Tonight, Matthew are you the victim?

Nick Morrison looks at the rights and wrongs of trial by media.

IT'S a fair bet that Matthew Kelly was stunned when he was arrested by police investigating allegations of sexual abuse against young boys. But it's probably also safe to say that this reaction paled when set against the mounting horror of the next few days.

Every time he opened a newspaper, every time he switched on the television, it must have seemed as though he could only watch in mounting despair as his reputation was comprehensively trashed. Newspaper columns were given over to poring over the latest developments, as if each were proof of the Stars in Their Eyes presenter's guilt.

In his statement yesterday, Kelly acknowledged the impact of the reports, saying: "It has been a very anxious and upsetting time for me and my family, not least because of press coverage at the time of my arrest."

The friendship with a convicted paedophile was taken as a sure sign that he must have been involved in some kind of abuse ring. The house in Sri Lanka was damned on the grounds the holiday island is said to be a popular resort with paedophiles. And even pictures of police removing a computer from Kelly's home were deemed weighty, pointing towards an interest in Internet pornography.

All this, and without any examination of Kelly's guilt - or innocence - by a court.

The stigma of child abuse is such that the very existence of an allegation is enough to send friends and associates scurrying for cover. Granada moved quickly to announce that Kelly would not be hosting celebrity editions of Stars in Their Eyes, even though the star himself continued to perform in theatre, first as Captain Hook in Peter Pan, and then in a touring production of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, which arrives at Darlington Civic Theatre tonight.

But yesterday police announced they are to take no further action against Kelly over the allegations, which were said to relate to incidents in the 1970s. But while the star's confidence that his name would be cleared has been borne out by events, he still faces a battle to recover his reputation. Even discounting those who believe in the 'no smoke without fire' adage, there will be those for whom the coverage over his arrest takes prominence over yesterday's announcement.

Allegations of sexual abuse are undoubtedly the most damaging for any celebrity, with the greatest potential to destroy reputations and, by extension, livelihoods.

Former This Morning presenter John Leslie is still in hiding after he was named last October as the man who allegedly attacked Ulrika Jonsson. No charges have been brought - and are unlikely to be, as she has declined to make a complaint - but Leslie's career sank more swiftly than dotcom shares.

Former Who guitarist Pete Townshend found himself on the wrong end of a media frenzy when he was arrested as part of Operation Ore, a US investigation into Internet child pornography, prompting singer Roger Daltrey to claim Townshend was the victim of a witch-hunt.

And haunting them all is the ghost of Peter Adamson, who played Len Fairclough in Coronation Street. Accused of indecently assaulting two girls in a swimming pool, he was dropped from the soap and saw his career ruined. But while many people remember the accusations, who remembers that he was cleared?

But the only way to spare the reputations of those who may ultimately be cleared is to conduct the investigation in secret, and that will do a disservice to both democracy and the legal process, according to Chris Rushton, head of journalism and public relations at Sunderland University.

"There are many cases where, if the investigation hadn't been made public then justice would not have been served. One example is the allegations of abuse in children's homes in Wales, which prompted other people to come forward," he says.

"While I have enormous sympathy with people in the public eye, you have to realise that doing nothing about it could produce a far worse result."

While the amount of information which can be published before a trial is limited by contempt of court laws, newspapers often circumvent this by saying a trial is so far in the future that their coverage is unlikely to influence the outcome. Where this defence may fall down, according to Mr Rushton, is where an initial allegation has triggered a long-running frenzy of speculation. "You have to look at John Leslie and say if that ever came to court, is he ever going to get a fair trial?," he says.

With the case against Matthew Kelly going no further, the star's lawyers may even now be poring over the coverage to see if there is any possibility of a libel case, or a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission.

In some ways, says Mr Rushton, this could help clear up grey areas over what newspapers could and couldn't report once someone in the public eye has been arrested, but Kelly himself is more likely to want to try and rebuild his career without the prolonged intrusion a court case or official complaint would involve.

And it seems as though there is little recourse in law for a celebrity who has fallen victim to allegations of abuse which never reach court, according to Richard Mullender, law lecturer at Newcastle University.

The need to carry out a robust investigation may clash with the desire to preserve someone's good name, but the priority has to be protecting children from predatory adults, he says, even taking into account the damage allegations of child abuse can inflict. "It is a kind of reputational sledgehammer," he says.

Mr Mullender says that where Kelly may find some sort of redress is in an appeal to Article Eight of the European Convention of Human Rights, which confers a qualified right to privacy.

It is this article which has been invoked by Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones in their fury at the publication of their wedding photographs in Hello! magazine, when the pictures had been sold instead to rival OK. But this may be all the two cases have in common.

"If this were an invasion of Matthew Kelly's privacy, it is much more deserving of a serious response than the nonsense Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones are parading before the courts. This really is a man's livelihood and it is at least arguable that his privacy has been invaded," Mr Mullender says.

Newspapers would have to show that the invasion of privacy was justified, in protecting the interests of others or serving the public interest, and the possibility of encouraging other victims to come forward could be a powerful argument.

"It might be concluded that, given the difficulty of these investigations, it is terrible for Matthew Kelly but it is justified," says Mr Mullender.

"I think he is up a gum-tree, quite frankly. He could quite legitimately feel aggrieved, but what we have got here is a tragic choice, because you want to protect kids from predatory adults, but against that a career has been damaged."