A barrister who sparked outrage by calling for the age of consent to be lowered to 13 in the wake of the Savile scandal today compared herself with journalist Andrew Gilligan.
Islington-based Barbara Hewson said she stands by her comments after “overwhelmingly supportive” emails from colleagues around the world.
She likened her situation to the BBC’s Gilligan, who in 2003 claimed the government’s dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction had been “sexed up” to justify the war against Saddam Hussein. He resigned from the BBC a year later in the wake of the Hutton Inquiry, which questioned the reliability of his evidence.
Ms Hewson, 52, said: “Remember Andrew Gilligan, who stuck to his guns in the Hutton Inquiry despite the Government’s top QC trying to lay punches on him? He didn’t get far.”
The lawyer has been fiercely criticised for attacking “the post-Savile witch-hunting of ageing celebs”.
