Mistaken for Jon Venables -the new face of witch hunts

It is said that medieval witch hunts were stitch-ups: famously Monty Python and the Holy Grail showed how it was supposed to work: if she floated she was a witch -kill her. If she drowned she was innocent -but dead. And the evidence in Monty Python's sketch was always interpreted in the worst possible light for the victim of the lynching. So it is worrying in the extreme to see the spirity of the lynch-hunt is still alive and anyone could fall foul of the lottery of co-incidence. See here: Man mistaken for Jon Venables on Facebook fears for safety | UK news | guardian.co.uk

The poor guy has presumably just enough resemblance and admitted once that he'd been in prison:

"'People have been turning up at my neighbours' houses with pictures of the killers printed off the internet, and saying one of them is me. Now I hear that threats are being made and I'm worried that someone will come for me or my girlfriend or hurt my kids,' he said. 'I'm too scared to go out of the house now. I have these people saying they will get me out no matter what and I'm terrified at what they might do.'"

The problem is, when the person they are actually seeking te victimise has been given a false identity, including a fictitious life history, any protestations of innocence by someone like Mr Calvert are likely to be met with 'Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?' or 'It's fake: they had to give him a false background.' Effectively, there's no way to 'prove' your innocence.

These people need a crash course in why it is so important that we all abide by the principle of 'innocent until proven guilty'. The rest of us need to say so firmly and not pander to the lynch mentality of 'guilty until proven innocent'.