Comments on: Top UK entertainer sexually abused hundreds, mostly children

By: ChickieD

ChickieD — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 18:05:00 +0000

I am for giving children information, however, because young kids are so naturally trusting, it’s hard to get them to see what you as an adult see as alarming. I’ll give you a real specific example. When my stepkids were about 8 (boy) and 10 (girl), their father and I took them to a roller skating rink. There was one man there with a fun Hawaiian shirt, mid-30′s, and no kids. He was very friendly to all the kids, going out of his way to interact with them, and they all seemed to like him. As parents, we found this man to be a real creeper. But when we asked our kids about him afterward, they said he seemed really nice. They didn’t find it suspicious at all that a 35 year old man was hanging out at a skating rink in the afternoon with no kids.

And, read the details of the Penn State abuse. These kids were 7, 8, 9. Think about how much these kids would be able to relate some life story about “bad touching” to this nice man who was head of a charity for helping kids in need.

By: ChickieD

ChickieD — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 18:00:00 +0000

If people are interested in learning more about these cases, Vanity Fair did some excellent pieces on Jackson: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/testlayoutb links to all articles on him. Maureen Orth’s pieces are the ones on his abuse and trial.

Details of the Roman Polanski case are on the Smoking Gun: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/polanski-predator

Because RP’s abuse happened before my time, it was only during the recent outrage over his possible extradition that I had read the case details. The case is heartbreaking, not only for his behavior but the victim’s at her age.

By: Jen Onymous

Jen Onymous — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 00:56:00 +0000

Jackson was only found “not guilty” IMHO due to buying off other vics.

By: Jen Onymous

Jen Onymous — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 00:55:00 +0000

Kelly,

Yes, thank you. I just had a conversation last night RE how major/large/structured corporations are fantastic places for sociopaths to hide and thrive.

By: Monkey_pants

Monkey_pants — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 22:38:00 +0000

Child molestation involves sexual touching, therefore it about sex on some level. Also, when you said “people,” I’m pretty sure you were referring to adults, whereas I’m talking about molestation from the child’s perceptive. You seem to be confusing adults and children.

By: BunnyShank

BunnyShank — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 22:30:00 +0000

Valuing someone’s right to have suspicions is treating every adult as a potential child molester? From your comment I see that you don’t understand that child molestation is about about power, not sex, and the first way to set someone up for violence is to tell them they have no right to their own perspective. Its how all molesters first cross that boundary.

By: euansmith

euansmith — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 21:28:00 +0000

Good points. Polanski is obviously made of pure class.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 21:15:00 +0000

Vetting for the royals is supremely incompetent. There was a convicted sex offender on the barge with the Queen during the Jubilee flotilla.

By: Monkey_pants

Monkey_pants — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 21:12:00 +0000

Actually, having frank and honest conversations with kids about sex, and teaching them what interactions with adults are o.k. is one of the things we need to value more, not treating every adult who works with kids as a potential child molester.

By: Halloween_Jack

Halloween_Jack — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 18:44:00 +0000

Jackson, you might recall, was actually acquitted. Polanski not only pled guilty but admitted his guilt in a later interview (and suggested that his prosecution was due to envy by members of the legal establishment that wanted to “fuck little girls”, as he had). Not the same thing at all.

By: Ernst Gruengast

Ernst Gruengast — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 13:50:00 +0000

As you imply, it is inconceivable that Savile would have been able to have had the ongoing relationships (and influence) he did with Thatcher and the Royals without thorough vetting. MI5 will have at very least investigated him and therefore would know, as was already in the public record, the extant complaints, the rumours, and his connections to care home scandals in Wales and Jersey, connections with the Yorkshire Ripper ……. the list goes on. That this went no further and his influence with the most important people in the British establishment was not curtailed is the question that needs to be asked. That he met every Friday morning with a select group of important police officers, that his own nephew, and numerous other abused children from care homes are saying he was not only abusing but procuring children for the abuse of others is the real cause for concern. If these aspects were inverstigated with the same seriousness as those of the people he directly abused, the discussion around Jimmy Savile would be a very different one.

By: BunnyShank

BunnyShank — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 02:27:00 +0000

Nope. People get to have their suspicions. Following instinct, and saying no, especially when someone is “supposed to be trusted” is one of those things we need to value more. Even if its for no reason someone else can understand or respect at all.

By: BunnyShank

BunnyShank — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 02:17:00 +0000

really no where near as creepy as the number of people who were complicit

By: phuzz

phuzz — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 21:12:00 +0000

(As I write this I realise it’s a ‘friend of a friend’ tale, but nonetheless true as far as I know)
The sister of a friend of mine was in hospital as a child, about 25 years ago. Jimmy Savile was brought round to entertain the kiddies (as children’s entertainers often are), and while chatting to her leaned over and gave her a overly intimate kiss.
For years after it was a family joke that she had her first snog with Jimmy Savile.
My friend doesn’t find the story as funny now.

By: Marko Raos

Marko Raos — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 01:02:00 +0000

a rotten apple…

By: Jake Rennie

Jake Rennie — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 00:50:00 +0000

There are many far more frightening pictures of Klaus Kinski. Pretty much every picture of him is scarier than that. Edit: I didn’t see RobsWriting’s post.

I don’t think Klaus was a genius or anything, he was just a genuinely volatile wild man. He would have done poorly in any role that was anything else.

By: Bottle Imp

Bottle Imp — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 20:12:00 +0000

That’s fair, but at the same time, the US anti-authoritarian streak tends to focus on large scale government. The guy two notches up from you or me in the company hierarchy or sitting in a boring but powerful local government role still gets more kowtowing than is good for them, or anyone. If they’re looking to paper over something monstrous, city commissioners, sheriffs, and upper middle management get plenty of unwarranted or exaggerated deference in the US.

By: Kelly Amsbry

Kelly Amsbry — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 19:30:00 +0000

You are incredibly jaundiced which is very sad. Most people who coaches, scout leaders, mentors, etc. do it because they like doing stuff, teaching people and genuinely like helping kids. There are bad people and we need to keep shining a bright light on their ugliness. Don’t belittle the majority of us who don’t sit around on our assess all day but instead prefer doing positive things with other humans.

By: Funk Daddy

Funk Daddy — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 13:40:00 +0000

That would put me over the edge, and I’m quite law abiding and anti-vigilante.

By: Funk Daddy

Funk Daddy — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 13:36:00 +0000

Yes they are out there, stranger still to me is when those with more perceived power ignore such offences or fail to act, as in the Sandusky case. Nothing but their own selves could have stopped the old coach and the school administrators from acting. Don’t want police, fine, weld him into a 50 gallon drum and drop him in a lake.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 11:08:00 +0000

After all those years of going commando in those nasty track suits, that fruit was probably very low-hanging and very overripe.

By: euansmith

euansmith — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 10:47:00 +0000

Ugh, I shudder at the image of Jimmy Saville’s low hanging fruit…

By: euansmith

euansmith — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 10:46:00 +0000

Thank you, I slouch corrected.

By: euansmith

euansmith — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 10:33:00 +0000

And that’s why there are less and less volunteers for positions like Scout Leaders. There are something like 30,000+ kids on waiting lists to join the UK Scouts because there are not enough places available for them. Assumption of guilt is corrosive.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 10:01:00 +0000

If you’re a government official, that might be a reasonable anti-hypocrisy rule, but for the rest of us, not so much.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 10:00:00 +0000

Jobsworth implies refusing to deviate in the slightest from protocol in order to help someone.
- Can’t you let me ride the bus? I’m only short 1p and it’s three in the morning.
- Nope. More than my job’s worth to make an exception.

By: euansmith

euansmith — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 09:13:00 +0000

Like Michael Jackson?

By: euansmith

euansmith — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 09:12:00 +0000

How about we take the budget from the War on Terror and spend it of foreign aid directed at the nations thought to produce terrorists… though I guess Blighty would come in for some of that aid due to the number of “Foreign Fighters” coming from our shores.

By: euansmith

euansmith — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 09:09:00 +0000

In the UK, if a 15 year old has sex with his 15 year old girlfriend, the lad will end up on the Pervo List.

By: euansmith

euansmith — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 09:06:00 +0000

Unless someone talks trash about the President? Though that is usually said to be, “respect the post if not the man”.