Smoke Without Fire

Student: MA Writing for Creative & Professional Practice. BY AARON FENTON-HEWITT

There are sixty minutes in an hour. Twenty-four hours in a day. Seven days in a week. Four weeks in a month. Twelve months in a year. Liverpool F.C. wear red jerseys during their home games. Barack Obama became the first African-American President of the United States of America and served two terms. Theresa May is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (as of 25th March 2019). There are four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter. France are the most recent winners of the FIFA World Cup.

You may be wondering to yourself why I’m saying all these random sentences. I answer you by saying this: all of these statements are true. They are not subjective. My opinion on them does not matter at all. These are facts. Unbiased, objective facts.

With this being said, there is an attitude that is widespread in contemporary society that both angers me and scares me, particularly held and promoted by filthy-rich celebrities and those in the public eye. There seems to be an attitude which makes the truth subjective instead of objective, especially concerning sexual assault against women. People are to be believed without question, scrutiny or investigation.

The truth has now been hijacked, and it can be moulded into anything the person wants.

It angers me because it cheapens the actual truth and makes it harder for people to try and pick sense from nonsense, i.e. investigate objectively, and therefore affects those who are actually telling the truth. It scares me because it has the potential to be a direct threat to legitimate justice.

We seem to be faced with a cure that is so much worse than the disease.

Ever since disgraced American film producer Harvey Weinstein was outed as a sexual deviant and predator, the #MeToo movement has taken the world by storm, as we have seen other powerful men publicly accused and later convicted. It is an idea that I fully support: anybody who sexually abuses a person should suffer the appropriate consequences and victims should receive justice. I don’t think there’s a single person alive who would be against this idea.

Now, Google a guy called Liam Allan. His life was turned upside down when he was accused of sexual harassment and rape. His accuser – who has still not been named at the time of writing this – accused him of this, sparking a two-year investigation by the police.

It turned out the police had not fully recovered and investigated all digital evidence. The case was dropped after a computer disk was found, which contained tens of thousands of messages which revealed the alleged victim had been pestering Liam for ‘casual sex’, describing Liam as a kind person and references to rape fantasies and role-playing.

As a man in contemporary society, once you have been accused of a crime of this calibre, your life is irreparably damaged. It affects all aspects of it: professional, social and of course, sexual.

During this investigation, there was crucial evidence being withheld and the Met Police offered an apology. But that’s not really enough, is it? Even with the lack of evidence to exonerate Liam, they still had no hard evidence to prove that he was guilty.

Now, as a society, we believe in due process and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty and conviction. At least, that’s what we’re supposed to believe in. Is an apology enough for the undeserved shame and social exile that Liam received as a result of this? Can saying sorry resurrect his career prospects? Can an official statement from the Met help to fully integrate Liam back into his social circle? Will he ever be able to be fully trusted by a woman or her parents? These are the things that falsely accused men have to deal with.

Unfortunately, the #MeToo movement has a very nasty side effect; it has created a hostile environment in which women are to be believed, until proven that they’re lying, and men are to be disbelieved, until proven they’re telling the truth. Men are now guilty until proven innocent. If a man is accused, the onus is no longer on the woman to prove he’s lying, it is now on the man to prove he isn’t.

Has the #MeToo movement gone too far? Has it stuck to its original purpose, which is to bring sexual predators to justice? Do we really want to live in an environment that is so sterile that men no longer want to associate with women unless absolutely necessary purely out of paranoia that they too will be wrongfully accused of sexual assault?

The purpose of the #MeToo movement was to cleanse the world of the disease of sexual predators, but we seem to be faced with a cure that is so much worse than the disease, which is quite worrying.

I certainly don’t want to live in that world, but cases like Liam’s prove sometimes there is smoke without fire.