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Child Pornography and the high profile...
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Chris Langham, star of the hit BBC Satirical comedy "In the Thick of It" is due in court to face several charges of possessing child pornography. Whether he is innocent of guilty, i shall leave for the courts to decide, but this is the second high profile case of a celebrity possessing child pornography, first was Gary Glitter who fled to Vietnam and is now in jail and now a tv personality. I believe a BNP politician and several senior police investigators have also, in the last few years, had child porn scandals.
Why is it that despite having fame or power or influence or even just been Mr Average in the street, people are entering the world of Child Porn or in worse?
I am not sure what i am asking or trying to debate, i just find it impossible to comprehend how anyone becomes involved in such things.
Why is it that despite having fame or power or influence or even just been Mr Average in the street, people are entering the world of Child Porn or in worse?
I am not sure what i am asking or trying to debate, i just find it impossible to comprehend how anyone becomes involved in such things.
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I would like to say that I find the term "child pornography" hideous, to me "pornography" should be reserved for two consenting adults having sex on camera for the gratification of others or themselves. Child pornography is nothing but child abuse (whether the child is actually being abused on camera or not) and I wish they would think of another name for it. Calling it pornography puts its in the same catorgory as adult pornography and its completely different.
... only if you ignore Pete Townsend and Jonathan King I suppose...
... could it be that fame and power don't fulfill their sexual desires?
.. maybe it's because they want to...
Why are famous people gay or straight?
On a less serious note, I really liked 'In the Thick of It', too - would be extremely difficult for me to detach and enjoy it now I reckon.
I didn't say that he had been put to trial; I was merely implying that my future enjoyment of the show will be impacted by the reports that I have already read. From what I have, I don't imagine the news will get any rosier. But either way, it will have an impact for me.
As with all these stories, we only hear the headlines. If you download pornography and one of the photos is of a 17 year old then you have downloaded child pornography. I have no idea what Chris Langham or the others have been doing but presumably it isn't always pictures of child abuse that are involved. Otherwise there are a lot more sick people out there than we could ever arrest.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/74690/operation-ore-exposed.html
Quite a lengthy article that seemingly dealt with the facts of the "operation". Page 5 is revealing about the Mead and Nelson characters.
As hard as it is to comprehend, people do just like child porn. Judges, scumabags,politicians,lawyers alike do like it...it's like any other "fetish", apparently it's also very addictive. Ah well, at least I don't dig it, I prefer my sheep shaggin tbh
I completely agree. Matthew Kelly, Neil & Christine Hamilton and many others have been falsely and humiliatingly accused, it really would be fairer to allow anonymity for those accused of rape, paedophilia, child porn, etc until found guilty.
As to the privacy of the accused, I'm not sure. In prinipal it makes perfect sense but given a) how few people who have been sexually assualted come forward b) how revoltingly biased towards acquital the UK legal system is in sexual crimes - It may be the only chance for someone, especially someone high profile, to be stopped from further abuse is that they are publically inlvoled in the legal system.
I'd also challenge the idea that modern porn in some way creates pedophiles - I'd say certain elements of it may be aimed at pedophiles who can't get child porn (thank god), but pedophiles are far more broken people than some teenager who watched 'Horny Cheerleaders #72'.
I think you could argue porn has its place in perpetuating sexism and sexual violence but the psychology of a pedophile (which in my time working in mental health was always considered an incurable psychological break) is way past that point.
So it has nothing to do with that fact that they're children just that its taboo? :chin: not disagreeing or agreeing just never thought of it like that.
Besides, it is in the very nature of sexual crimes against children for them to be conveyed under a veil of secrecy... a veil that necessarily has to be lifted for the abuse to stop. Third parties (such as the rest of society) can very well choose to uncover that veil or maintain it.
while it's true a full paedophile 'disorder' isn't created by watching child-seeming porn, I think it does help some people who have some paedophilic tendencies to break barriers within themselves that can later lead to paedophilic acting out.
I can't agree with you here, the principle you gliby refer to is a vital one.
Perhaps we should ask Matthew Kelly why.
" "Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer," says English jurist William Blackstone. The ratio 10:1 has become known as the "Blackstone ratio."...But why ten? Other eminent legal authorities through the ages have put their weight behind other numbers. "One" has appeared on Geraldo. "It's better for four guilty men to go free than one innocent man to be imprisoned," says basketball coach George Raveling. But "it's better to turn five guilty men loose than it is to convict one innocent man," according to ex-Mississippi executioner and roadside fruit stand operator Thomas Berry Bruce, who ought to know. "It is better to let nine guilty men free than to convict one innocent man," counters lawyer Bruce Rosen from Madison, Wisconsin. Justice Benjamin Cardozo certainly believed in five for execution, and allegedly favored ten for imprisonment, which is a bit counterintuitive. Benjamin Franklin thought "that it is better [one hundred] guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer." Mario Puzo's Don Clericuzio heard about letting a hundred guilty men go free and, "struck almost dumb by the beauty of the concept . . . became an ardent patriot." Denver radio talk show host Mike Rosen claims to have heard it argued "in the abstract" that it's better that 1000 guilty men go free than one innocent man be imprisoned, and comments, "Well, we get our wish."
Or, perhaps, it may be merely "a few," "some," "several," "many" (and particularly more than eight), "a considerable amount," or even "a goodly number." Not all commentators weigh acquitting the guilty against the conviction of one innocent man. A Missouri district court said in 1877 that it was "better that some guilty ones should escape than that many innocent persons should be subjected to the expense and disgrace attendant upon being arrested upon a criminal charge." And in Judge Henry J. Friendly's opinion, "Most Americans would allow a considerable number of guilty persons to go free than to convict any appreciable number of innocent men." It is unclear whether "considerable" is greater or less than "appreciable."
http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/guilty.htm
Your proposal reminds me more of Lenin:
"I would rather 100 innocent men die than one guilty man go free."
Hmm what about the ten guilty men who go free and then each abuse ten innocent children?
For ten guilty men free 100 innocent children abused?
Which is exactly why "n" has always been debated: what I don't want to see is a reversal of the ratio...
...A state's duty to its citizens is to deal with the guilty but also to protects the innocent from wrongful persecution. This to me seems the biggest problem with operation ore etc. Far too much scope for innocent men (and women?) having their lives torn apart and resulting in complete ostracism.
A credit card number or access to a site (that very well could have been a total mistake) doesn't convince me that somebody should be found guilty of an offence which effectively destroys your life. Of course if it is proven that Langham has made child porn himself then he is deserving of some serious incarceration and treatment...if they just say his credit card number was found on a child abuse sites registry etc, I won't regard him any differently than I did before he was named. (read the PC world article on the first page)
If he is innocent I wish him good luck, hes going to need it since his life will not be worth living henceforth....
I think Matthew Kelly recovered quite well didn't he.
I pretty sure that its not only the appearance of their credit card on a site that gets the conviction though. I would assume looking at the records on their PCs and laptops would also form the evidence.
He's been charged with 'making' indecent images. Is that the same as creating? I thought ‘making’ could include downloading or copying an image?
I don’t know but that’s not really the point. Matthew Kelly is not the only person to have been falsely accused. And you have absolutely no idea what kind of ordeal he went through. People have commit suicide over false accusations, teachers have had careers wrecked – people have had their lives ruined. Mud sticks, people assume where there’s smoke there’s fire. If someone’s found not guilty of a sex crime in many cases their reputation is not left intact; for life they have to put up with unfair suspicions and malicious rumours. Since people are innocent until proven guilty – and since that logic doesn’t apply to many sex cases where the accused have their name splashed over the newspapers it’s only fair to give anonymity until someone’s proven guilty.
If the police are investigating say an accusation by an ex-student of a former-teacher for abuse the police can surely make discreet enquiries to other former students. There’s surely another way to splashing someone’s name across the papers in these cases.
I'm not denying any of that, I actually agree with you but I was refering to this comment made by Carlito:
"If he is innocent I wish him good luck, hes going to need it since his life will not be worth living henceforth...."
His life will be worth living, and to prove that just look at Mathew Kelly. Thats all I was saying
Your right, my mistake, the offence he's been charged with could include copying exsisting images on to a computer that he had no part in the creation of.
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1/SexualOffencesBill.pdf
Young people will be attracted to their own age group, so I think if two consenting 15 year olds have sex then fair play to them. But to be attracted to someone dramatically younger than yourself - i.e. a 40 year old having sex with the same 15 year old, there is something fundamentally wrong. It's not just a 'ewww gross' feeling, there are strong elements of abuse of power.
So, there are some parts of greyness, my girlfriend is 17, i have slightly less than decent pics of her, is that wrong? I don't think so, because I keep them to myself. If I had pics of a 14/13/12 and under person, I think there is an issue. Similarly, someone older than myself having pics of a 17 year old, theres an issue there. And as the perp. gets older and the victim gets younger it gets more serious. From reading tabloids (so this may be completely wrong) Gary Glitter had serious images of abuse on very young children.
But then again,a lot of men in general just prefer younger women. Maybe some cant draw the line between young woman and child, which (and i hate to look like im blaming the victims) may in part be due to the increased sexualisation of children. You can buy thongs for pre-teens now. Thongs aren't exactly comfortable from what I've seen, they're a piece of clothing to increase sexual appeal. Push up bras for 12 year olds, you name it. We're obsessed with sex and so are the countries children.
The scariest thing for me as a man now (as apposed to a teenager) is sometimes I look at a girl in the street and think she's nice because of how she looks, and then I look again and realise she's probably only about 14. I'm not trying to defend those who enjoy watching child abuse, just trying to explain why in my opinion.
As for Chris Langham, that is now a matter for the courts. But I would ask one further question. Is it right to name people accused of these kinds of crimes? If they're found guilty, like the despicable, utterly evil Gary Glitter, they should be named and torn to shreds in the media. But should a man who has not been found guilty of any crime be named and tarred in this way in the newspapers?
I dont think its nearly as hard as you make out. Type 'porn' as a keyword into pretty much any p2p client.
Are you making an assumption there, or have you got something to back that statement up ? (If so,I`d love to see it)
I'm assuming that someone like Gary Glitter (who presumably wouldn't have had a problem getting girls) must have the more specific problem, which would force him to be secretive. But then Hugh Grant slept with a prostitute, and he wouldn't have problems getting girls either, so God knows what goes through their heads.
Normally they wouldn't prosecute over a few pictures, prosecution would only be triggered with a number of images. Although quite often fame brings this number down. And on top of that there are different categories of child sex abuse images, ranging from one, which is just non-sexual nude images of children, to category five, which includes bondage, torture, anal penetration and bestiality. One or two cat fives will see you get sent down for a long time, whereas obviously a lot more cat one images won't bring about even a caution.
I think people end up intrigued by child sex abuse images because of the power and control, and the helplessness of the victim.