Peter Bacon: I'm leaving the UK to start afresh
"I'm thinking of a new name, a new Facebook identity, a new email...a new everything." The words of a 27 year old student from Canterbury who was charged - and cleared - of rape. It took a jury 45 minutes to decide that Peter Bacon had not raped a solicitor who'd claimed she was so drunk she couldn't have consented to sex. After his trial was over, Mr Bacon spoke to me - and it was clear that despite the acquittal - he was traumatised by what he'd gone through.
Today he is back on the programme to reveal the dramatic next steps he's taking to start his life again.
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A new Faceberk identity? Is his being on Faceberk really that important?
Why don't we grant anonymity to both parties until a firm conviction is obtained? This would avoid all the furore and devastation. This won't happen with this government, though, as it doesn't suit Harmans prejudiced anti-men agenda.
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Isn't there anyone else around for an in depth interview? Milking it comes to mind.
And what a palaver with the new sign in stuff. Why can't you just also just have a blog to comment in, why have Facebook, Twitter and the other feed? There is no continuity of threads at all and therefore no development of comments.
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if someone is charged several times for child sex offences, but never convicted, they'd probably be turned down for a job in a school for example. If this had happened with ian huntley he may never have worked as the school caretaker, never have targetted holly and jessica in the soham murders.
I was sexually assaulted and the police didn't even allow me the opportunity of putting my attacker on trial as they didn;t even press charges. the very least i can hope for is that my attacker doesn't get a job in future because the arrest may show up on a crb check even if there isn't a conviction.
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Victoria:
I am in complete agreement with Peter Bacon
about getting a FRESH start in his life outside of
the United Kingdom...
=Dennis Junior=
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"Isn't there anyone else around for an in depth interview? Milking it comes to mind."
Especially as he's banging on about a change of identity. Still, I suppose he'll find it hard to milk it when he's not called Peter Bacon anymore. Turning up for an interview saying, "My name is John Smith. I'm here for an interview on prime time. Why? Well, I was falsely accused of rape..." isn't going to work, is it...?!
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His quest for anonymity isn't going to be helped too much by his photo being splashed everywhere, including on this page, is it! Is he having surgery, too?
Come to think of it, who's paying for this great identity switch?
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I never even thought of the photo TF!!
It was really an empty piece of work. The original sounded as if it was recorded in a padded cell or a broom cupboard, this latest was a bit more open-roomed. However it was boring, especially when there is so much going on in the rest of the UK and world news to be thinking about.
I really couldn't care less about Bacon. The first interview with him was maybe acceptable as under the circumstances of the trial it would be very upsetting to him, the second interview a total indulgence.
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Victoria,
Simple and easy solution; No names of either suspect and the accused victim...
=Dennis Junior=
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I'd go further and, if the accused is to be named on conviction, suggest that the "victim" is named if the accused is found innocent, especially if the "victim" is then to face charges of perverting the course of justice and so on, as all malicious accusers should. They do great harm to the chances of genuine victims ever obtaining justice.
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J4B,
I don't think the Soham reference has much relevence here. Bacon wasn't charged in this case with child sex offences and I'm not aware of any suggestion that there were any previous charges of that nature against him nor for that matter were there (I think) any prior charges of child sex offences against Ian Huntley.
Nor is your own experience all that relevent since in Bacons case he was charged and shown not to be guilty.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
The man is seeking anonymity via a change of name and what does Victoria Derbyshire do? Publish his picture! Darwin award of the year or what?!
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12 above...exactly but he never brought that point up! Suspect he was just after a bit of publicity knowing that 'some' media outlets would jump on the bandwagon about anything if, as The Sun says, 'it's what the people want to hear! Sometimes you see more on radio than you do TV!
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