Sunday 7 July 2013

Telegraph says rapists are a "hidden danger" of UKIP

An article published on the Telegraph website this morning warns that UKIP is a party of rapists following an unsubstantiated, unreported and apparently unreliable allegation of rape at a party following the UKIP conference in Birmingham.

According to the article, a young party activists claims her drink was spiked at a post-conference reception and that she was subsequently raped.  She reported the alleged rape to the party but not the police, Michael Greaves, who is a former Crown Prosecutor and member of the International Criminal Court, investigated the allegations and found that she was unreliable.  The alleged victim didn't report it to the police.

If the allegations are true then the person making the claim needs to report it to the police because it's an extremely serious crime and nobody wants a rapist on the loose.  But it isn't for the party to report to the police if there is no evidence of it happening - it clearly isn't what the alleged victim wants for a start.

Even if the allegations are true, the Telegraph's suggestion that rapists are a "hidden danger" of UKIP is absolutely unjustified and I am deeply offended and disgusted at the implication that I, as a UKIP member and councillor, am a dangerous person because of this unsubstantiated accusation.  The warning (which has since been removed after I phoned the journalist to complain) was placed below a cropped picture of Nigel Farage and said:
You have been warned: the hidden danger of Ukip is waiting in the wings
I have contacted the Press Complaints Commission with a view to making an official complaint about this defamatory statement.  The journalist says that he wasn't responsible for the picture or the caption.