Rights of accused

Kevin Spacey was seen taking in the sights of Brac on Thursday after touching down in Croatia to film a docu-drama.

The disgraced actor, 62, was joined by a small team as they walked around the city before heading on a boat trip.

Spacey, who was wearing a pale blue T-shirt and relaxed shorts, has continued to work amid his ongoing legal battles.

Spacey, who has ‘strenuously denied’ the allegations against him, has claimed he will ‘establish his innocence’ over claims he sexually assaulted three men over an eight-year period during visits to Britain.

During the court appearance which took place on June 16, Spacey was granted unconditional bail which means he is free to fly to other countries.

The American star, who starred in Netflix series House of Cards and films American Beauty and The Usual Suspects, is accused of a string of sex attacks on three men in London and Gloucestershire between 2005 and 2013 while he was artistic director of the Old Vic theatre.

Channel 4 announced earlier this week that the broadcaster was working on a Kevin Spacey documentary surrounding the allegations against him.

Patrick Gibbs QC, defending, told the court Spacey ‘strenuously denies’ the allegations and had returned ‘voluntarily’ to the UK to ‘establish his innocence’.

The court heard Spacey went through four days of interviewing in New York and promised that if he was charged he would come to Britain to answer them.

Spacey made no comment outside the courthouse as he was rushed past a queue of other court attendees and through the entrance before passing security.

Prosecutor Natalie Dawson did not give any further details of the allegations beyond the charges, which were read out by the court’s legal advisor.

Mr Gibbs continued: ‘Having seen the full Crown’s case, pages and pages of statements and exhibits delivered to him…he has chosen, not on bail, to come to this court today and my submission is that you can have every confidence, and the judge at Southwark can have every confidence, that he will continue to attend.

‘He needs to answer these charges if he is to proceed with his life.’

Deputy Chief Magistrate Ikram granted Spacey unconditional bail ahead of his plea and trial preparation hearing at Southwark Crown Court on July 14.

He said: ‘I am going to send your case to the crown court sitting at Southwark. I am going to grant you unconditional bail. Every defendant has a right to unconditional bail unless the court is of the view that there is a real risk.

‘You have cooperated, I am told, and this has not been at all challenged by the Crown, with the authorities both in New York and you voluntarily attended these proceedings here today.

‘Indeed I withdrew the warrant which was issued for your arrest because it was not necessary. I am not persuaded that there is a real risk, bearing in mind all that I have heard about you, that you would fail to surrender.’

Spacey nodded and walked slowly out of the dock when he was told that he was free to leave.

The actor had been interviewed under caution by Scotland Yard in 2019 after the force launched an investigation into the claims two years earlier.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) authorised charges against him last month, but American Spacey could only be formally charged after travelling to the UK.

British prosecutors had suggested they would try and extradite the actor from the US, he appeared in court voluntarily.

In a statement released to Good Morning America after the Crown Prosecution Service announcement last month, Spacey said he was ‘confident’ he will prove his innocence.

The statement added: ‘I very much appreciate the Crown Prosecution Service’s statement in which they carefully reminded the media and the public that I am entitled to a fair trial, and innocent until proven otherwise.

‘While I am disappointed with their decision to move forward, I will voluntarily appear in the U.K. as soon as can be arranged and defend myself against these charges, which I am confident will prove my innocence.’

The Crown Prosecution Service said last month that one man, now in his 40s, claims he was sexually assaulted by Spacey twice in March 2005.

A second man, now in his 30s, claims that in August 2008 he was sexually assaulted and then forced to engage in a sex act against his will. All these alleged incidents took place in London.

The third complainant, now in his 30s, alleges he was sexually assaulted in April 2013 in Gloucestershire.

Pincher: the name sounds like a character from a Jeffrey Archer novel or the TV drama House of Cards.

There have also been, inevitably, some wry smiles and giggles among MPs about the former deputy chief whip’s unusual surname and the groping allegations against him.

But in all seriousness, as Mr Pincher faces up to his humiliation, the reality is that Boris Johnson has been shamed into disciplining a close ally after a clamour for action from senior Tory MPs, led by two female former ministers.

Politics Hub: Boris Johnson agrees to withdraw whip from Tory MP after ‘drunken groping’ claims

We’ve grown used to spectacular U-turns by the prime minister. But the belated decision to withdraw the Tory whip from Mr Pincher after initial defiance was inevitable and predictable.

At noon, the PM’s spokesman denied that Mr Johnson had been warned about Mr Pincher’s conduct when he appointed him to the key post of deputy chief whip back in February.

Really? In 2017, at the height of the so-called “Pestminster” scandal, Mr Pincher had been forced to resign from the whips’ office after an accuser – a former Olympic rower – claimed he behaved like a “pound shop Harvey Weinstein”.

He got the job of deputy chief whip in the February reshuffle this year as a reward for his key role in the so-called “Operation Save Big Dog”, seeing off opposition to the PM from Tory MPs at the height of the partygate scandal.

And after protests led by ex-ministers Caroline Nokes and Karen Bradley, who chair Commons select committees, the inevitable Downing Street U-turn came at 5pm, just five hours after the initial Number 10 defiance.

The official reason given for the climbdown was that a formal complaint about Mr Pincher had now been made to the Commons authorities.

Some will say Mr Pincher is fortunate that the police haven’t been asked to investigate. Yet. That could happen.

The investigation will be carried out by the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS), set up in 2018 following “Pestminster”.

Its main job has been to tackle MPs’ sexual misconduct, though its remit also includes bullying and harassment allegations.

But the inevitable climbdown won’t spare Mr Johnson from claims that his judgement has once again been shown to be deeply flawed and that yet again he has been irresponsibly lenient towards a mate, ally or crony accused of wrongdoing.

Remember Owen Paterson and Matt Hancock. First came defiance from the PM, then the inevitable retreat after a furious political and public backlash.

In a delicious irony, Neil Parish, the former Devon MP who was ruthlessly booted out of Parliament after watching porn on his mobile phone in the Commons chamber, has accused the prime minister of double standards when it came to Mr Pincher.

The PM’s critics will claim that once again Mr Johnson wanted to see if he could brazenly get away with defending his friend Mr Pincher, but after just a few short hours realised he had to bow to the inevitable.

Those critics will also claim Mr Johnson’s attempt to cling on to Mr Pincher as a Tory MP was always doomed to failure and raises further questions about his fitness for office, lack of integrity and contempt for rules and proper conduct.

The PM’s supporters, however, claim he took soundings from MPs during the day and when he heard about the official complaint to the ICGS acted properly and took the right course of action.

Mr Pincher’s replacement is another Johnson loyalist, Kelly Tolhurst, MP for Rochester and Strood in Kent, who was previously a whip, then a junior minister.

Some Tory MPs fear the whole Pincher fiasco could be more damaging than partygate for the PM. It confirms his blind devotion to mates, terrible judgement and lack of ethics, his critics claim.

Boris Johnson is almost certainly a more colourful and controversial personality than any character in a political novel or TV drama.

And now an official investigation into the accusations against Mr Pincher are under way, this story is far from over.

Dr. Jordan Peterson has been suspended from Twitter for calling out the “criminal physician” who removed Ellen, now Elliot Page’s breasts.

The controversial tweet was flagged as violating Twitter’s rules against hateful conduct, and Peterson has reportedly indicated that he will “never” delete the tweet.

Peterson was addressing The Umbrella Academy actor Elliot Page in his tweet.

Page came out as a trans man in December 2020, and the recent season of The Umbrella Academy reflected this change, having his character change from Vanya to Viktor Hargreeves .

“Remember when pride was a sin?” wrote Peterson on Twitter on June 22, the middle of Pride Month . He continued, writing to his 2.8 million followers, “And Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a criminal physician.”

It seems to have taken a week, but the content of that tweet specifically got Peterson removed from Twitter, as revealed by his daughter Mikhaila Peterson and his friend Dave Rubin .

Mikhaila screenshotted the message that told her father he’d been suspended, and also mentioned prospective Twitter owner Elon Musk in her tweet. “Definitely not a free speech platform at the moment [Elon Musk]” she wrote.

Conservative political commentator Rubin also alerted his own 1.3 million followers to the news of Peterson’s removal. “The insanity continues at Twitter,” Rubin said. “[Jordan Peterson] has been suspended for this tweet about Ellen Page. He just told me he will “never” delete the tweet. Paging [Elon Musk].”

In a follow up tweet, Rubin accused Twitter of deleting tweets written in response to his original post.

“Twitter has been throttling like crazy the last few weeks after that brief bump when [Elon Musk] got involved. Now I can watch responses be deleted in real-time…” he wrote alongside a video showing a comment seemingly being removed.

In the warning received by Peterson, Twitter told him that his tweet about Elliot Page violated the rules against hateful conduct. He was informed that his account would be restored to full functionality in 12 hours, and that countdown would start as soon as he deleted the tweet.

Peterson has a massive following online, with over five million YouTube subscribers, four million Instagram followers, 1.5 million Facebook followers as well as the aforementioned 2.8 million on Twitter.

He has not addressed his Twitter ban on his other platforms yet.

The 60-year-old author is also a clinical psychologist and a professor at the University of Toronto, and this is not the first time he’s faced controversy for his Twitter activity. In May he quite the platform after he called a plus-size Sports Illustrated cover model “not beautiful.”

Elliot Page has yet to respond to Peterson’s tweet.

Newsweek has reached out to Peterson for further comment.