The Daily Novel

Acoording to an investigation by Duncan Campbell, extracted in the Technology section of this morning’s Guardian, the police have been targeting the wrong people. The investigative journalist has gathered a vast pile of evidence in preparation for acting as an expert witness to help those accused in Britain’s biggest ever computer crime investigation.

Operation Ore was launched on the back of information supplied by the Americans. They supplied the names of over 7,000 British residents who had signed up for a Texan porn site, Landslide.com. Campbell’s investigation has found, for instance, that details on the Landslide computers included those from no less than 54,348 stolen credit cards. The full story is quite complex but Campbell has found ample evidence to back his conclusion that the criminals rate much higher on computer expertise than the police.

Well over 5,000 people have been investigated in this probe. Thirty-nine men have kiled themselves under pressure of the investigation. We shall never know whether some of them were innocent. But this investigation was not worth the thousands of pounds spent on it, because it has never been established that the the guilty ones – that means those who actually did sign up to the porn site – were pedophiles or in any way a danger to the public.

One of my oldest friends was targeted in the first months of this investigation. The police came at the crack of dawn (why was that necessary?) and carried away his computer. My friend admitted to the police, his family and friends that he was guilty of downloading the offensive pictures on to his computer. He immediately resigned from his job, because he was a university lecturer and knew that there was bound to be publicity and that this might harm the university. His resignation was accepted and he has not worked since then.

Despite excellent character witnesses he was sentenced to four months in prison. He did not kill himself. He served his term and resumed his life with his one and only partner, who is also a friend of mine.

Their ‘marriage’ has lasted since 1968. And since I have kept in touch with them since then, I know that it has been a happy marriage. Much happier than the marriages of several of my other friends, who have gone on to other partners.

So, I am pretty sure, that if my friend had been heterosexual, it is entirely likely that he would have received a suspended sentence.

There is still prejudice against gays in Britain. And the media and the universities help to fuel this prejudice. Not least when they deny its existence.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am very pleased that my own university, City University, has appointed the first openly gay Vice Chancellor of any British university. Malcolm Gillies is due to take up post next September.

I am hoping, in my ever optimistic way, that he will address the obstacles that still face gays in Britain in 2007. It needs someone of courage to make sure that universities advance knowledge and combat prejudice. And City needs a Vice Chancellor who will nurture its journalism department. And encourage them to combat the homophobia which is so rampant in many sections of the British popular press.

So that’s my rant. But I minded to end this polemnic on a different note. Although I have not suffered too much from other Robert Joneses, Duncan Campbell, and his namesake, who is also a journalist and a longstanding employee of The Guardian, have been dogged in their careers by public confusion, because they share the same name.

When I was teaching I used them as part of my lessons to my students, stressing the importance of getting names right, and also dealing with the problems of two people who have the same names. Which has in the past landed newspapers with huge libel damages.

In my cavalier way, I described the Duncan Campbell who wrote the article I am commenting on here, as the ‘cycling gay’ Duncan Campbell. I stereotyped the other Duncan Campbell as the lover of Julie Christie, who, as it happens, was one of my celluloid passions.

As I write now, I realise that I do not have documentary evidence for either of these assertions. If I was writing this blog for The Times the libel lawyers would want to cut out these paragraphs for this reason. Since I am only responsible to myself I will take the risk. Either, or both Duncan Campbells, may be sueing me in the courts tomorrow.

But I am prepared to take the risk. Because I think my information was accurate. Because if it was not, I shall find out what the truth was. And because I believe that the interests of students and readers are best served if they have teachers and journalists who are prepared to risk their own reputations for what they believe to be right.