What a good job News 24 is doing this morning - within the space of about 15 minutes, they covered John Leslie's statement Live, followed by telephone interviews with Max Clifford, Neil and Christine Hamilton, one of John Leslie's lawyers, and Andrew Neill.
No doubt the more celebrity focussed Sky and ITV will cover it more, but News 24 has already found time to break other news stories such as what's going on in Baghdad etc.
There's an additional problem here - which is part of the problem with naming alleged perpetrators.
Namely, the fact that the charges have been dropped - there are people, unfortunately, who will argue that was because there was insufficient evidence rather than proof of his innocence. I can see it now: 'There's no smoke without fire.'
This is one of the reasons why no-one involved in a case should be named before (at the very least) charges are brought and preferably the case is over.
On the ITV Lunchtime News John Leslie's statement was shown practically in full during the headlines and the opening titles were dropped. Also Christopher Rogers was a guest in the studio.
BBC1 also gave us a BBC News 24 Special yesterday morning as well, there's at least one each week lately!
According to
this BBC News article,
Sky has offered John Leslie £1m to host his own nightly talkshow.
Well if Sky have offered this, then Go for it John!!! I think if John finds a good show to present, he could really make a name for himself and get really popular with the public again. I don’t think Mr Leslie should go back to Granada again. If they just want to sack here and there, then why should he do them a favour and present for them again? I think John is going to come through this and become really good.
Good luck John Leslie Stott! (Leslie is his 'Real' middle name right)
Well if Sky have offered this, then Go for it John!!! I think if John finds a good show to present, he could really make a name for himself and get really popular with the public again. I don’t think Mr Leslie should go back to Granada again. If they just want to sack here and there, then why should he do them a favour and present for them again? I think John is going to come through this and become really good.
Good luck John Leslie Stott! (Leslie is his 'Real' middle name right[/QUOTE]]
Here, here - well done John!!!
Good luck to you!!!
I don’t think Mr Leslie should go back to Granada again. If they just want to sack here and there, then why should he do them a favour and present for them again?
Er - let's be accurate here, shall we?
Granada didn't sack him on a whim. They sacked him because he was publicly accused of an extremely serious offence and then went into hiding and refused to make any comment, not even a protestation of innocence.
In so doing, he lost the confidence of the public. Most, if not all people, if wrongly accused, would protest their innocence strongly at every opportunity (most guilty people seem to as well!) If Leslie had immediately come out and stated "I am innocent", Granada could and would have stood by him, as they did with Matthew Kelly... but he didn't. Granada gave him his chance, but in the end they had no other choice but to sack him.
And as for Leslie "doing Granada a favour" by presenting for them again, well, Granada didn't ask him to, so he *can't* do them a favour! And it's not much of a "favour" when you're being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds, is it?
It's a sad fact of life, but despite being cleared, Leslie may find it very difficult to regain the trust of the public. Even now, people still make jokes about Richard Madeley's brush with the law, and that was for something relatively innocuous - mud tends to stick a lot longer when it comes to sexual offences, and then there's the "insufficient evidence" angle. Granada will be very aware of this, which is why it hasn't offered him his job back. It will be interesting to watch the public response to Leslie's return to TV, whatever form that might take.