Reed is a liar who repeats this exact same lie in one interview after another to an endless queue of lazy, incompetent, obsequious non-journalists who have not done their research and do not challenge him. It is a damning indictment of the media class to which he belongs. C https://twitter.com/NeverlandFacts/status/1491263729714950148

His comments also betray an almost vigilante mentality. In a civilised society, and any proper media outlet, it is incumbent upon accusers to prove their claims, not upon the accused to exonerate themselves. This is in no small part due to the near impossibility of doing so. C

The US has statutes of limitations & the UK has ‘abuse of process’ rules, which prevent uncorroborated historic allegations from proceeding through the court system - because how can a falsely accused person possibly defend themselves against a vague, historic claim? C

Imagine someone suddenly accuses you of an unwitnessed offence, for which there is no forensic evidence, on a non-specific date 30 years ago.

How do you prove you didn’t do it?

You can’t give an alibi. Prosecutors say character evidence is irrelevant.

It’s an impossibility. C

So how do civilised people assess the veracity of historic allegations?

The only means by which to do so are to assess accusers’ honesty, motive, consistency, and the extent to which their accounts can be corroborated by facts.

By all these measures, Reed’s subjects are weak. C

Start with honesty: Both men previously testified under oath that no abuse occurred, but now testify that it did.

That means that whichever story is true, the other must be a lie, making them both liars/perjurers.

Do civilised societies convict on the word of liars/perjurers? C

Robson’s record of proven dishonesty under oath extends beyond this u-turn.

He also falsely claimed not to have known Jackson had a posthumous estate, in order to justify filing an out-of-time lawsuit.

The judge threw his suit out, finding no rational juror could believe him. C

He then made several more false claims to the court through his lawyers.

First, he falsely claimed he possessed only one disclosable email pertinent to the case.

Then, when it transpired he possessed hundreds, he tried to hide them by falsely citing attorney-client privilege. C

So when Reed tells client journalists there’s no credible challenge, he is asserting that there is no real credibility issue attached to an accuser being caught persistently lying under oath.

He has to know that is ludicrous, which is probably why he covered it up his show. C

Motive: Both defended Jackson for many years for free, but changed their stories just in time to file lawsuits seeking many millions of dollars.

So the u-turn in their sworn testimony is inextricably intertwined with financial claims.

Any rational juror must consider that. C

Reed makes time in his show for the accusers to claim their motive is not money, but to be a voice for victims.

He finds no time, alas, to mention the contradictory fact that both men filed their original claims *under seal*, seeking *secret* settlements from Jackson’s estate. C

Consistency/Corroboration: Both make claims in Reed’s show which directly contradict sworn statements in their lawsuits.

Robson changes his story as to when/how his alleged abuse began, while Safechuck torpedoes the entire chronology (given repeatedly under oath) of his case. C

The most infamous example, unpicked through public records by @mikesmallcombe1, was Safechuck claiming on camera to have been serially abused in Neverland’s train station.

Reed’s editing placed this alleged abuse at the start of his & Jackson’s association, in the late 80s. C

Smallcombe proved the station was not built and opened until 1994.

Safechuck had repeatedly claimed under oath in his financial lawsuit that Jackson never abused him after 1992, because he got too old so Jackson moved onto other, younger boys. C

Reed now insists Safechuck was abused in the station *after* it opened in 1994. But this a) renders Safechuck’s sworn statements false, and b) directly contradicts the central narrative premise of Reed’s show: that Jackson lost interest in pubescent boys & found younger ones. C

So when Reed tells client journalists there’s no credible challenge, the problems he’s dismissing include a timeline error so gigantic that it could only be explained away by rubbishing his own star witness’s sworn testimony & abandoning the central claim of his own show. C

The station is just one example.

Claims made in the show and/or lawsuits place Robson at Neverland & the Grand Canyon at the same time, put Jackson in Los Angeles & Australia at the same time, and have Jackson committing offences on a trip to an awards ceremony he wasn’t at. C

Reed also allows his subjects to name other boys they claim Jackson dumped them for when they got too old (although he later abandons that narrative in response to station-gate).

These named boys were never approached by Reed for comment and are adamant they were never abused. C

By minimising/dismissing this litany of substantial problems, Reed is essentially demanding the presumption of innocence not only be replaced by a presumption of guilt, but by one so forceful that no innocent person falsely accused of a historic offence could ever be acquitted. C

This is an extraordinarily dangerous and irresponsible attitude which fundamentally undermines the bedrock of any civilised society: that a person has the right to be presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond any reasonable doubt. C

The usual response to such arguments is the irrelevant assertion that false claims are vanishingly rare. But that’s a lie, in addition to being an irrelevance.

4-8% of US abuse allegations are false, giving a lowball estimate of circa 100,000 innocent people accused annually. C

So we abandon the presumption of innocence at all of our peril. This issue is much bigger than Michael Jackson. It’s about what sort of society we want to live in. C

As @MJJRepository (a far better researcher than many journalists) points out, Reed has repeatedly acknowledged in the past that the train station was a problem, but has more recently contradicted himself by repeatedly claiming there have been no credible criticisms. C https://twitter.com/MJJRepository/status/1491499362509328387