Abused and Betrayed - A Life Sentence

Screened the day before Cliff Richard was cleared officially of historical sexual offences, on the face of it, this documentary makes a compelling case that the late MP, wit and raconteur Clement Freud was not only a paedophile but a child rapist. Unlike most of the rubbish that has been peddled since a documentary in the same series made similar claims about Jimmy Savile, this one provides a paper trail of sorts. It is clear that Freud's principal accuser had a relationship with him, but the nature of that relationship is just as clearly not what she claims here.

Did he really abuse her as a child, or did she as his correspondence implies develop a girlish crush on him? The problem with this correspondence is that the context is lost, and if any of this really had happened as she claimed, she could and undoubtedly would have either gone to the authorities or sold her story to a tabloid decades ago. Perhaps she did, or tried the latter?

She claims she slept with Freud in later life, and also when she was down on her luck that he gave her a cheque for £500, which was worth a great deal more then than today.

The programme contains all the all the usual clichés: I thought it was my fault; I was afraid because he was so powerful; I thought no one would believe me, yadda, yadda, yadda. It seeks too to boost its credibility by interviewing the odious Nazir Afzal, but I know from personal experience that anything that comes out of his mouth is to be taken with a grain of salt, or maybe a boulder.

Peter Saunders is given much more space, and it is clear that if he was not involved with the actual production of this programme that it serves his agenda. Saunders is the founder of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood. He is also a grade A nutter.

After allegations of historical sexual abuse and even murder were made against the late Edward Heath, Gabrielle Shaw, the CEO of NAPAC gave an interview to the "Belfast Telegraph" claiming people had been telling the charity about him for years. The reality is that like Cliff Richard, Heath never married, and for some people that could mean only one thing. Richard has likewise had his name linked to the notorious Elm Guest House, but these were both extremely busy as well as famous men. It is unlikely in the extreme that Heath would have had the time to bugger or murder boys in South West London, even if he could slip away from his Special Branch guard for an hour or two. Likewise, Cliff Richard spent much of that time either touring or out of the country.

Saunders goes much further than Shaw; in January this year he appeared on a popular Sunday morning TV programme wherein he claimed there was a "Holly Cost" of child abuse, namely that over a billion children were abused in the world every year. It remains to be seen how much credence can be given to his personal claims, but one researcher has turned up evidence that his memory about his alleged childhood sexual abuse has mushroomed over the years.

So where does this leave Freud's principal accuser or the other women who appeared in this programme? Due to the passage of time no one can say for certain, but like so many of these self-styled survivors she blames the abuse she claims she suffered for trashing her life. She has experienced depression, failed relationships including marriages, and poverty.

In short, these women are pathetic, life's losers, and like so many losers they look for scapegoats, in this case one conveniently dead MP, who many would say was kind to his adopted daughter. The proof of this pudding is in the eating, contrast the life of any such "survivor" with that of a real survivor, and that contrast is stark. One such survivor was the remarkable Valerie Storie, who was raped in August 1961, her violation by James Hanratty being the least terrible thing she suffered that night, because after the rape, the man who had already murdered her lover in front of her eyes, emptied his gun into her leaving her for dead. Miraculously she survived, saw Hanratty hanged, and went back to work within a year. She died this March at 77, a decent age for a paraplegic, and although she never found love again, she lived life to the full becoming inter alia President of her local Women's Institute.

Most of today's victims of sexual abuse - real and imagined - would do much better to take a leaf out of Valerie Storie's book than drown in self-pity and whining like the women here, for whom in any case it is far too late.