Friday 9th December was a crisp winter day in central London. Falsely Accused Day had been rescheduled from its traditional date in September – ex-member and BBC journalist Simon Warr's birthday – due to the passing of Queen Elizabeth II.
From 2:30pm the relations and loved ones of the falsely accused started to gather, plus some individuals maintaining innocence themselves, wrapped up in long black woollen coats and scarves. Margaret Gardener, the secretary of FASO (False Allegations Support Organisation) handed out lanterns with lights inside, and as the dusk fell outside the Royal Courts of Justice on Fleet Street, scores of pale-yellow lights flickered in the indigo light of The Strand.
Banners festooned with Vigil For The Falsely Accused And Wrongly Convicted were optimistically attached to the RCJ's railings, but such was the good grace of those attending that a security guard brought out some portable railings to which to attach them instead.
A speech by K. Harvey Proctor was read out in front of the assembled throng, and filmed for broadcast, it taking in all the key points of the movement from the malicious fantasies of his accuser Carl Beech (now imprisoned), multiple failings by the police, and special mention at the end for one Tom Watson, who amplified a miscarriage of justice into a witch-hunt in the mid 2010s (click here for a video of the speech).
Now, somehow, Tom Watson sits in the House of Lords, recommended by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who while Director of Public Prosecutions at the Crown Prosecution Service weaponised the anti-justice 'Believe the Victims' policy (later deployed to life-destroying effect by Alison Saunders).
Harvey Proctor's campaign continues – as he wrote in his speech, he had considered taking his own life – but it is to the profound benefit of Falsely Accused Day – and to the FACT (Falsely Accused Carers and Teachers) organisation, of which he is Vice President – that he continues his now regular media appearances, educating the public to a cause that is deeply misunderstood, and generally ignored by the mainstream media in general.
The issues of the repealed IPP (Imprisonment for Public Protection) sentences, Joint Enterprise, Operation Midland, MeToo, 'Believe the Victims' policy and Encrochat were all represented, with the more active loved ones of those affected standing in proxy for thousands more not able to attend, but there in spirit.
By Sean Bw Parker
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