime Minister if the election goes Labour’s way. Pity it’s not PM.

    I mean it would be quite a trump card for the PN with new voters, floaters, and the usual PN voters who feel they need a change after nearly 25 years.

  12. H.P. Baxxter says:

    “Attacked bla bla bla militant journalism bla bla bla reputation.”

    What the FUCK ELSE is journalism for? To report the finding of stray cats and the opening of shopping malls? Jesus jumpmaster christ. We should be kicked out of the EU.

  13. Philip says:

    The gutsiest lady in town.

    Imagine the court pronouncing that that obnoxious Elephant Man was ”attacked in an exercise of militant journalism”. Him out of all people.

    The magistrate should have known better, but sadly the law is an ass.

  14. ciccio2010 says:

    Based on your experience, a man like Dr. Farrugia is not fit to be deputy prime minister either, let alone prime minister. Well, the good news is that he never made it to be leader of his party, besides his failure to reach the top in the police force.
    You’ve got my support for the legal action you plan to take.

  15. J Busuttil says:

    It is a shame that the courts have already forgotten the 80s when we had a Mintoffian regime governing us. These are the issues worth fighting for.

    • Josephine says:

      And that when in September 1984 the law courts were almost smashed to smithereens by a group of Labour thugs.

  16. Rover says:

    Daphne I believe every single word you wrote about that man because that was how the fascist police force operated at the time.

    During those dark days someone typed and sent a threatening letter to someone else. As I had protested against the regime for stealing the 1981 general election, I was visited by the police who searched my home for a typewriter which I did not have as I never owned one.

    I was then asked to report at police headquarters where I was kept in a small room for about 12 hours only to be told to go away without having to answer any questions. It was purely intimidation because that is how Anglu Farrugia’s police force treated us at that time.

    In my mind he will always be associated with the fascist police of the 1980s.

  17. sherpa says:

    He will never be prime minister and to top it all the Labour Party made him shave off his moustache. Shaving was made mandatory for Labour officials. Toni Abela was furious, refused, and conceded to a little trimming.

  18. John C says:

    Good luck!

    Its ironic that your “crime” was deemed by a Maltese court to be almost as serious as running over and killing a pedestrian when under the influence of alcohol.

    Onlyinmalta.com!

  19. Gahan says:

    A genuine interrogator records on tape an interrogation and lets in witnesses during an interrogation.

    [Daphne – Not in Malta, not even today.]

  20. Marku says:

    Dawn in-nies ma huma xejn ghajr kocc mintoffjani hodor.

  21. Jo says:

    Daphne I’m flabbergasted! This is what justice has been reduced to. Another blow to the credibility of our courts. It is high time we really become full EU citizens by doing away with certain laws.

    I admire you for your courage to carry on fighting for what you believe in.

    Good luck in your on going battle for justice.

    Is there a way we can show our solidarity in a more substantial way?

  22. Tonio Farrugia says:

    I remember my late father recounting his short experience onf the bench and telling me that a judge has to weigh the credibility of witnesses and could sometimes even believe one witness who was contradicted by three others.

    I found confirmation of this philosophy on the site of the New York State website for Criminal Jurors: “As judges of the facts, you alone determine the truthfulness and accuracy of the testimony of each witness. You must decide whether a witness told the truth and was accurate, or instead, testified falsely or was mistaken. You must also decide what importance to give to the testimony you accept as truthful and accurate. It is the quality of the testimony that is controlling, not the number of witnesses who testify.” (http://www.nycourts.gov/cji/1-General/CJI2d.Credibility.pdf).

    In your case, the magistrate took the easy way out by declaring that it was the word of one witness against the other.

    Indeed, in the words of Mr Bumble in Oliver Twist: “If the law supposes that … the law is a ass—a idiot.”

    • erskinmay says:

      This is not the point. This was not a question of the Magistrate believing Anglu Farrugia over Daphne. the Magistrate could not possibly have done that.

      The central question is that in these proceedings there is a change and shift from the accuser to the defendant – from a presumption of innocence to one of guilt until the contrary is proved beyond reasonable doubt.

      And I think that this is justified in a democratic society. Perhaps all that needs to be done is to render Art. 11 and 12 of the Press Act inapplicable to the Criminal Code.

      But in any case, I still maintain that in the present case, the please of justification for an examination of the truth of the facts atttributed should not have been allowed. I am of the opinion that though some of the criteria could have been applicable to Anglu Farrugia at some point in his career, they are, ostensibly, inapplicable today. Given that this is a penal law that we are talking about here, – and I do not wish to be speaking out of turn at all – it has to be interpreted as restrictively as possible, and this in turn means that opposition to the demand made by virtue of Art. 12 should have been registered, argued and hotly contested.

      Obviously, i was not prsent, so i really don’t know what went on. So what do I know…..right?

  23. edgar says:

    I testified in this case and confirmed a similar experience to a member of my family, who went through what you went through in the hands of Inspector Anglu Farrugia in the early 1980s. So, if I understand correctly, the magistrate did not believe what you and I said with regards to this inspector, now the deputy leader of the PL. Daphne, you have to carry on with this case, ghax is-sewwa jirbah zgur.

  24. ganna says:

    Daphne I believe you what you said about Anglu what he did to you. The same the police did to Pietru Pawl Busutill.

  25. Pat says:

    I never watch Maltese TV stations, la wiehed u lanqas l-iehor, imma kont qed naqleb ic-channels ghax xbajt nara fuq dik il-povra tfajla li qatlu l-Italia, u nara lilek, on Super One news. Witches are so good looking these days hux? Kollox inbidel ghandikun.

  26. "Helping the police' says:

    Something is terribly wrong here! Any person “helping” the police with their enquiries, forcibly isolated from the outside world for fortyeight hours, at the tender mercies of a police force with an unenviable record of maltreating people in its custody to the point of sending the victim to kingdom come, had better keep his mouth shut for ever after. Evidently he is most unlikely to be able to produce witnesses to confirm that he had been tortured and he could very well be fined a thousand euros (plus) if he voices his complaint!

    • Corinne Vella says:

      ‘Most unlikely’ is inaccurate. It is impossible to produce witnesses to confirm your claims when the only witnesses are the perpetrators.

  27. Corinne Vella says:

    Anglu Farrugia is a lawyer who boasts about having graduated magna cum laude. Talk about bringing down the average.

  28. Brian says:

    @ Daphne

    I have mentioned this before in one of your blogs. Can anyone tell me, please! How come this person has never been charged with abuse of power whilst representing and defending (supposedly) the Constitution and the citizens of our islands?

    [Daphne – He had a special relationship with the incoming minister for justice and the police in 1987.]

    • Brian says:

      Hmmm.. I see, and am therefore connecting the dots that somehow have been eluding me for some time with your stance, either through my ignorance or otherwise.

  29. kev says:

    Not that I’m against repealing such laws, but in the UK the legislators must have found it very convenient to repeal the criminal defamation law. Just think of the burden they relieved themselves of. All accusations become lies de facto.

    [Daphne – No, Kev. The law had become a dead letter long before. Can you honestly see a British politician going after journalists with the police?]

    • La Redoute says:

      Rubbish, Kev. Then again, that’s exactly what we expect. There were no pending cases at the time the law was repealed. There hadn’t been any for years.

  30. M. says:

    When my then boyfriend (now my husband) was arrested at Sixth Form in 1984/5 for supposedly throwing paint at some goverment school during the schools’ crisis (he had nothing to do with it), a group of us went to mass in the evening (I was holier at that time) to pray that he would come out of the police station alive.

    Those were the times we were living in. Did Silvio Meli live in Malta during those years? I’m just curious.

  31. Josephine says:

    And that when in September 1984 the law courts themselves were almost smashed to smithereens by Labour thugs.

  32. Dudu zghir says:

    Poor Inspector G. He’s thrown himself in at the deep end here.

    If he gives in, many will believe there may be some truth in the allegations after all. If he does not, and the case goes to the European Court of Human Rights, many more people throughout Europe will learn of this story.

    What would they think of the deputy leader of a political party suspected of having, when a police officer, arrested a 19-year old girl, held her for 27 hours, threatened her, made her sign a false confession and then used the police to prosecute her many years later?

    We know it’s all a damned lie, of course. But would those hapless Europeans, with their liberal values and without the guiding light of a modern and progressive party, know the difference? Could it damage the reputation of his party? Has he thought this through?

    • H.P. Baxxter says:

      Those hapless Europeans are extraordinarily ignorant of Malta’s history pre-1987. Just about the only voice to protest against human rights abuses during that period was the uber-leftwing (ah, the irony) Ligue des Droits de l’Homme (LDH). They went as far as cataloguing the various torture chambers and police training camps at Tas-Salib and other places.

      So I’m not holding my breath.

      • bookworm says:

        Democracy always wins in the end albeit the struggle. Although Malta had no tupamaros in the 80s, we should be thankful for those who fought oppression. Daphne, fight it till the very end.

  33. "Helping the police' says:

    It is recorded history that participants in a violent interrogation that ended in murder at the Police HQ, and to a subsequent glut of false affidavits, after the granting of a presidential pardon, did actually obtain evidence confirming police torture and the conviction of a Commissioner of Police for complicity in that murder.

    [Daphne – No, there was no ‘evidence’. ‘Oh, look – a dead body in a valley. Now how did it get there? Let’s see now, we’ve discovered film footage of Nardu Debono being beaten up, and oh look, the perpetrators have forgotten to conceal their faces.” There was the testimony of other police officers. But if a person is alone in a room with an interrogating officer then there can be no witnesses and no evidence – except commonsense and credibility.]

  34. "Helping the police' says:

    I agree that in your case there could be no evidence because there was no one else apart from you and the interrogator. Nardu Debono was no frail 19 year old girl and in his case it required several policemen to torture him to death. In his case there were several witnesses and they gave evidence.

    [Daphne – The tragedy is that the only way to persuade them to testify against Lawrence Pullicino was to give them immunity against prosecution for complicity. But it strikes me that anyone who would be complicit in something like that is going to be a perennial danger.]

  35. susan galea says:

    It is to your credit that you are going to take this injustice to the Court of Appeal and then, if necessary, to the European Court of Human Rights.

    Surely the fact that the case was dismissed by Magistrate Scicluna will be given the weight it deserves. The conditions of the “accused”, apparently without any access to a lawyer, is against normal practice and will be key, in tandem with the prevailing reaction at the time.

    There are many things that you have done which I find unpleasant and unfair. From naming Consuelo Herrera’s daughter, lifting her photos from Facebook, to “outing” the apparently gay professor to many other practices that are just unkind and unethical, nonetheless you deserve justice in this ugly and shaming episode of Maltese history. Good luck and nil desperandum.

    [Daphne -Thank you very much. I never do, so have no fear. It’s a personality trait that drives my enemies and opponents to distraction. They can’t understand why I won’t buckle down and Be Scared or Intimidated, that I find them ludicrous and mock them instead, and quite obviously enjoy doing it while they tie themselves up into ever greater knots and pull themselves up to their full height to condemn me. And incidentally, I am never unethical in my practices and what might seem unkind to you is merely the result of our living in a big village where everyone is expected to keep quiet and not offend anyone else. Well, that’s not how it works in the real world. It isn’t possible to serve the public interest without offending people. Something else I should point out is that I did NOT name Consuelo’s daughter. Name her in what way, incidentally? As for the photographs, they were compromising pictures of her mother the magistrate exposed to very public view – 500 million Facebook users – that were of very definite public interest, as opposed to satisfying public prurience. We need to know if our magistrates spend their time cosying up to people over whom they preside as plaintiffs and defendants. As for Anthony Zammit, the professor you no doubt mean, his homosexuality was never a secret. It’s not as though he married and had children or went out with lots of women: that would be ‘outing’. To draw a simple comparison, the fact that nobody in the villages knew, in the early 1960s, that Prime Minister Borg Oliver had a mistress does not mean that anyone who spoke about it at the time was ‘outing’ him. Again, the reason I mentioned it is again, the public interest: a future minister of health cannot be found in such a compromising position, then create what now looks to be very much a mis-en-scene followed by what might well be a false report to the police.]

  36. susan galea says:

    I am going to agree to disagree on the other issues. I gave it considerable thought before posting my reaction at the time. I am not Maltese and do consider that small village mentality is a problem so often in terms of people’s willingness to exhibit moral courage as opposed to tacit conformity to things that are blatantly hypocritical and simply wrong.

    It would seem to be even more of an issue that the Mother Church has had such an oppressive and deleterious influence on the citizenry here to the extent that hypocrisy is almost part of the warp and weft of the culture.

    Nothwithstanding this, I consider this view is not a licence to ‘out’ those who are have not ‘outed’ themselves and the awareness of their homosexuality is different from a public lambasting for it: to the extent that it was used to beat him with and accuse him of hypocrisy. Not fair. Unkind.

    [Daphne – I have to disagree. The compromising position in which he found himself was the REASON he felt himself obliged – apparently – to create a mis-en-scene and give seemingly false or incomplete information to the police. The police then discovered, after reviewing security footage, that his assailants had in fact used a key to open the front door and had not broken in. After that, we heard not a word. But we should have done. Why? Because he gave a very public interview to the The Times, about his experience, using it to create – or so it seems – that very mis-en-scene. Yes, your arguments would make sense if he were an ordinary person. But he is no ordinary person. He is the man who wishes to become a minister of state. If he is mixing with strange men who assault him and then giving false or misleading information to the police, we should know about it. I don’t give a damn about his sexuality. But I do think it matters a great deal if he is exposed to blackmail. For all you and I know, there might very well exist photographs being used to blackmail him after that night.]

    As for the magistrate’s appalling behaviour and her dubious relationships and ethics that would seem to be obvious, that needs to be examined, and forensically.

    The pity for me is when her unwitting 18-year-old daughter (at the time) who happened to attend the same school as one of my daughters, was drawn into the scandal of her mother’s making. She didn’t deserve the distress and hurt she suffered. She did not deserve the publicity garnered because she innocently had pictures on Facebook like the vast majority of her peers.

    [Daphne – For that, Mrs Galea, she has her mother to blame. Her mother has led her to believe that her activities are both normal and acceptable, and that those who criticise her are ‘jealous’ (chance would be a fine thing). She took her children to live with another man who is not their father, and has obliged them to see her go to bed with him and wake up to have breakfast at the same table with him. Worse still she encourages flirtation between her lover and her daughter, encouraging her to ‘persuade’ Robert to buy her what she wants, and this very public flirtation takes place on Facebook. So the daughter has grown up to believe that getting things out of men is normal, and that her mother is exemplary and her behaviour is enviable. What are you suggesting here – that no public person paid by the tax-payer is held up to scrutiny lest his or her children be upset? I’ll give you an example of outrageous behaviour towards offspring: the way my sons are constantly slandered and lied about by anonymous persons purely to get back at me, and make no mistake about where that’s coming from, because it started when I began to expose Consuelo Herrera’s shenanigans. I happen to think it is despicable to involve the children of public figures (let alone to slander them, as is done anonymously to my sons) and this is why I will have nothing to do with any of that.]
    There is no doubt in my mind that in your case, you have honesty on your side and if the truth is not allowed to triumph in Malta, it will in the European Court of Human Rights. The Farrugias of this world, the bullies and thugs anywhere should not be allowed to prevail.

    You are doing a courageous and important thing by not being cowed by his wanton and profligate abuse of power. When truth talks to power and power is put in its place the world can breathe easier till the next time.

    [Daphne – Thank you.]

  37. susan galea says:

    Steady on. For all you and I know there could be photos of anyone doing illicit and hilariously embarrassing things in all sorts of carnal or other contexts. Whatever, our imagination is not to be chief referent in terms of judging someone’s character as if we populated a society for paranoids and ‘curtain twitchers’ .

    [Daphne – I wish to get this straight: it’s not the carnal that’s at issue here. It’s the lying. Having sex is one thing. Giving in to blackmail and lying to the police are something else altogether. And both are significant when you are a legislator.]
    Okay, let’s hope the truth will do its unerring best and the abuse of power is revealed as the preferred vice of Mr Farrugia. I am sure you will be well- supported in working toward that outcome.

  38. susan galea says:

    If the mother is as ghastly as she sounds that makes me pity her daughter more for the less than wholesome environment that she has experienced and the particularly grotty example provided by her mother. I think that would encourage me to ensure more diligently that the child was not judged for the sins of her parent. This is a child that has had to take far too much responsibility for her mother’s malfeasance as it is.

    I hope I made it clear that it was not an issue of being scandalised by this man’s sexuality when I deliberately suggested that we could imagine all manner of photographs worthy of an attempt at blackmail. I don’t know why this is relevant anyway: the photos are at this point a product of your speculation and that is not a position from which to proceed to any kind of fear of a public figure being prey to blackmail. Facts are stubborn things and the only reasonable basis on which to make any kind of judgment in terms of any posited future compromise of this man. It is categorically unfair to suggest on the basis of ” what ifs” without the relevant facts.

    We would not want to condemn or judge anyone on their potential for behaviour that is inappropriate, and all that might lead to … Let’s keep it authentic and true. Idle speculation is the begetter of calumnies that are wholly specious when the available facts are not present.

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