http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-25475497
An upper-middle class white woman (who is also a tv celebrity) confesses under oath to taking a Class A drug. This confession is reported in multiple newspapers across the country, if not the world.
Does this confession lead to any action? To investigations? To arrest? To charge?
No. It just leads to the police shrugging their shoulders and saying - despite the fact this was an oath-bound statement in a court of law - "we are not investigating these allegations".
If this were someone who wasn't a celebrity, someone who wasn't friends with the rich and powerful, someone who didn't have the current Head of Government on "her team", if this were a single mother from a council estate in Burnley or Rochdale or Liverpool or York, would the police be so reticent to take action?
I realise that I am not a lawyer, and have no legal expertise of any sort, so maybe there is a sound and just legal reason why the police are refusing to even investigate the confession made on the witness stand. But it would have to be a fairly impressive reason given the amount of surprise and confusion I have seen on the web over this decision.
Setting aside legal reasons, the only explanation I can find is that either the police don't believe the oath-bound statement to be true (in which case it would be perjury - also a crime) or they do believe it is true and are simply choosing to do nothing about it.
Either way - it doesn't make them look very good, and doesn't to anything to dispel the notion that there is one set of rules for the rich and powerful, and one set for everyone else.
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