Innocent until proven guilty must apply to all

The English seem to have lost all sense of what a presumption of innocence means.

It is not a technical qualification. It is about the right of every single English man and English woman to justice by way of trial in court before a jury of 12 people carefully weighing up the evidence presented to it.

How many miscarriages of justice do we need to have before this principle is respected by British newspapers and television?

Do we really need another Birmingham Six and another Guildford Four?

How can we begin to justify the imprisonment of innocent men for 15 years of their life in the period of their youth?

Even a Queen of England must govern with the love and consent of her people.

She is not a Pope claiming infallibility but the Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

In her we look for a love of justice tempered by compassion.

The Queen, like the rest of us, owes her own son the presumption of innocence until he has been found guilty in a court of law.

By demoting him in the way she has done she suggests to the wider world that she herself doubts his innocence. Surely not.

If she has some reason for thinking so, we all need to know so that we can put an end to the damage that is at present being done to the monarchy.

This is another lesson we need belatedly to learn. I shall presume Prince Andrew innocent until and unless he is proven to be guilty of the horrendous allegations made against him.

That is the only way in which justice can be served in this matter, either for him or for his accuser. No negotiated settlement is any longer possible.

Prince Andrew fought for his country in the Falklands War in 1982.

Mr Tony Blair sent our fellow countrymen to an illegal war in Iraq in 2003 with catastrophic consequences.

No wonder 1,132,967 people at the latest count (as of 5.36am on January 31) have publicly protested that such a man should be made a Knight of England’s most prestigious order of chivalry.

I hope the Queen will be better advised.

This is another dangerous moment for the English monarchy just as was the funeral of her Royal Highness, Diana, Princess of Wales, on 6 September 1997.

God save the Queen.

Gerald Morgan, Dublin

Innocent until proven guilty must apply to all – that includes Prince Andrew