The home affairs select committee is normally the Keith Vaz Show. The committee is Keith’s baby and it runs according to his rules. For an hour on Tuesday, though, normal service was suspended as the committee became the Paul Gambaccini Show.
The radio presenter may have been suspended by the BBC for a year while he was on police bail for alleged sex offences, but he hasn’t lost his command of the airwaves. The voice is liquid charm even when the story he’s come to tell is a personal nightmare.
Here were the simple facts of his case, he said, placing his cap and scarf on the table in front of him and peering towards Vaz and the other committee members. Either he has a squint or he had forgotten his specs.
“It’s a story of time travel without a time machine,” he began and from that moment he had everyone’s complete attention.
The initial police investigation had been dropped, he suggested, even before he was arrested in October 2013 as part of Operation Yewtree; the police knew his case was dead in the water by February 2014 and yet the Crown Prosecution Service had kept renewing his bail conditions – sometimes informing the media before they did him – for October.
“There was a Wizard of Oz pulling the strings,” he said. This was too much for Vaz, who was getting anxious about being sidelined. “Can I ... ?” he interrupted. Gambaccini was very sorry, but Vaz couldn’t, as he hadn’t yet finished what he had to say.
“There was a witch hunt going on,” he continued. “Having failed to investigate Jimmy Savile for 30 years, the police and the CPS were determined to make it look like they were doing something.”
It wasn’t a coincidence that bail was only dropped after the Dave Lee Travis retrial.
“They didn’t want anyone to think a former Radio 1 DJ might be innocent. If Operation Yewtree was a football team, it would have been relegated for losing two-thirds of its games.”
The case had also cost Gambaccini a great deal in lost earnings and legal fees. “Out of respect for my solicitor, I won’t say just how much,” he said, turning towards his brief, Kate Goold, who was sitting next to him. She returned the favour with a reassuringly expensive smile.
“Can we keep this brief?” enquired Vaz, now beginning to get a bit twitchy that the Gambaccini show was overrunning.
Gambaccini couldn’t. It had been a rubbish year for him and he wasn’t going to be short-changed. “I know what the police and the CPS did because a person told me,” he said. “Can I name that person?” Goold hastily suggested it would be better if he didn’t, before handing him a four-figure bill for that piece of advice.
“Do you think celebrities are more vulnerable to false accusations?” inquired Conservative Michael Ellis. Gambaccini opened his mouth to answer, but Vaz got in first. “We’ll accept a yes for an answer,” he said. But Gambaccini was now on a roll and couldn’t be stopped from digging the CPS further into the grave of its own making.
“You mentioned the Keith Richards’ case,” said Labour’s Paul Flynn. Cue amazed laughter. “I think you meant Clff Richard,” said Gambaccini helpfully. Goold’s eyes sparkled at the prospect of an expensive libel action. “Order, Order,” Vaz growled.
An hour or so later, Alison Saunders, the director of public prosecutions, gave a very different version of the how the CPS acts in high profile cases. Gambaccini and Saunders can’t both be right.
