After the Jimmy Saville case, it would seem that not a day goes by without another allegation of inappropriate behaviour involving one of the people I grew up as a child watching and admiring to a greater or lesser extent on TV, Rolf Harris, William Roache, Jimmy Tarbuck and Stuart Hall among those recently with allegations coming to the fore.
I makes you wonder who’s next? Ernie Wise, Eric Morcambe, Ronnie Corbett, Ronnie Barker, Bruce Forsyth, any of the R1 DJs, any of the Pythons, Ant, Dec etc etc etc etc etc etc.
What I want to know is why the alleged is named? Because if it is found to be untrue they are tarnished forever, and their families have to deal with the moronic media scrum. OK once found guilty and sentenced, fine, but until such time, they should remain anonymous. Lord knows what the 24/7 news and social twitterers would do. The other option is naming the one making the allegation as well. They then have the same predicament of them and their families being subjected to the same media scrum and poor reputation if it is an unfounded allegation. Especially as all of the ones coming forward are now adults.
Let’s be honest, we all, as youth workers, put ourselves in vunerable positions at times, regardless of what we are told, because to do otherwise would be regarded as being neglectful, that could be open to allegations, that we could not defend and we’d be hung out to dry, regardless of the truth of the matter.
While I agree with your sentiments regarding the naming of individuals under investigation, I think the current system of keeping the alleged victims anonymous is sound and correct. Victims should most certainly have the confidence to report such crimes without the fear of repercussions in the media spotlight. They should be allowed to continue with their lives as normal as possible regardless of legal proceedings. Who would want to be labelled as “The one who was abused by so-and-so”?
Of course there are those who make false allegations and obviously it’s very serious but mostly I’d like to think judicial proceedings should identify such cases. Substantial evidence is needed to find a defendant guilty in cases such as sexual abuse. In this situation I believe the benefits outweigh the costs. Victims should remain anonymous.
Your chosen thread title is quite interesting I have to say. I would rather go for “A lifetime damaged/ruined”; child abuse is not something that washes away when you grow up, it stays with you until your dying day.
I am of the opinion that the accused in such cases should be able to remain anonymous until they have been found guilty in a trial. “Not guilty” doesn’t remove the stigma from the person who has been wrongfully accused.
Innocent until proven guilty and all that.
[quote=“Stand Out” post=6937]
Your chosen thread title is quite interesting I have to say. I would rather go for “A lifetime damaged/ruined”; child abuse is not something that washes away when you grow up, it stays with you until your dying day.[/quote]
I think GHE was refering to his own childhood…
Got to agree, though.
What is it about the press that makes them such vultures? It’s at all levels, too. I have fond memories of a group of incensed Sixth Formers chasing the local press away from the school after one of the Sixth Form was killed in an RTC.
[quote=“tango_lima” post=6940][quote=“Stand Out” post=6937]
Your chosen thread title is quite interesting I have to say. I would rather go for “A lifetime damaged/ruined”; child abuse is not something that washes away when you grow up, it stays with you until your dying day.[/quote]
I think GHE was refering to his own childhood…[/quote]
Ah, very possible! Apologies if so.
Yes it is my own childhood and seeing people who you watched week in and week out now having allegations of impropiety brought.
It as I allude makes you wonder where it will all stop as I can’t imagine for one minute that the sorts of things alleged were peculiar to mainly the 60s and 70s. We don’t seem to have reached the the 80s yet, as I bet there are some who were in a certain age group during the last 30 years, who are not as innocent as we would like to believe.
I think this smacks of the MP’s expenses story, where everytime you turn around there’s another one.
I wonder what makes people after decades suddenly decide to come forward? What is there to gain in seeing men (so far) in their dotage being sent to prison for something they did, when mentioning it at the time, would have had far greater impact on them personally.
I do think that this whole story has a lot more to come.
The unfortunate thing is good news does not make good news items. Which is why all the things some if not all the gentlemen accused, thus far, have done for charities over the years, haven’t even warranted a column inch. Yet this and it’s all over the shop. I don’t know the story about the 6th Former, but I bet they were going for “6th Former killed in an RTC - teenager driving like a nutter’ angle, that the press would love to make something of.
I think the single biggest problem with the news media at the moment, is there is too much of it. Years ago when these alleged offences happened yes you’d have the Sun and Mirror and Sunday red tops sensationalising it, but mainstream news was confined to a couple of slots, unlike now with 24/7 rolling news channels all looking to justify themselves. As such they stick on things and what would have been a headline and couple of minutes 30 years ago, is hours of mind-numbing commentary. I infer this if rolling news is anything like the tedium when big events are covered on the main TV channels. I bet they’ve got cameras and reporters camped outside Jimmy Tarbuck’s, just in case.
[quote=“glass half empty 2” post=6944 I don’t know the story about the 6th Former,[/quote]
You wouldn’t do. He was friend of mine.
Didn’t make that clear, sorry.
This is a difficult and emotive matter that has potentially far reaching implications. It is important to bear in mind the old saw that “Hard cases make bad law”. When considering it you must ask yourself the question:
“Should it be lawful for the police to be able to keep secret the fact that someone has been arrested?”
I for one should be very concerned should that ever happen.
When we move to the issue of revealing the identity of a person charged with an offence, particularly those that are in the news at present, matters become less clear. There is a quite understandable desire to uphold the principle of innocent until proven gulity, but against this must be balanced the right of the victim to achieve justice through the law. A key feature of the Stuart Hall case, and presumably others; is that they all started with one complaint. At this stage it is likely to be solely the word of the complainant against the accused with a minimum of supporting evidence. For the CPS to proceed it requires that there should be a reasonable prospect of gaining a conviction, the mere fact of accusation cannot lead automatically to court proceedings. Crucially, in many of these recent cases the attendant publicity has lead further victims to come forward offering indepent accounts that correspond in many details, thus it is no longer the word of one against the other, but that of many who provide strikingly similar evidence. I would argue that in this instance the cause of justice is served by releasing the names of those accused.
Compare this to the case of the Deputy Speaker, Nigel Evans MP. Mr Evans identification has meant that he has been able to release into the public domain the fact that his accusers are well known to each other and cannot be deemed “independent” as in the case of Stuart Hall. Would he have been able to do this had the law required that his identity be witheld?
We then come to the tricky issue of how to deal with the accused who having the option to withold the fact of their arrest decides to do so. How might a jury view this?; an innocent man anxious to protect his reputation or a guilty man seeking to avoid word of his arrest and charge spreading to other of his victims?
The system we have is impefect but has at least a reasonable degree of transparency. To desire change is totally understandable, but be very careful what you wish for.
exmpa
It does seem to be like a strangely British version of the Zombie Apocalypse; as soon as a ‘celebrity’ (or their career) is dead, they come lurching back into the world of the living as a child-molester.
[quote=“talon” post=6939]I am of the opinion that the accused in such cases should be able to remain anonymous until they have been found guilty in a trial. “Not guilty” doesn’t remove the stigma from the person who has been wrongfully accused.
Innocent until proven guilty and all that.[/quote]I tend to agree. I think that outside of certain circumstances (such as a manhunt) that no one should be named until found guilty.
But identifying an accused person may cause a witness to come forward with evidence that helps their case.
The legal process must be open and transparent. I am sure that you can think of circumstances where a name should be released; you have offered one but in that case the individual has not even been charged; and I can think of a few where the authorities might prefer the name to be withheld.
FWIW The Uniform Criminal Code of the GDR had one or two interesting provisions along those lines.
As I inferred in a previous post, our system is imperfect but there are many worse alternatives.
exmpa