Townshend says: "I know I'm innocent, and apart from the first day when I
heard the news when I was quite shaky and made quite a shaky statement I think, I've been absolutely certain that it was not about me. I have been
rapped on the knuckles and I don't want to appear like I don't take this thing seriously. There is a measure of the kind of rock'n'roll arrogance that I still carry in my dotage that made me think I'd have no trouble with it. I really thought of myself as a professional researcher who worked to help victims, not a guitar-smashing rock star. But the old rock star arrogance carried me into very dangerous water. I should say no more really because I think what's actually happened here is that I have been silenced: on this issue, the issue that I was so passionate about, which was the subversion of the Internet, here I am: I can't really say a thing."