Sir Cliff Richard was so traumatised by sex abuse lies he feared it would kill him
Discovering that others have been through similar experiences and mental anguish has been a revelation as one of the most difficult aspects of the investigation was feeling so alone.
'You grew up with that thing of trusting the police. If you look at those old TV shows, such as Dixon of Dock Green, that was what they were offering you. This great man, he cares for you, and you can trust him. 'Because all you can think about is this accusation and that somebody might believe it. Even if the whole planet said 'no', but one person believed it,' he says.
'The thing which made it really difficult for me is that my sister came and she said: 'I can't help it, I hate him.' And I said: 'Fine, you hate him. That's good. He needs to be hated. But I can't do it. Otherwise I couldn't live.' ' 'It's a frightening thing that this can happen,' says Cliff. 'It still frustrates me that the police don't have the means to check out the accuser and chuck him out. In my case, it was pretty obvious they should never have continued.'
Cliff looks me in the eye and replies instantly: 'Stephen, Carl Beech is in prison. He went there because they finally checked his home — finally, after all those years of making up all those stories, and found images of child sexual abuse there. Why didn't they check the accuser first?' 'You have to be the right character [to be a policeman]. Dixon of Dock Green was like a walking angel in his suburb of London. He was an upright man. He could smell a crime. If you are going to be in an institution as important as the BBC, or police forces, the instinct is vital.'
Since then, more evidence of wrongdoing at the BBC has emerged, regarding its now disgraced ex-star journalist Martin Bashir and how he conned Princess Diana into granting him an interview, and lost potentially vital evidence in the so-called Babes in the Wood double murder case.
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