The press
Bunter gets a thwacking
Paul Johnson
'A pitiful affair', intoned The Times. 'A dismal outcome of a dismal episode,' wailed the Guardian. 'These are bad days for Britain', agreed Peregrine Worsthorne in the Sunday Telegraph: 'Not only are the Augean Stables full of dirt, but even the cleansing brooms turn out to be riddled with worms.' Oh I don't know. There are plenty of foreigners who envy us our high-quality scandals. Returning from a brief visit to Washington last week, I noticed the eagerness with which American fellow-travellers Pounced on our screaming headlines at London Airport. 'You people certainly Produce real characters,' said one admiringly. Actually he was eyeing a photo of Mr Brocklebank-Fowler, looking like a poor man's Rex Harrison playing Professor Higgins. Then there was Sir Peter Hayman, absolutely made for Carry On Diplomacy. As for Mr Geoffrey Dickens, known to NIPs as 'Bunter' but as 'Snoopy' to his partner in what the Sunday Mirror calls 'sex romps, ('the main problem was the bed — it Was only about three feet wide') — is he not straight from the pages of Room at the Top? Not worm-riddled at all. Alan Watkins, in the Observer, calls him 'an appalling person — appalling in general, I mean, not merely in relation to the present case'. Personally I rather warm to this ex-boxer 'business consultant', who is capable of telling a press-conference: 'I'm getting out of the Way. I have two angry sons after me'. As Chesterton said, why shouldn't fat men fall in love? The Daily Express revealed that his 'beamed 17th-century farmhouse' had once 'belonged to the poet Wordsworth's family', and the New Standard published one of his love-poems in full: nothing fancy, to be sure, just solid meat-and-potatoes stuff, but quite impressive when read aloud in a Yorkshire accent. John Braine would never have dared to invent that bit. The truth is that we Northerners are a romantic lot, despite the jeers of folk who've never stuck their noses beyond Doncaster Bridge. As a matter of fact the Dickens-Hayman affair testified to the extraordinary variety of viewpoints in Fleet Street and the noisy absence of monopoly opinion. There's no such thing, Mr Worsthorne angrily pointed out, as the 'quality' papers closing ranks these days: another ambassador's affair with a Russian chambermaid had been exposed not, he reminded us, `by the so-called gutter press' but by 'the highly prestigious Sunday Times, whose new editor prides himself on being an Establishment man par excellence'. The . Sunday Times did, indeed, back Mr Dickens. While conceding that `Mr Dickens and moderation are strangers', it thought that 'he is not to'he blamed for having published Sir Peter Hayman's name'. That was also the view of The Times: `Mr Dickens was right to ventilate the matter'. 'His populist instincts,' the Daily Mail agreed, 'have not played him false'. Not so, said the Guardian: Mr Dickens was 'a tragic ass'; there were no 'shreds of justification' for his behaviour. 'I do not believe Sir Peter Hayman should have been named,' said Mr Watkins, and hoped 'MPs will now curb the absolute privilege they possess,' adding: 'Some hope'. The Daily Telegraph thought Dickens may have been 'right to raise the matter' but could have done so 'in an entirely effective way, without mentioning Sir Peter's name'.
Of course it really all depended — did it not? — on whether you thought there had been a cover-up. Here again there was disagreement. 'There is no evidence,' said the Daily Mail, `to suggest that this retired diplomat of moderate repute has been treated any differently, that is to say more leniently, than any other pathetic individual'. No, said the Sunday Mirror headline: 'It Was a Cover-up', to which the Sunday People gave echo: 'Scandalous! The Cover-Up in High Places'. The Sunday Express thought Sir Michael Havers 'has still a lot of questions to ask about the extraordinary anonymity afforded Sir Peter', and the Guardian, while admitting it was not 'the scandal of the century' called the 'courtesies from the law' received by the diplomat as opposed to 'scrap-merchants and tallow-chandlers,' a 'serious cause for disquiet and explanation'. Both the Sunday Telegraph and the Sunday Times had long articles on the legal complexities of the case, the first by four reporters, the second by seven. Was there a cover-up? The Telegraph concluded: 'The consensus by the end of last week was that there had been something of the sort'. The Sunday Times was more definite: 'It is difficult to escape the conclusions that in the judicial process Hayman received special treatment. He was the only one of those the police interviewed who had a pseudonym throughout the proceedings ' — and its editorial, to avoid further cracks from Mr Worsthorne, primly pointed out that working chaps suffered just as deeply as retired diplomats from such exposure: 'Bus conductors have consciences. Meter men have neighbours'.
Paedophilia, as expected, got stick all round. The Guardian commended 'a thoughtful leader' in the Daily Mirror for saying: 'The Daily Mirror is a tolerant newspaper. But tolerance has its limit. AND THIS IS IT.' But on its own account the Guardian sought to 'wend a path between clear justice and witch hunt'. 'Our view,' it concluded, Is that Mr Tom O'Carroll should not have been sent to prison, nor. his co-defendants charged'. Mr Watkins in the Observer also found more reason to sympathise with Mr O'Carroll than with Sir Peter. O'Carroll had been convicted of 'conspiracy to corrupt public morals', which Watkins termed 'a judgeinvented variety of 'rich-law that enables the "courts to punish any activity of which they may disapprove. . If Mr O'Carroll is to be punished, he should be punished for a specific and defined action'.
Meanwhile, it's back to normal (if that is the word) in some quarters. The Sunday Peopk selling itself 'The Paper that First Exposed the Vile Men', headlined its front-page splash: 'Top People Escape Child Porn Scandal', and the News of the World, which also claimed 'How we exposed the menace — and started a police probe', ran its lead story under the banner: 'Child Sex Ring Goes Back into Business'. It quoted a police officer engaged on the PIE case: 'The network of child porn is spreading and must spell danger to children. Parents are right to protest when evil men escape punishment'.
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