If you bend your ear closely to the wind today, you may detect the rustle of a political stitch-up. The police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Director of Public Prosecutions appear to be lining up a fall guy for their own systemic failings and misguided policies.

Yesterday, for the second time in seven days, another alleged rape case collapsed after police were found to have sat on digital evidence that would have cleared the accused man. Scotland Yard then announced that a review would be conducted into current sex cases “to ensure all evidence has been properly documented and shared”.

Simultaneously, it emerged that one Metropolitan Police Detective Constable, Mark Azariah, had been involved in both cases.

This coincidence may well prove to be of vital significance in explaining the detailed development of the appalling injustices which those two defendants were facing in their own individual cases.

Liam Allan, a 22 year-old criminology student, had been in danger of being sentenced to 10 years in jail until thousands of text messages finally became available to his defence, proving that the girl he was alleged to have raped had frequently pestered him for sex and had told her friends how much she enjoyed it with him.