HOLD the front page! Sir Cliff Richard has just told the truth.

In an interview held shortly after the 77-year-old had just won £210,000 damages from the BBC, he said: “I’d rather 10 guilty people go free – than one innocent person suffer.”

That in a nutshell sums up the repercussions of yesterday’s disastrous court ruling.

Paedophiles, like Sir Cliff, will now be able to sleep more soundly in their beds  – or other people’s beds – knowing they are unlikely to be named as suspects.

The establishment has been working overtime to pull the plug on child abuse exposures since truth that was kept from the general public for more than 50 years about Sir Jimmy Savile was spectacularly exposed after his death in 2011.

From this point on, those three words are key – ‘after his death’.

For don’t expect police or the BBC to want to stick their necks out in such circumstances again until the vile perpetrator is firmly in his grave.

So why was there so much suspicion about the pop star, real name Harry Webb?

The main evidence is based on his appearance on the guest book list at Elm guest house, a VIP brothel, in London.

Much of the physical evidence that VIPs did indeed visit this seedy den of iniquity has inevitably been lost after the place was raided, either by Scotland Yard of Mi5.

But the guest list slipped through the net.

And that list includes Cliff Richard, who was known at the brothel as Kitty, alongside such luminaries as former Home Secretary Leon Brittan, disgraced Tory Harvey Proctor and fellow musician Jess Conrad.

The tabloids were all over the story in 1982 until a D notice was issued, leading to no mention of the former brothel in the mainstream media until 2013.

It is also common knowledge that Sir Cliff took out a super injunction preventing any link between himself and the brothel being published.

Naturally to the naïve general public, Sir Cliff has perfect credentials.

Not only was he knighted by the British establishment, he is also a Knight of Malta – but then so was Sir Jimmy Savile…..

In my view, Cliff was one of the celebrities who was pushed and promoted by the establishment to influence British society.

It would not have helped his image with many thousands of young female fans when it became clear that Cliff was primarily homosexual.

This is when, I believe, they landed on a masterstroke.

Cliff’s conversion to Christianity is less likely to be a ‘seeing the light’ moment rather than a marketing move.

Note the circumstances of Cliff’s alleged change of direction – at a Billy Graham evangelical rally, which was the ultimate Christian charade.

Graham, who died earlier this year at the age of 99, was also a 33^rd degree Freemason whose faith apparently saw no contradiction with the many US Presidents he counselled during their bombing campaigns throughout the world.

Cliff’s supposed devotion to Jesus diverted attention from the obvious fact he wasn’t interested in women and simultaneously boosted his clean-living image.

Oh yes, he was encouraged to fraternise with fellow Christian Sue Barker for the cameras.

But her confusion over how he suddenly disappeared from her arms speaks volumes.

Theirs was never a real relationship. Just another PR stunt.

Cliff became a Barbados citizen in the early 2000s where he entertained many guests including one Tony Blair, whose Christian faith must have been put on hold as 1,000,000 people met their deaths in Iraq following his fake mission with George Bush junior.

When South Yorkshire Police began investigating alleged events at another Billy Graham rally, the BBC, painted as the villains in the court soap opera, faced a dilemma.

They had been rightly castigated for failing to reveal the truth about their fellow golden boy Savile – that instead had been left to a commercial TV station.

Knowing how the floodgates had opened after Savile’s was initially made public, they and the police must have anticipated a similar response from victims of Sir Cliff.

What exactly happened will remain a mystery. But to find someone cast iron enough to put in front of a judge is a far different matter to a victim relaying their tales of abuse to the media or an inquiry.

The issue was dropped because the right kind of evidence was not found.

Does that mean Sir Cliff is not guilty? No, but that along with this week’s verdict does mean he is now legally untouchable.

A steady stream of celebrities have been exposed for sexual abuse post Savile.

That will become more and more difficult thanks to Sir Cliff and his establishment chums.

So he is spot on about guilty men (and women) walking free.

He just forgot to mention he is one of them…..