Latest moan from me and you!!!

The British, or in this case English, Law system asks for more than a sole accusation as evidence before proceeding or considering charging a person with an offence. The Police have to gather enough evidence to convince the Crown Prosecution Service that a conviction is at least 80% possible, otherwise a lot of people from the Plaintiff and the Accused [who has to be considered innocent until proved otherwise despite the media attention] will suffer should a case fail.
To be honest, I get the feeling that your dislike for Ken Clarke, or possibly anyone in "High Office", is overriding your sense of fairness. Persons initially accused of sexual abuse, no matter what their position, particularly where the accusation comes from a sole source, do not have to be interviewed under caution or arrested as a matter of course for good reasons. Cautions are given as a formal warning given to a person who has admitted the offence. Under the changes made by the Criminal Justice Act 2003 cautions can be given in two forms, as a simple caution or as a conditional caution, the latter being where the offender must fulfill certain conditions, Unfortunately I have known cases where the Police have incorrectly given a caution because they believe the person to be guilty of an offence but can't prove it, and are recorded. Giving a caution to persons can affect their chances of being employed or losing their employment because of it, which is unfair if a person is innocent but involved in a Police Investigation.
For lawful arrests the Police need to fulfill two elements under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 otherwise known as PACE.

a. A person's involvement or suspected involvement or attempted involvement in the commission of a criminal offence.

b. Reasonable grounds for believing that the person's arrest is necessary.

So both elements must be met and it can never be necessary to arrest a person unless there are reasonable grounds to suspect them of committing an offence. Such conditions are not just plucked out of the air but have been added to the Law System after considered reviews in cases where persons have been falsely accused and carriages of misjustice have happened. Such conditions have been created to protect all citizens of the UK, you, me and Kenneth Clarke.

My point being Cautions or Arrests being "liberally" made can lead to a person being assumed to be guilty by the Media, employers and other persons, when in fact the person may well be innocent. Being in a place of public attention and interest does not mean that person should not be treated in any different way to you or I.

 

Thanks, ARMANDII, for the detailed information. There is much too great a possibility of false accusations and wrongful Cautions and Arrests without these precautions.

There have been much too many 'trial by media' situations occurring in recent years. That, nowadays, especially includes social media. We don't want GC to become part of that side of social media.

A recent, appalling, notorious example was the case of Christopher Jefferies/Jo Yeates,

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/03/18/christopher-jefferies-joanna-yates_n_1356637.html

We, the general public, rarely know the full details of what is happening and tend to rely (too much) on what we hear, or read, in the media. This wouldn't be too bad if the media were more responsible. Unfortunately, they seem to be getting more and more disinterested in the truth and are just out to be sensationalist.

It's becoming harder and harder to distinguish between proper investigation and reporting by all forms of media, including mainstream and conspiracy theory types. This ends up lumping all of them together in the 'I don't believe a word they say' category.

We need good, honest reporting so that we, at least, have a chance of forming an opinion that will contain enough information. It's much too easy to jump to conclusions on too little information - especially if it's simple, unfounded, speculation.

It's bad enough talking to people that swear that everything on Wikipedia must be the truth! Even when Wiki say that it may not be. (Rant, rant.)

About thirty years ago I wrote a short paper for the local authority on how easy it was to unintentionally mislead and misinform the public if they didn't give out the correct (or sufficient) information. By way of example I spread two, unfounded, rumours about the authority that caused them a certain amount of discomfort because they had not bothered to inform the public properly about what they were doing. After that they were quite careful about giving correct information to the local press .

 

I think we all have been blamed for something we haven't done and in my present form of work it's something I'm particularly prone to due to people trying to resist change or to protect their self made work empires.. The only way to combat it is to dispel the rumours by just telling the truth although one of the idiosyncrasies of Human Nature is that we are inclined to believe the negative rather than the positive in Life.

 

You've always got us!!! You also have to question whether or not the people who are listening to and believing the gossip are actually the Friends you thought they were.