Sainsbury’s store pauses AI scanning after false shoplifting accusation
Supermarket chain says ‘human error’, not its Facewatch technology, to blame for ejecting a customer
17 August 2026
England
45 stories
Pride and pain for Horizon postmistress one year on from return to work
Rooprit Gill, falsely accused in the Horizon scandal, is back working at her former Post Office branch.
17 August 2026
The Guardian view on the Criminal Cases Review Commission: after Malkinson errors, trust must be earned back
Editorial: A review ordered by Vera Baird should help the body tasked with identifying miscarriages of justice to rebuild itself.
17 July 2026
‘Properly shafted’: How the courts failed to get to grips with the wrongful conviction of Eddie Gilfoyle
The psychologist whose report made Merseyside Police suspect Eddie Gilfoyle of murdering his pregnant wife now calls his own advice 'nonsense'.
3 July 2026
Institutional Cowardice: Grooming Gangs and False Allegations
Patrick O'Loan draws a parallel between the grooming gang scandal and the handling of false allegations: in both, institutions feared activist backlash more than injustice.
27 May 2026
PROOF magazine: Ghosts in the System
Filmmakers Fran Robertson and Jemma Gander report from Joe Outlaw's trial, where a jury heard the indefinite IPP sentence itself put on trial.
8 May 2026
Time to Charge False Accusers with Coercive Control
The Falsely Accused Network argues it is time to charge false accusers with the offence of coercive control.
20 May 2025
Convicting the innocent: how a rotten system ensures miscarriages of justice will continue
Brian Thornton on how a rotten system ensures miscarriages of justice will continue, from disclosure failures to an overloaded CCRC.
5 March 2025
Police trawling and other tactics
Operation Midland's guilty men were never held to account
Harvey Proctor on Operation Midland: the guilty men who wrecked innocent lives were never held to account.
4 March 2025
What if the police and prosecution were told to ‘believe all victims of false allegations’?
A Bristol criminologist inverts the instruction: if police and prosecutors had to believe every claimed victim of a false allegation, would they accept it?
22 January 2024
Russell Brand investigation: what good journalists should have to go through to report sexual assault allegations
An expert on media law explains how newspapers avoid defamation when investigating a story.
20 September 2023
Kevin Spacey has been found not guilty of sexual assault, but will his career recover?
Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey has been cleared of multiple sexual assault charges. Some say he faces an uphill struggle to return to his previous position as a top-ranking star.
27 July 2023
Corruption Pervades Police Forces in Australia and United Kingdom: Part 2
The headline of a report in the Age Newspaper on Wednesday 22 March 2023 read, “Gobbo seeks immunity deal to dob on police.” Gobbo refers, of course, to Nicola…
3 April 2023
Jonathan King on Prince Andrew, EMI and a Corrupted Justice System
Jonathan King on Prince Andrew, EMI and a corrupted justice system, and the campaign he says was built to stop him.
21 March 2023
Eleanor Williams jailed for eight and a half years after rape and trafficking lies
Eleanor Williams is jailed for eight and a half years for lying about being raped and trafficked by a grooming gang.
14 March 2023
Why did Eleanor Williams frame innocent men for rape and trafficking?
Why did Eleanor Williams frame innocent men for rape and trafficking? Helen Pidd examines what drove her lies.
14 March 2023
Is Clive Freeman’s claim of innocence plausible?
Clive Freeman is 79 and in his 35th year in prison for a murder he says never happened. Nine pathologists have since disputed the prosecution pathologist’s conclusion that Alexander Hardie was suffocated — and the CCRC has rejected four applications.
1 March 2023
Corruption Pervades Police Forces in Australia and the United Kingdom: Part 1
Part one of an examination of corruption pervading police forces in Australia and the United Kingdom.
20 February 2023
Scenes from a Marriage
In 2020, a British High Court judge ruled that actor Johnny Depp was probably a “wife beater.” In 2022, an American jury disagreed. Who got it right?
18 January 2023
Woman's compulsive lies led to ex-boyfriend almost being shot by police
A woman's compulsive lies to police saw her innocent ex-boyfriend jailed twice and confronted by armed officers at his home.
21 October 2022
Police ‘should not automatically believe abuse victims’ to avoid another ‘Nick’ scandal
Head of college of policing said force had ‘overreacted’ to criticism of the handling of historic sexual abuse
15 October 2022
Rolf is innocent OK
One of the biggest miscarriages of justice in Britain during the present century has been the conviction of the entertainer Rolf Harris following several…
21 July 2022
Met officer ‘left out evidence’ in UK holidaymaker murder investigation
The IOPC found DCI Neil Hibberd would have had a case to answer for gross misconduct over the evidence he gave at the trial of Ali Kololo, convicted of the 2011 murder of British holidaymaker David Tebbutt in Kenya.
24 June 2022
Sir Cliff Richard: Singer feared dying of heart attack after facing child sex assault claims
The singer, who was never arrested or found guilty and strongly denied the claims, was publicly named in a child sex allegation after a police raid on his home in 2014. He is now campaigning for a change in the law so that suspects are only named once they have been charged.
8 June 2022
Robert Buckland: Suspected sex offenders should be granted anonymity to protect reputations
The former Justice Secretary says the move would prevent innocent people from having their lives ‘trampled over’
29 May 2022
Rolf Harris Book
A review of a book arguing that people will lie about sexual abuse, and that the motive is generally money.
21 May 2022
Public are losing faith in police watchdog following wave of scandals including the disastrous VIP child sex abuse inquiry, MPs say
Speaking out: Lady Brittan is seeking justice over the treatment of her husband, the former Home Secretary Leon Brittan, after false allegations were made…
1 March 2022
Innocent: Redcar man accused of sex attacks on two young girls unanimously cleared by jury
A jury unanimously found Richard Gidney 'not guilty' to every charge he faced
23 November 2021
Jimmy Savile: ITV Savile mendacity part 2
To mark the tenth anniversary of his death ITV have broadcast another gratuitous ‘documentary’ about Jimmy Savile, Portrait of a Predator. Needless to say, it…
25 October 2021
Police trawling and other tactics
Police gullibility or a rush to judgement?
The Unbelievable Story of Carl Beech shows the readiness of police to believe the unbelievable in child sex abuse cases.
12 September 2020
Exonerated. Vindicated.
Former head teacher Richard Dunne is exonerated as the DBS closes his case, vindicating him after false allegations.
15 July 2020
Defendant collapsed in the dock before being jailed for telling "pack of lies" about her ex-partner
THERE were dramatic scenes at Worcester Crown Court as a defendant, who went on to be jailed on four counts of perverting the course of justice, collapsed in…
25 June 2020
Police in England and Wales dropping rape inquiries when victims refuse to hand in phones
Rape investigations in England and Wales are being dropped when complainants refuse to hand over their mobile phones.
17 June 2020
Jailed fantasist Carl Beech ordered to compensate Harvey Proctor
Jailed fantasist Carl Beech will have to hand over his assets of £23,960 to his only living victim, the former MP Harvey Proctor, a judge has ruled.
9 June 2020
‘Chronic liar’ charged with perverting the course of justice over false allegations
A serial liar who made false allegations of historical abuse lead to the wrongful imprisonment of a firefighter with an unblemished record of public service…
15 May 2020
Police watchdog orders inquiry into failure to investigate fantasists
The pair, known as A and B, told 'deliberate lies' about a VIP Westminster paedophile ring in 2015, prolonging investigations. The Metropolitan Police ignored advice to investigate the serial liars.
1 May 2020
Police officer charged with falsifying evidence cries in court
A policewoman cried when she appeared in court today with three other officers all accused of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
6 January 2020
Henriques report into Operation Midland: Met ‘broke law’ over Carl Beech abuse case
Sir Richard Henriques’s review found Met officers unlawfully misled a judge to obtain warrants against public figures falsely accused by Carl Beech.
5 October 2019
Operation Midland: how the police fell for VIP abuse fantasist
The Met had vowed not to shy from historical sex abuse after the Jimmy Saville scandal
5 October 2019
Carl Beech: Liar, fraudster and paedophile
For 18 months Carl Beech was the star witness in a Met inquiry into a VIP paedophile ring that never existed. He was jailed for 18 years in 2019.
26 July 2019
The 3 Cs: Contamination, Collusion, Concoction
Simon Warr on contamination, collusion and concoction: how abuse allegations multiply once compensation enters the picture.
25 March 2019
On the trail of the IICSAthon
On the trail of the IICSAthon Part 2: Still waters running deep and the trigger that opened the floodgates
22 September 2016
'We are surviving victims of a false accuser and wrongful conviction. Our family is in trauma' — The public speak
Inside Time readers respond to a family's account of a false accuser and wrongful conviction, sharing similar stories.
2 June 2016
Mud sticks: new study into ‘living hell’ of the wrongly accused
An Oxford study of 30 interviews finds teachers and carers cleared of abuse are ‘a new and growing class of victims’, left with wrecked careers and enduring trauma.
19 May 2016
Yewtree: more propaganda than police investigation
The failure of a few prosecutions won't stop the crusade.
19 February 2014