By VennerRoad, 22nd Nov 2014
American A List Celebrity Bill Cosby has been accused of unspeakable crimes, but who is telling the truth?
Veteran entertainer Bill Cosby
Veteran entertainer Bill Cosby has long been one of the most venerated figures in America. The same was once true of Rolf Harris in both the UK and Australia. Though Cosby will not suffer the same fate as Harris, his reputation has already effectively been trashed, and there is at least one woman who wants to see him tried for rape. Judging from her petition, she is at best semi-literate, but more and more people appear to be swallowing the line that Cosby has a case to answer, indeed a large tranche of the media appears to have convicted him already, including Roseanne Barr. So what has actually been happening here?
Like the ill-fated Rolf Harris, Cosby had a pristine public image while behind the scenes he was not quite so clean living; certainly he liaised with other women behind his wife’s back, to whom he has now been married for over fifty years. Since he was branded a rapist publicly by a comedian earlier this month, there have been numerous reports about Cosby’s alleged sexual misdeeds on-line, and it is not easy to sort the wheat from the chaff. What appears to be the first dates from only March 2000 when he is alleged to have tried it on with a young actress at his home. If the New York Post is to be believed, Lachele Covington filed a police report shortly after the incident in which he had taken her hand, put it under his t-shirt and guided it south, at which point she pulled it away “and that was the end of that”.
After telling Cosby she was leaving, he said “That’s fine.”
The result was that the Manhattan District Attorney concluded that no crime had been committed. If this incident did happen, we learn two things from it. The first is that Cosby was willing to try it on with a woman who was young enough to be his grand-daughter; the second is that he appears to understand when a woman says no she means no. Again, if this incident happened.
Prior to this, Cosby was the victim of a blackmail attempt by a woman who claimed to be his illegitimate daughter; he admitted to an affair with her mother, and was willing to take a DNA test, but she backed down.
In 2005, a young woman named Andrea Constand accused Cosby of indecently assaulting her the previous year, claiming he had drugged her, but the authorities declined to press charges, primarily because she was late coming forward so any forensic evidence would have gone. Anti-rape activists – so-called – are fond of putting their own spin on such late reporting, claiming that victims are too traumatised or too afraid to come forward. This narrative has even found its way into soap operas, such as EastEnders, but there is a more pragmatic reason for such a delay, namely if the accused is charged it is a she said/he said situation, and she might just get lucky, in both the criminal trial and the civil trial or criminal injuries compensation claim afterwards.
When the authorities decided not to press charges, Miss Constand decided to go down the civil route, and after news leaked out, no fewer than thirteen women came forward to make what have been described as similar allegations. Cosby settled the action out-of-court for an undisclosed sum, and for many this is an indication of guilt as is the fact that there were so many accusers. The latest media feeding frenzy has brought forth even more accusers. These women can’t all be lying, mistaken or delusional. Can they?
That question can be answered by way of a striking comparison. In the UK, following the allegations against the late Jimmy Savile, the police launched Operation Yewtree, an investigation that has rightly been described as a witch-hunt. Literally hundreds of women and a few men came forward to make allegations against Savile, and likewise many came forward with allegations against other entertainers. One of those accused was the comedian Jimmy Tarbuck; his accuser was a man who claimed Tarbuck had indecently assaulted him decades earlier. This prompted no fewer than five women to come forward and claim Tarbuck had indecently assaulted them when they had gone to recordings of the BBC TV programme Top Of The Pops in 1963.
The reality is that Top Of The Pops started in 1964, and Jimmy Tarbuck has never been on the programme. The former DJ Dave Lee Travis endured two trials for over a dozen offences, and was convicted of one. Afterwards he summed it up succinctly when he said he was afraid that if the Crown Prosecution Service threw enough mud, some of it would stick. One of his accusers claimed he had indecently assaulted her during a visit to open a hospital radio station. On hearing this, a man contacted his legal team and informed them he had been at the hospital at the material time with his camera. He had videoed the entire proceedings, and there had clearly been no opportunity for Travis to sneak away from his wife and their entourage in order to grope anyone. His anonymous accuser was clearly a shameless liar, but she was not called to account for those lies.
The US has a statute of limitations – which varies from state to state – to prevent this sort of thing. It is extremely easy for women – and men – to make all manner of allegations years or decades after an offence, and it comes down to one person’s word against another. No one should be deceived by the number of Cosby accusers; if he were not a household name, and if they were making their allegations independently of each other, with none knowing of the existence of any of the others, then that would make a compelling case. When however the accused is extremely well-known and the media is broadcasting the allegations, they are far less credible.
These women claim they have nothing to gain, they are coming forward years and decades later because...they have finally overcome their unwarranted guilt, found the courage to speak out, out of sudden concern for other victims...or are they simply jumping on a bandwagon?
While mainstream media coverage has tended to be negative of or even hostile towards Cosby, not everyone has been taken in so easily. After Associated Press released footage of Cosby refusing to answer the allegations – footage they promised him would not be released – radio host Glenn Beck asked if they understood that no means no?
In this connection it is probably fair to say that Cosby has done himself no favours; he should perhaps have made a strong public denial. Incidentally, contrary to the assertions of a certain female TV hostess (who shall remain nameless) it is not true that an innocent man always shouts his innocence from the rooftops, though often guilty men do. From the time he was accused of historic sex offences against underage girls, the former TV and radio presenter Stuart Hall protested his innocence, but when he went to court he pleaded guilty.
Likewise when the former Government Minister Chris Huhne was accused of a relatively trivial non-sexual offence he too protested his innocence. Until it came time to enter a plea.
There are though so many women coming forward that at some point even the American public will probably wise up. It is also possible that Cosby set this whole thing off himself in a bizarre way. In a 1969 comedy routine he joked about lacing a woman’s drink. Some have suggested this is proof of his guilt, but could this really be a chicken and egg situation?
This is a curious modus operandi for any serial rapist, is it not? To administer a drug to a woman or anyone, including by deceit, is both a serious criminal offence and potentially dangerous. Ask any chemist. According to one of the latest complainants, when she was working as a waitress over forty years ago, Cosby tried to force her to take pills to help her relax. Former model Janice Dickinson is said to have asked Cosby for a pill to combat a headache or period pains or stomach pains (depending on which website you read); next thing she knew, she had passed out with Cosby getting on top of her, but she had never confronted him about the incident. It is truly amazing how many women were offered pills or asked for them from Cosby, yet made no mention of it for months, years or even decades.
Not one of these women who were allegedly drugged and raped filed a complaint at the time; they were all too embarrassed, humiliated, frightened, intimidated by Cosby’s power – power, seriously? – and all manner of excuses, yet now they have all found the “courage” to come forward. This begs the question, if they didn’t expect to be believed then, why should they expect to be believed now, because they’re all singing from the same hymn sheet after putting their heads together?
The bottom line is we don’t know if any of these allegations are true, if all of them are true, or if none of them are. Almost certainly at least some of them are false, Cosby’s accusers are either outright liars, confabulating, or something else. Unless and until concrete evidence emerges either way, we should reserve judgment. As that is unlikely in most if not all cases, the public will remain in limbo, and so will Cosby’s career, but at his age most men have long since retired. One final note, it is at times like this a man finds out who are his true friends. At least two women have thrown their hats into the ring in this connection: Stacey Dash who worked with Cosby, while Raven Symone – who was a child actress on his show – called rumours (ie lies) about him sexually assaulting her disgusting.
Whatever the final outcome of this sad affair, no one should be duped into supporting the revoking of the statute of limitations on rape and other offences – apart from murder – however many hysterical or just plain evil women call for it.
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