At the moment, Facebook is all in a tizzy because the priest who allegedly molested minors had his identity protected by the Court and because he has been granted bail. The Prosecution are appealing the bail decree, from what I see, so by the time you read this, the guy might be back behind bars.

Let's be quite clear about this: anyone who molests children, especially those left in his or her care, deserves to be punished in the most severe way.

Let's be equally clear about something else: victims of such behaviour, and their parents or guardians, are entitled to be very, very angry at the perpetrator and as such, they are to be forgiven if they do not respect the rules that the rest of us, the Great Uninformed, should, indeed must, respect.

Consequently, would anyone who, luckily for them, do not fall into the victims/parents category, kindly bear in mind, before letting rip with their inane comments, that in a country governed by the rule of law, people are innocent until proven guilty? This does not mean that occupants of positions of authority should take a hands-off approach and do nothing about anything they may hear about, but the rest of us should just shut it.

Remember, the right to have an opinion does not mean that you have the right to spew it out at the drop of a hat or just because you have read a newspaper report about something that you don't like. Ponder, if you would just stop pontificating for a moment, how you would feel if you were charged with something you hadn't done and everyone was blithely assuming you were guilty, because there's "no smoke without fire" and similar platitudes of jaw-dropping imbecility.

This is not a malaise that is confined to our shores, of course.

At the moment, Sir Cliff Richard is being tried by certain parts of the media because of allegations made relating to things which happened, or did not happen, decades ago. Obviously, if he is guilty of anything more than molesting music, Sir Cliff deserves nothing but contempt, but for the moment, read my lips, he is as pure as the driven snow, because like Malta, Great Britain believes in the idea of innocence until guilt is proven.