BY PAUL T HORGAN
It is a truth, universally understood, that Europe does not want, nor does it need, another totalitarian dictatorship that uses terror and murder to subjugate its captive population. This was the sentiment behind the creation of the European Convention on Human Rights, and also the Court to administer its clauses and sections. This document has constitutional strength, such that it is regularly used to overrule constitutional settlements. It is highly likely that the reason the UK voted for Brexit in 2016 was not necessarily because of a desire to discard the directives and agencies of the EU, but actually to stop activist judges on the European Court of Human Rights from interfering in British legal affairs. The Convention and the Court are the primary reasons why the UK is unable to deport the man of combat age with base or zero sexual morality from invading our shores with a large degree of complicity from the EU.
The ECHR has also seen its scope creep, such that not just its signatories, but also the entire world is subject to its rule. If a country to which the UK wants to deport an illegal migrant does not adhere to the ECHR, then the UK cannot deport that illegal migrant, no matter what heinous crimes that migrant has committed in the UK. While these tinpot third world countries are indirectly subject to the ECHR through their breaches of the convention, there is no method to impose the ECHR on them so they will adhere to it. While the USSR did for several decades its level best to export its toxic and murderous ideology of Marxism-Leninism onto vulnerable former European colonies, Europe has been quite reluctant, but perhaps with good reason, to impose the benevolence of a full raft of human rights onto countries that rely on their breaches of these conventions to export successfully those elements of their populations for which they neither want nor care.
Now the ECHR is coming for the NHS, and it is being argued in court this week that the NHS represents a danger to life. Some of you may now be thinking about time too, but read on.
A rather well-known media celebrity, who is hiding behind the name PPT, is trying to use the courts to prevent The Guardian and ITN from disclosing his name. Both these organisations have conducted extensive research into the conduct of PPT. They interviewed over 100 people and discovered a pattern of sexual misconduct by PPT that apparently rivals that of Jimmy Savile. PPT is seeking lifetime anonymity, threatening that if his name were to be disclosed, he would kill himself. However PPT is currently being detained in a secure NHS mental hospital due to previous attempts to end his life due to this prospect of disclosure. PPT is arguing that disclosure would breach Article 2 of the ECHR, being a right to life.
Article 2, and all the other articles of the ECHR, were written as a direct response to the excesses of Nazi Germany and the other nationalist dictatorships that flourished across Europe from the 1920s onwards (it may surprise the reader to know that most of the countries in Central, Eastern, and South-East Europe were nationalist dictatorships by 1939. Democracies in Europe were the minority). This article seems therefore now being stretched to equate the NHS, and also the news media to the Nazis. PPT, through his lawyers, is trying to argue that the sections of the ECHR that were a reaction to the Gestapo now apply to the NHS. By using the wealth accrued from a successful media career spanning decades, he is also denying the rights of his alleged victims to have their voices heard.
Imagine if Jimmy Savile had used the same legal trickery. That is what seems to be happening here.
The news media is atoning for the ‘sin’ of failing to report on Jimmy Savile’s crimes for decades by making absolutely sure there is no repeat. This explains why Russell Brand is, at the time of writing, awaiting the jury’s verdict on numerous accounts of rape and sexual assault. PPT is innocent until proven guilty, but the weight of evidence and number of alleged victims suggests there is a strong case to answer.
If a man who is held in secure mental accommodation is seen by the courts to be little different from a man held in a Gestapo jail, then this is surely the final mockery of an international convention that is being leveraged to protect yet another celebrity who allegedly exploited their fame and power to violate the innocent and trusting. PPT is perfectly entitled to his day in court, but if he prevails then an experienced NHS mental health nurse will be seen as being little better than a seasoned Gestapo thug when it comes to protecting and preserving life. A secure mental hospital becomes no different in law than the Lubyanka. The wealthy and the powerful will be able to bandy around threats of self-harm to protect themselves from the legal, professional, and commercial consequences of alleged excess and moral failure and will be able to retain expensive lawyers to argue this in court on the back of PPT’s precedent, should he win his case.
PPT should face the consequences of his actions. This seems a ‘Hail Mary’ attempt to hide his alleged misbehaviour from a public that has lost its patience with the wealthy and powerful escaping justice when they use an imbalance of power to avoid being held to account over sexual abuse. PPT’s problem may well be that he performed his misdeeds before Savile was exposed, so he was operating within the culture of cover-up and a misplaced deference that had re-emerged in the wake of its shattering by the Profumo scandal.
The courts may be trying to seek a balance between PPT’s safety and investigative journalism. In so doing, the courts may inadvertently state that the NHS is not fit for purpose and that all its patients are always at risk, even those held in restrictive care for their own safety. While the Lucy Letby scandal may validate this conclusion, using killer nurses to protect an alleged sexual predator from public exposure may be an argument too far.
I am not necessarily a friend to the NHS, but if the choice is between the reputation of the NHS or the reputation of a man accused of sexually abusing dozens of victims over a period of decades, the provider of a form of universal health care doing its best to keep the man from harming himself does prevail.
PPT’s name, for good or ill, has been bandied around social media, and there is certain evidence in the public domain outside social media that suggests who PPT actually is. When Lord McAlpine was falsely exposed as an alleged paedophile on social media, he successfully sued and won a landmark case. PPT has this legal recourse, but has not taken it. Instead he is trying to argue that no amount of professional health care will stop him from killing himself, and that the NHS in particular cannot do so. It is a weak argument and deserves to fail.
PPT must face his accusers and be held to account. It is ironic that the Convention that prevents the UK from deporting third-world rapists to their tinpot countries of origin is also trying to be used to protect a first-world alleged sex abuser in his own country. Should PPT succeed, the ECHR will have become a complete rapists’ charter instead of just in certain parts. Some scope creep.
Paul T Horgan worked in the IT Sector. He lives in Berkshire.