Interesting that convicted sex attacker and the public face of PR, Max Clifford should claim that women who gave evidence against him before he was jailed for eight years were “in it for the money”.
Readers will recall that paedophile Paul Gadd, aka glam rocker Gary Glitter, was also up in court for sex attacks on a young woman in November 1999. At that time one of grubby Clifford’s grubby clients was Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World and under a deal brokered by Clifford, who clearly cares deeply about vulnerable young women being groped by dirty old men like Gadd using their celebrity status to force sexual favours, the newspaper agreed to pay the victim of Gadd’s alleged attack £10,000 for her story, and another £25,000 if Gadd was convicted of the alleged offence.
Sadly for Clifford and his valued client the revelation of the payments in court caused the trial judge to correctly acquit Gadd on the basis that the “highly reprehesible” pay-outs undermined the integrity of the witness (just a bit). Following this the Lord Chancellor warned of the real possibilities of miscarriages of justice arising from Clifford’s little earners as witnesses “in it for the money” exaggerated their evidence to make it rather more newsworthy, and/or witheld relevant evidence from the court to make it available as an exclusive to a publisher.
Isn’t it nice to get a break from celebrity PR gurus and crap newspapers?