Don’t just blame the culture for keeping powerful men’s dirty secrets. Blame the law too | Gaby Hinsliff

It is important to understand just how effectively perpetrators of abuse have used lawyers as their shields. A challenge to that can’t come soon enough

There will be empty shelves in many bedrooms this weekend, where the David Walliams books once stood. For parents of a certain era, there was no escaping that particular publishing-industrial complex, and I certainly did my share of wearily reading Gangsta Granny or Mr Stink on repeat. At his peak, Walliams was the bestselling children’s author in Britain for 100 weeks straight, to say nothing of the spin-off theatre productions, Christmas specials, countless World Book Day costumes, and that family-friendly stint as a judge on Britain’s Got Talent during which we now learn he was reportedly inviting teenagers to his dressing room.

“What I try and do most of all in my books is encourage reluctant readers,” he told breakfast TV’s Lorraine Kelly in 2024, the year before publisher HarperCollins finally dropped him after allegations over his behaviour towards junior female staff. But it’s parents who would have been reluctant to bring his books anywhere near bedtime had we known earlier about the young girls claiming that Walliams exploited his fame to prey on them, and then threatened legal action if they tried to speak out.

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