If even the revelation that she'd been raped couldn't do it, one wonders if there is any situation that could lead to people feeling sympathy for Katie Price?

Or is the mood against her so far gone that a plane could fall out of the sky, right on top of her head, and there would still be members of the British media and public muttering: "Well, she deserved it, didn't she? Publicity-seeking trollop. Look at how she treated Peter Andre!"

Something has to explain the bizarre attitude of some parts of the media regarding Price's account of being assaulted. Always careful to toss in a caveat ("Anyone who's been raped deserves sympathy"), too often this would segue into a (surely irrelevant?) diatribe about Price's character and behaviour, followed by baiting over her refusal to involve the police. Irresponsible, if not downright suspicious, seemed to run the rationale.

Well, not really. If anything, with her fear of involving the police and the courts, Price was behaving like a typical rape victim.

Doesn't this, the omnipresent culture of automatic disbelief around sexual assault, serve to highlight why Price, and many other victims of rape, are so loath to come forward? Indeed, doesn't Price's obvious lack of faith in the legal system mirror the torment of many other rape victims, ordinary women, who fear they have little chance of being believed?

Not that Price has done herself many PR favours lately: not by announcing the rape in OK! magazine, talking about it (or "not talking about it") on Matthew Wright's show (echoing Ulrikagate), nor even by spending so much time gyrating around the clubs of Ibiza, like some trashed Essex Barbarella.

Then again, who among us, post-split, manages to pull off the full (classy, composed) "Audrey Hepburn"? In my opinion, there has been more humanity and honesty in Price's raddled clubbing than (again, only my opinion, libel team) the passive-aggressive simpering of Andre, last seen on Jonathan Ross on Friday night, puffing out his over-developed abs, like some mutant Toblerone.

All of which would (should) be irrelevant, except in the matter of Price's credibility about her rape, it sadly isn't. Indeed, the case against her (the incessant baiting to name names and involve the police) seems to rest almost entirely on widespread censure of her general deportment.

In recent days, I have even seen comments on websites along the lines of "even if she was raped" looking she does, behaving like she does: "Is it any real surprise?"

And just like that, we are back in the bad old days of eye-rolling police, censorious judges, of women being more or less told they had brought sexual assault on themselves with their swigging of Babychams and wriggling in miniskirts; that, all things considered: "Darling, you asked for it."

All of which leads one to the conclusion that Price was absolutely right not to press charges.

Not only did the incident occur so long ago it would be impossible to prove, but she would have had her character and sexual history trashed, the whole process most probably resulting in a failed court case and ersatz "proof" that she'd "lied".

Basically, as seems rather too routine with rape cases, Price would have ended up a victim twice. In this way, Price's refusal to prosecute her alleged attacker is not just her being gobby "Jordan", irresponsibly shooting her mouth off for attention, and then backtracking when the heat turns up. On the contrary, by being scared and withdrawing Price has revealed herself as an Everywoman – as in, every woman who has ever been raped but does not press charges because deep down she fears she will not be believed.

These Columbine fantasists owe us a big apology

Matthew Swift, 18, and Ross McKnight, 16, from Denton, Manchester, have been acquitted of plotting to blow up schools and shopping centres to mark the 10th anniversary of the Columbine school massacre. One of the defence team says the case was a farcical over-reaction and a waste of police time and public money. For all their blather, the boys had accumulated no guns or explosives, and their fantasising was merely teenage angst, in Swift's words, "a fantasy, not a reality". McKnight added that he'd been forced to take his GCSEs in custody. Diddums.

Just because Swift and McKnight were found not guilty it doesn't mean that their "fantasies" about blowing up public places and shooting all survivors weren't alarming. It is also unfair to suggest that the authorities had any option but to take it seriously. For all they knew, they may have had a real-life version of Lionel Shriver's novel We Need to Talk About Kevin on their hands. What if they had ignored Swift and McKnight, dismissed it as a teenage wind-up and then something had happened? Would they then have been blamed for a farcical under-reaction?

Although not guilty, arguably certain aspects of the boys' behaviour (planning, preening) fitted the profile of this kind of massacre, which, with real killers, tips over into a narcissistic desire to be noticed, to reap attention via fear and awe. It's a phenomenon related best in the song The Nobodies by rock performer Marilyn Manson, who may lurch around looking like a Halloween costume left to melt on the radiator, but whose music was blamed by the US right for inciting Columbine, so he's probably entitled to have an opinion about it.

As for teenage angst and fantasising, perhaps Swift and McKnight should get with the rest of the male teens in the country and content themselves with developing a painful crush on Cheryl Cole. Indeed, although The X Factor contestants are routinely derided for their crazy wannabe dreams about superstardom, next to what certain other teenagers are fantasising about, they suddenly look the pinnacle of good mental health.

Although Swift and McKnight's plotting turned out not to be genuine, it was still vile, disturbing and required thorough investigation. They should be apologising for any police time and public money wasted, not the other way around.

Let's hear it for Jo and the rock chicks

So Strictly Come Dancing is back. As memories fade of John Sergeant stumbling around like a drugged heffalump, one hopes that Jo Wood won't be voted off any time soon, not because of her dancing (who cares?), but because she deserves a boost after husband's Ronnie's behaviour.

Some of us were cackling last week at news of 62-year-old Ronnie's drunken bust up with Ekaterina, the 20-year-old Russian he left Jo for. Oh dear, trouble in third-of-your-age paradise? Did Ekaterina glance over and realise she was sharing her life with someone who appeared to have a moulting crow stuck to his head?

It isn't Ekaterina's fault. The silly girl is at a stage in life where she should be running around pop festivals getting inappropriate tattoos, not slumped backstage, attempting to keep a whining, self-absorbed rock star on the wagon.

The Wood saga highlights the reality of that much-maligned social group – rock wives. Dismissed as feckless floozies, in truth, they work horribly hard, keeping their muso-miseries' tummies filled, inappropriately "young" clothes washed and egos stroked, not to mention fending off endless Ekaterinas. To do this, as Jo did, while looking great, and keeping a sense of humour, was a major accomplishment, and for this alone she deserves the Strictly crown.

As with everything in life, with "rock wives", there are the good, the bad and the ugly. As Ronnie is probably realising, he just let go of one of the greats.

Chicken licken

Still available for viewing on YouTube: Adeel Ayub, the disgraced former Asda worker, who decided to spend a day off at the store licking raw chickens and then replacing them on shelves, slashing staff furniture with a knife, smashing trays of eggs with bats and urinating into rubbish bins. Would it be too presumptuous to conclude that this is a man with lurking "job satisfaction" issues?