Saline solution? Max Clifford and the Stockport Nurse

Saline murders and Max Clifford aren't comfortable bedfellows for me. And so any sympathy I had for Rebecca Leighton has now disappeared.

Saline murders and Max Clifford aren't comfortable bedfellows for me.

And so any sympathy I had for Rebecca Leighton has now disappeared.

Just in case you're unaware, she's the nurse who spent six weeks in prison, wrongly charged with contaminating saline at Stockport Hospital, leading to several deaths.

The poor, poor woman (I used to think).

Injustice is an appalling thing and I think we can all imagine the horror of being thought guilty of such a vile crime.

And then she hired Max - suggesting that these days, some people will find a way to turn even the most hellish of situations into a shot at fame.

Perhaps I'm being unjust and she is simply naïve - but let me just remind you of Rebecca's closing comment in her statement after being released from prison.

"I would ask that you all respect the right of my family and myself to privacy and allow us to get on with our lives," her lawyer read.

How things have changed.

You don't hire Max Clifford if you want to disappear from the media spotlight.

That's like purchasing a Porsche to make sure you don't die in a high-speed crash.

This is no attack on Max, but I cannot take anyone who engages him as anything other than a fame-hungry wannabe. Because he helps make people famous.

So you'll understand my cynicism.

According the man himself, Rebecca wants him to set things right in the press and make sure people aren't left with the wrong memory of her.

But if you need a man of Max's stature to get your point out to the public, it means the public aren't that interested in the first place.

She's battling to get her professional ban dropped and wants to return to work. I applaud this and it is the only thing she should be devoting time to.

If she truly wants to get on with her life and not be forever thought of as the nurse caught up in the saline murders, the best thing she can do is get out of public sight.

Hiring Max to get her headlines will only serve to cement her name is people's minds.

She needs NO press, not GOOD press. Unless she's after a bit of fame.

If you are incorrectly linked to a murder - even for a short time - the old adage that all publicity is good publicity is more wrong than eating Chinese food whilst watching porn.

Look at, er, what's his name again? Jo Yeates' landlord - hold on I'll Google him - Chris Jefferies, that's the one.

Now THAT is an example of how you remove yourself from the public consciousness.

He was arrested and held for two days in 2010.

And let's be honest, if any of us were the detective on the job, we'd have done exactly the same thing.

Chris Jefferies is exactly what you want a killer to look like and we all thought he was guilty.

And yet he didn't hire a publicist to try and influence public perception. He went very quiet, employed good lawyers and got healthy pay-outs from all the papers who had wronged him in print.

As a result, all he need now do is cut his hair, replace his courdory jacket with a blazer and live out the remainder of his life in safe anonymity, his name all but erased from our memories.

I don't want to wrong Rebecca and if we hear no more about her from Max then I'll be willing to accept she's not after the spotlight.

But if she pops up in any of the Sunday papers telling "my side" of the story, she'll have shown her true colours.

At best, her story no longer matters (she didn't do it so who cares?) but more to the point, people were murdered and actively pursuing any form of exposure off the back of these crimes is just wrong.

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