So, the police have dropped the investigation into the alleged ‘hounding’ of ‘Cure the NHS’ founder Julie Bailey because of lack of evidence.
Lack of evidence. The police unable to find enough evidence that any of the ‘hounding’ actually happened – despite having conducted an investigation that included interviewing ‘witnesses’ and examining CCTV footage, according to the Express and Star newspaper.
Hmmmm.
The SKWAWKBOX has long observed that Ms Bailey’s claims of harassment so bad that she was ‘forced’ to quit Stafford were clearly massively overblown and probably invented – and now the police appear to have reached the same conclusion, although obviously they’re unable to come out and say so plainly.
Unable to find evidence – but that hasn’t, of course, stopped the media from repeating the ‘hounding’ myth over and over again, accusing the people of Stafford of conducting a concerted ‘hate campaign’ against the right-wing press’ ‘heroine’, blackening the name of tens of thousands of people on the say-so of one woman with obvious ulterior motives for such accusations – and who has admitted to hearing so many voices in her head that she’s confused by them. As she told the Daily Mirror, who should have known better:
It used to just be my mum’s voice I heard in my dreams..But now there are so many voices in my head, so many stories, they’ve all become confused.
But they’re always there, always driving me on, telling me I mustn’t let what happened to them happen to anyone else.
If the townspeople of Stafford didn’t already have their hands full preparing a legal fight to try to overturn a pre-ordained decision to close their hospital, I’d be recommending that they bring the biggest class-action in history against the media – in particular the Daily Mail – for libel.
The Staffordshire Newsletter’s version of the story carries an additional piece of information:
Crucially – and completely in line with other information I’ve received over recent months – Ms Bailey did not go to the police to complain. Instead, they went to her because of her constant complaining to the media. So we have a woman making media claims that she didn’t feel inclined to report to the police – who, when they do hear about it and investigate, find no evidence of any of it that they can pursue.
Hmmmm again.
Of course, the usual suspects on Twitter have avoided the obvious conclusion that the police’s decision casts serious doubt on Ms Bailey’s truthfulness, choosing instead to categorise it (surprise) as a miscarriage of justice, with Gary Walker cheerleading as usual:
Mr Walker has shown his true colours often enough, and very soon his tactics degenerated into raising someone’s spent criminal conviction in order to try to taint by association (which I won’t repeat by reproducing it here).
Sadly, the ability to see that someone’s history has no bearing on the validity of their logic when arguing with them seems beyond Cure and their supporters.
But this Pavlovian reaction is extremely illuminating of the Cure phenomenon. Every claim and accusation is treated by the media as fact without investigation or challenge – even when the claim is clearly implausible – and this habit seems to have led Ms Bailey and her supporters to think that they have a right to be offended, and to lash out vindictively, if their assertions are challenged even in the most logical and evidence-based fashion.
And of course, any investigation that doesn’t reach the conclusion they want is dismissed as a whitewash or cover-up – often in advance, as exemplified by a comment by ‘giletgirl’, a particularly obnoxious and anonymous local Tory:
Fortunately, Staffordshire police appear to have treated Ms Bailey’s claims of ‘hounding’ with more objectivity – and in doing so, they have concluded that they are unfounded, or at least unsupported by evidence. Which was clear all along to anyone remotely objective who bothered to actually look into it. And the goes for – or at least cause doubts to be raised about – all of her and her pals’ claims.
It would be nice to think there will now be a series of apologies, or at least corrections, relating to this ludicrous blackening of the name of a whole town. But don’t hold your breath.