I went for a walk in the forest yesterday with my old friend Nick and our respective dogs and predictably, the subject turned towards the hat-trick of ‘Operation Yew Tree’ cases that, coincidentally, came to court on the same day last week.

A glance at the news would have you believe that the trials of William Roache, Rolf Harris and Dave Lee Travis were all linked and very similar in nature when in fact, there are differences in all of them, particularly with regards to allegations against Dave Lee Travis.

It seems easy, and many of us have been guilty of this, to label DLT  in a similar way as deceased predatory paedophile, Jimmy Savile. This is just because he (DLT) was a TOTP presenter during the same period as Savile, or in my case, simply because I can’t stand the big, fat, arrogant pig.

My suspicion is that if these three defendants were unknown members of Joe Public, there wouldn’t really be much of a link between their cases at all but because they are moderately well known celebrities or former celebrities, they are tenuously linked in the media to spice things up.

As far as I have learnt (I hope I am right here) the allegations against DLT are for sexual harassment brought against him by former members of staff who, as far as I am aware were young adults above the age of consent. There are no allegations of the predatory depravity of which Jimmy Saville carried out whilst BBC executives conveniently looked the other way.

Now, don’t get me wrong, sexual harassment cannot be tolerated and if DLT is found guilty, I am sure he will be punished accordingly by the law. However there is a part of me that wonders whether he is getting judged by the employment laws of 2014 for acts he allegedly carried out in a different era.

When I say that, I am not meaning to defend someone who I have always regarded as a cretin, but I do wonder what case there would be for a woman reporting her non celebrity pervert of a boss for groping her breasts in 1982; not a very good one, one suspects, as retrospective allegations must be bloody hard to prove.

I read one of the statements from a woman saying that when Travis was playing the part of Ebenezer in a pantomime, he started groping her in the back room and only stopped when the Chuckle Brothers walked past and said “Hi Dave”.

It is almost too bizarre to be a made up story but if it is factual, how on earth do you make an allegation like that stick? When I first start reading it I thought it was a build up to a sick, but ultimately, funny joke.

As you are probably aware by now, I have never held a candle for DLT and his shit radio programmes that were accompanied by such arrogance, that it is alleged, when he found out he was going to get sacked by Radio One, he raced to the studio and resigned on air in a desperate attempt at martyrdom (Smashey and Nicey have my eternal gratitude for helping to wreck his career.)

However, despite his objectionable character and a series of allegations that don’t surprise me one iota, DLT is no Jimmy Saville and he is no Stuart Hall or Jonathan King either. He may even be totally innocent but I hope not, I would love to see the smugness stripped from his pompous face.

When I think about it, I guess I was lucky as a kid in the 70’s and 80’s as I never really seemed to have the time to idolise or come in to contact with all these alleged celebrity perverts; I must have been far too busy playing football, eating magic mushrooms and setting gorse bushes on fire.

I think my only personal contacts with fame were with Phil Fearon (Galaxy) on a plane to Ibiza and an autographed cigarette packet from the irrepressible leprechaun, Chris De Burgh, who I was introduced to on a ferry from Dublin in May 1986.

De Burgh: Traumatised Millions

Phil Fearon did me no harm, but just six weeks after meeting the largely unknown Chris De Burgh, he shot to Number One in the UK with the nauseating love song “Lady in Red “which in its own way, was a crime against humanity worthy of a stretch behind bars.

However, I must reiterate that De Burgh only traumatised my ears and not my anus, which unfortunately, is not illegal.

Not yet anyway.