Once upon a time, in a land we knew as England, there was trust in something called

justice. There was widespread respect for the police and a belief that, in the eyes of the law, you were innocent until proved guilty.

A little nave perhaps, a little old fashioned, but on the whole it worked.

But hey, as they say, this is UK 2003. Times have changed. You had better watch out. If the police decide you are guilty, you need to start searching hard for evidence to prove your innocence. Or else!

Ask Matthew Kelly. He found out the hard way.

Even now, after the humiliation of his public arrest on child abuse charges, his overnight detention in a Surrey police cell, weeks of humiliation by innuendo and vilification and the long-term damage to his family, career and reputation, any suggestion of compensation has to have a large question mark over it.

For in this just and fair country of ours, it seems the Surrey Police and Kelly's accuser are protected by law against a claim for damages, wrongful arrest or defamation of character. At best, he may be able to sue Surrey Police for wrongful imprisonment.

I can only hope Matthew Kelly's lawyers are working their butts off to find some alternative legal route to attack Surrey Police for the sheer spite in the way they managed the whole arrest procedure.

Of course the police had to investigate a complaint of such a serious nature.

But they did not have to pursue it with such vengeful and public hostility.

Whatever happened to discretion? It was even more reprehensible as they had not a shred of evidence except the accusation of something that was supposed to have happened a quarter of a century ago.

This was celebrity-bashing of the most nauseous kind.

The knee-jerk reaction in UK 2003 that you are guilty until you prove your innocence whenever there are accusations concerning paedophilia, under age sex, child cruelty, rape and all the rest of it is a frightening trend.

It is heading towards the brutishness and ignorance of medieval times.

But Matthew Kelly was not alone in revelations about suffering under imperious police behaviour.

Derek Bond's tormentors were the FBI, the United states' Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr Bond, 72, a retired engineer from Bristol, was thrown into jail in South Africa where he was on holiday.

The FBI had mistakenly identified him as a dangerous conman on the run. In this Kafkaesque fiasco, the FBI did not fly to interview him until he had been in jail for nearly three weeks.

Now he is freed, it is my fervent hope Mr Bond will sue the FBI for millions of dollars - and not just for false arrest and suffering but for its heartless arrogance in abandoning him in the South African jail.

And where was the UK 2003 Foreign Office? You may well ask.