To be absolutely sick of excuses being made for men's disgusting sexual behaviour? Trigfer warning. Hugh Edwards sentencing.

Most of us have had mental health struggles.

My stepfather is a farmer, a profession that comes with a tragically high suicide and poor MH rate.

He is really poorly. Has to have regular contact with nurses.

Has never abused a single child.

It's not an excuse.

I totally agree!!

I have poor mental health atm, no father, shit mother

But I manage life well without BEING A FUCKING PAEDOPHILE 🤬🤬

erm…I thought when people broke the law and are a danger to others they went to prison. Who is prison for if not people involved in this kind of behaviour?

and 7 years on the sex offenders register? What happens at 7 years? He suddenly unpeadophiles? No he’s still a fucking peadophile. he should be on it for life.

i would also castrate anyone involved.

and why on earth would we care his reputation will be damaged - like that’s punishment? It’s not. It’s a natural consequence of being a peadophile surely. Not something we should use to be like welll he did lose his reputation so he got comeuppance?! That is not like for like

Speaking from experience, some are managed very effectively with extremely stringent risk management. It all depends on the assessment of the individual.

Absolutely or lets bring back the death sentence to free up space

How hasn't lost anything, let's be real. The victims here have.

An donce again, this isn't just any old crime. He has harmed very young children.

He should be on the register for life at the very least.

it's more about sending a message than anything else.

because over and over and over and over again we are seeing men convicted of possession of thousands of images of child sex abuse not doing any serious time. They live at home and you are never ever going to convince me that they are being managed so thoroughly that they are not in a position to offend again. Undetected.

While we all watch rapists never even get to court. Or people being jailed for things that would be much better handled with community service (the rioters who have not injured a person would be far far more effectively and visibly punished if they were put to work fixing the mess) etc etc.

There is a lot wrong with the criminal justice system in the UK, and I am perfectly happy to say that i want people convicted of the worst crimes (harm against the person) do jail time.

He has a history of mental health problems stretching back before this all came out.

Why not? If it's a crime against children but the perpetrator is in early 20s, grew up in care experiencing regular abuse themselves, it's relevant, right? Not an excuse or a get out of jail free card, but relevant.

Crimes against children do carry severe consequences. For example, look at Huw Edwards - he's lost his career and family, likely will struggle to do anything much with the rest of his life, on sex offenders register for years.

Calling for long sentences for everything just results in prison overcrowding and early release as we've just seen.

I don't think people realize how many men people are in possession of such images. I'm not up to date on the latest stats but is used to be about 90k convictions a year.

I think they should be chemically castrated. Completely remove their sex drive. I know people say that it's not about sexual gratification, it's about power and control, but I was sa'd and it was definitely about gratification. Only a subset will be perverted psychopaths who like inflicting pain. Removal of the sex drive has to help in the run of the mill cases.

Edwards is disgusting playing the mental health card as well. He's only 'mentally ill' because he got caught. I hope he spends the rest of his life being alone and miserable. I expect he'll turn into one of those disgusting debauched older men buying others for his 'needs'.

So many women go through trauma at the hands of men and don't turn to child abuse images for comfort!!

@UCConfuseMe Same for male victims. It's offensive to them too, when abusers use childhood trauma as an "excuse" for child abuse.

The man I know who was sexually abused as a child despises child abusers. Really despises them. He wants them to have the death penalty.

I understand why he feels that way, as what happened to him as a child has continued to cause him mental health struggles as an adult. I can't personally support the death penalty, as the risk of just one innocent person being mistakenly convicted (even with DNA etc, it can still happen) is too much of a risk.

Definitely though these crimes need to be taken more seriously, not excused, and prison needs to be used not only as punishment or deterrence, but most importantly - protection of the public. If an offender is genuinely lacking mental capacity/seriously mentally ill, then there's secure hospitals.

how "Effectively" are they being managed?

If they were all in one place, we could use those scarce police resources to do things like protect women and children.

I'm prepared to be called ignorant about the legal system because, well, I am.

I just don't think mitigating factors or number of offences should be considered when it comes to this particular type of crime

Crimes against children need to come with severe sentences. How do we change the system so this begins to happen?

What would a week behind bars achieve?

I'm not sure whether I agree with the sentence here but definitely sex offences and offences against the person are not treated with the seriousness they should be in terms of sentencing. Fraud and financial/property crime tend to attract higher penalties - I wonder how many women are in prison for benefit fraud, driven to desperate circumstances?

How the law works - someone is convicted of something. When it comes to sentencing, there will be submissions from prosecution trying to make the convicted person look bad, and submissions from the defence trying to mitigate the offence. Then the judge takes these into account when sentencing.

It's not explaining away or excusing, it's putting the offence in context to see what a suitable sentence is.

Eg if someone was convicted of drink driving, but it turned out they'd just experienced a bereavement, that would be put in mitigation not to say it was ok to drink and drive, but to provide context of why the offence occured and likelihood of it happening again.

Edwards will have had a psychological assessment that probably looks at upbringing, it's relevant but not an excuse as such.

I wish people would educate themselves about how the law works.

Comparatively speaking, this is not a lenient sentence.

that doesn't mean this one is punative.
It means all the others are far too lenient.

these pictures are of Child Sexual Abuse and posession of even one should mean at least a week behind bars.

@WinterMorn this is interesting, I wouldn't have imagined this.

Honestly, I'd want to take a good look at the personal lives (and computers) of the judges who hand these sentences out. Why are they so lenient when it comes to sentencing men convicted of these crimes?

These offences being taken seriously is an entirely different topic to the efficacy of early intervention and prevention schemes. In fact, there needs to be societal overhaul going far beyond the criminal justice system if we are going to deal with this issue once and for all. I am sorry to hear about your experience.

Yes the sentencing seems very light to me!

I’d suggest men should pay an increased tax, seeing as the prisons are needed for them.

Unfortunately it's estimated that there could be up to 830,000 UK based adults (almost entirely men of course) who pose a risk to children. There are about 90,000 prison places.