BRITAIN: A special unit of London's Metropolitan Police, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the British media were all under fire last night following the collapse of an indecent assault case against television personality John Leslie.
Leslie, who lost his TV job in the wake of the charges being made against him, walked from court an innocent man - the latest victim, apparently, of police incompetence, prosecutorial ineptitude and newspapers willing to destroy reputations without evident care about the consequences.
"What can I say? I am an innocent man. I have maintained my innocence throughout. And today it's been justified," said Leslie on the steps of Southwark Crown Court in London.
"The last 10 months, my family and I have been taken to hell and back. But we always believed that justice would prevail and that truth will out. I said I would clear my name through the due legal process in a court of law, and today I have."
The collapse of the case has reopened the debate about anonymity in sex offences cases in which victims, usually the accusers, are anonymous while those accused are not.
Shortly after the hearing, but not commenting specifically on it, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, said Parliament should examine whether rape defendants should be given anonymity.
The charges against Leslie arose after another TV personality, Ulrika Jonsson, a former weathergirl and presenter of Gladiators, claimed in her autobiography to have been raped by an unnamed high-profile TV presenter.
While she did not name Leslie, various media outlets, both broadcasting and print, did within days. He denied the allegation vigorously but nonetheless was sacked as host of the ITV programme This Morning.
Officers from Scotland Yard's Special Inquiry Team - a unit that came under heavy criticism following the collapse of the royal butler trials last year - investigated the claim and separate allegations from other, also unnamed, women.
Earlier this year, they charged Leslie with allegedly attacking a woman twice between May 25th and May 28th, 1997. But yesterday, the charges were withdrawn when prosecution lawyers said they would be offering no evidence against him.
The reason, they said, was because the complainant - guaranteed lifelong anonymity under British law - had come forward with "new information" since Mr Leslie's last court appearance on July 3rd.
"It is no longer felt that there is a realistic prospect of conviction in this case," chief prosecutor Mr Richard Horwell told the court. He gave no details about the new information.
The prosecution said it was happy that Leslie (38) would "leave this court without a stain on his character".
But defending lawyer Mr Anthony Jennings described the prosecution's behaviour as "profoundly disturbing" and said the case against Leslie had been "shot through with holes and contradictions".
The case was another high-profile setback for the CPS, which decides whether or not to bring cases to court. The service has come under fire over the past few months after prosecutions collapsed in the cases of a former butler of the late Princess Diana accused of stealing and Balkan immigrants accused of plotting to kidnap former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham.
Prosecutors said they had been justified in bringing the case against Leslie to court and could not have foreseen the new evidence. The producer of This Morning said Leslie had been fired because he had not explained how he would defend himself against sex and drugs allegations. It had no plans to rehire him. - (PA/Reuters)