innocent until proven guilty
the whole point of legal blackmail is that it is known to the informant that the whiff of a scandal is enough. A powerful lever.

Once the message is public it hangs around, despite any denials, or acquittal. Elton John had enough money to take the mendacious Sun (not a newspaper) all the way to the High Court and won. Anyone with less money might have to roll over and do nothing.

The squeeky clean image of Sir Cliff is no longer clean, images have no correlation to law, or even justice.

Innocent only in the eyes of the law. "Not Proven" in the law of images.

sadly this is also the price of fame. He is a target because he has money. And because there is now a question mark.

The BBC have a lot of questions to answer. They used blackmail to get the permission to film. They had the information, they promised not to broadcast as soon as they heard, they didn't need to film to honour that promise. Call it astute news-gathering all you want. It was also blackmail.
J'accuse.