Why Britain is so reluctant to take on the powerful

Several media outlets have reported allegations of sexual abuse against Fayed in the past, including Vanity Fair in 1995, ITV in 1997 and Channel 4 in 2017. Meirion Jones, a former BBC journalist whose News evening The investigation into Savile was dropped, and the high legal costs incurred by these media outlets would likely have deterred others from further investigations.

“Knowledge of al Fayed's alleged actions was all over the world, but the trap was never sprung,” he says. “Legal fees in these cases can easily run into seven figures, and that is clearly a reason not to prosecute those with a lot of money.”

The second reason, according to Scorer, is that the UK criminal justice system is crumbling after years of underfunding. Scorer says it can now take between five and six years for sexual assault and rape cases to come to court, which is “totally unacceptable”.

Sir Bob Neill, a former Conservative MP and chairman of the House of Commons Justice Select Committee, agrees, but adds that the British justice system has long had a poor record in dealing with allegations of sexual crimes of all kinds, a weakness that is exacerbated when the perpetrator of these crimes is known.

“There has long been a concern that victims don't come forward because they're afraid they won't be believed. And that concern is obviously heightened when the alleged perpetrator is famous or rich,” says Neill. “A lot has been done to address this problem, but there is clearly still a long way to go.”

Scorer's third point is that there is far more direct political responsibility within the justice system in the US than in the UK. In the US, the prosecutor's office has increasingly become a stepping stone to higher office. (Kamala Harris, for example, previously served as district attorney of San Francisco and attorney general of California. Both offices are elected.)

This system definitely has its downsides. Research suggests that it has had significant negative consequences for U.S. criminal justice, including harsher justice for civilians (and mass incarceration) and significantly more lax policing practices.

However, it has also made the powerful more likely to be held accountable for criminal acts. Prosecutors know there is no surer way to get their own name in the headlines than to put a famous person behind bars.

Victims' groups agree that the U.S. justice system is generally less intimidated by the power of alleged perpetrators. The MeToo movement has led to a wave of high-profile cases and convictions for rape and sexual assault, including Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Cosby.

But while in the US it makes career sense for prosecutors to prosecute powerful people, in the UK the opposite is true. “Here the math is turned on its head,” says Scorer. “If you go after someone famous, you're probably tying up enormous resources and there are enormous downsides if the case fails.”

He points out that there are very limited mechanisms to hold the CPS and police to account when they choose not to prosecute. In 2018, the Metropolitan Police lost an appeal against two rape victims who were awarded compensation for their handling of the case of taxi driver John Worboys. However, the victims had to make their claim under Article 3 of the Human Rights Act – the right not to be tortured or subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment.

“The CPS's performance will not improve until it is given more resources and held more politically accountable,” says Scorer. “We know the CPS can speed up certain cases if it wants to, but such decisions are made in a very bureaucratic way and with little or no explanation.”