What happened to Allison Pearson goes against natural justice, says Ann Widdecombe

The single most appalling aspect of the Allison Pearson story is that she was not told of what exactly she was accused.

For readers not familiar with the detail, here is what happened. Allison is a journalist with a Conservative-leaning newspaper and last Sunday she was visited by the boys in blue investigating a "non-crime hate incident" in respect of a tweet she had posted and deleted a year ago.

However, at the end of the visit she still did not know what the tweet was. The police simply would not tell her. Natural justice demands that you must know what is alleged against you. Otherwise, how can you answer questions and defend yourself?

A while ago I wrote on this page of a priest who spent an entire year suspended because he had been accused of sexual assault in this country only to find that the alleged goings-on referred to a period when he was working out of the country at an overseas mission.

The police were apologetic but when challenged as to why they could not have told him from the outset what the allegation was simply said, "Sorry, Father. It's procedure."

This is a procedure which in the interests of the innocent accused, of police time and of public money must be changed. No one should stand accused but not know of what.

Secondly, it is wholly wrong that the police can act as judge, jury and executioner by maintaining a list of people who have not committed a crime, let alone been convicted of any crime, but whose careers and reputation can be blighted by their appearance on a register of "non-crime hate incidents".

Citizens can be convicted of crimes only by trial in open court and if they are not so convicted should be on no register at all. The Stasi may have kept files on people with the wrong views but it is wholly iniquitous that the British police follow suit and, horror of horrors, even include children on the basis of playground insults.

If Reform wins the next election there will be no such register and it will be necessary to tell any suspect at the earliest stage of what it is he or she is suspected.

Nobody will ever appear on some shady register because somebody else says so. As I say, it is only natural justice. Anyway, haven't the police got any actual crimes to investigate?

Devil's in the lack of detail

At long last, a mere fortnight before it is due to be debated, the Assisted Dying Bill is published. Some MPs are complaining, not without cause, that they have not had time to consider and investigate anything so complex, others are withdrawing support while others are saying that if it fails they will bring back another Bill taking into account why it fell.

That is an odd way of doing things when a more straight-forward option would have been early publication and a period of reflection. However, what is there is worrying.

A doctor can begin a discussion about assisted suicide. The initiative does not have to come from the patient. Incredibly there appears to be no requirement that the person must be suffering: it is enough to be terminally ill.

There is no requirement for transparency, so loved ones could find out only after an assisted suicide had occurred. Doctors with conscientious objections would be forced to find a doctor who had none (not even the 1967 Abortion Act went that far).

There are many other sources of concern, which we will doubtless be hearing about in the next couple of weeks and of course the experience of other countries where a slippery slope has quickly developed, no matter how tightly drawn the law.

My mother often said to me that she would not want to live to be a burden to her children. As it happened, she died peacefully of old age at nearly 96 but one day a carer said to me that when she had asked my mother if there was anything she wanted, she had replied "to be with Jesus". What she meant was that she was weary with age and looking forward to Heaven.

The carer knew that and I knew that but I dread to think what might have happened if this proposed law had been in force and she had said it to a medical practitioner.

Donald Trump takes a gander at Rwanda

I have been watching events unfolding across the pond with interest and some amusement, as Donald Trump appoints a vaccine sceptic to look after health and a climate change cynic to look after energy.

Above all, there are now intriguing rumours that he might be looking at a Rwanda-style solution to deal with immigration! Soon Sir Keir Starmer will be the only Western leader left who thinks it is such a crackpot idea.

Hartley pouring fuel on flames

The Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, chose to go on television to call for the Archbishop of Canterbury's resignation. Now she has widened her target range to include other bishops who did not come out to support her, accusing them of fear or ambition.

Of course there is another explanation: that faced with the choice of getting their faces in the papers or writing urgently but privately to Lambeth Palace, they chose the latter and, once the resignation had happpened, saw no point in kicking a man when he was down.

The ripples of this sad affair will be felt for a long time and other heads will doubtless roll but Dr Hartley's pouring fuel on the flames will not help the already beleaguered Church of England.

Widdy on a Wednesday and at the weekend is starting to stack up

"Fancy!" exclaimed my nephew "building an online presence in your 70s! Who would have thought it?"

No, I have absolutely not succumbed to social media and you are not going to find me on X or Facebook or Instagram or anything else like that but I have decided to build a substack and it is now up and running at annwiddecombe.substack.com

I had never heard of substacks until a couple of weeks ago, thought that must be the product of being a grumpy old woman and was therefore delighted to find a 17-year-old who had never heard of them either!

For those few of you who may share my ignorance, a substack is where you write comment, in my case the sort of comment that I write here but often in a bit more detail. People can get content for free or pay for further comment and I shall be using the substack to explain a Reform policy each Wednesday.

It will be Widdy on Wednesday for serious stuff and Widdy at the Weekend for more light-hearted and general observations.