David Walliams

Did anyone see the interview with Lucy Beaumont? She said she offered to pay the legal fees of a girl who’d been in Walliam’s dressing room as she was distressed by the experience but she’d signed an NDA. The NDA didn’t just say she couldn’t go to the media but also said she couldn’t talk to friends, family or a therapist about what had happened!

It's so rarely a one off - it's almost always a persistent pattern of behaviour, with many many many victims. Given we know this, we should establish proper reporting mechanisms to track this stuff. False accusations are a real problem, but they can't be used to prevent accusations, rather factored into the data analysis as any other system analysis would factor in brownouts or viruses.

We keep looking at the men, but we should be looking at the enabling structures in society that they exploit. We are creating these men by creating the opportunity.

Throughout the stories there are these themes: NDAs, SLAPPs, an absence of reporting mechanisms, no accountability for the enabling team around them.

If we thought of this as a health and safety problem, managing risk, we'd start dismantling these structures, in particular it should not be possible to prevent the reporting of crimes by way of private contract.

If you procure a fan under the age of 18 for a celebrity, this should be understood as joint enterprise grooming, because it absolutely is. You know what they are doing and you know that it is wrong. We should properly think through the patterns here and systematically obstruct these predators.

I’m sorry this happened to you @DarkAngel23 . I’m just writing this message to validate your feelings towards the situation it at the time. When my friend and I were 15 she was sleeping with a guy who was about 30. He had a career job and she met him when she did some holiday work at the same place. Looking back now, it was absolutely vile. But honestly, at the time, she didn’t think anything of it, and to echo what you said, she naively felt grown up and special that he was interested in her. Honestly, and to my shame now as her friend, I didn’t give it much headspace at the time either. At that age and in that era, we felt very grown up and that encounters like that were normalised.

Lucy Beaumont’s interview was amazing. She needs everybody’s support on social media to make sure she is not cancelled by those in the industry for being a ‘trouble maker’. She said clearly that she didn’t know whether allegations were true or not, and she hadn’t personally seen anything, but she knew she had a duty to report only there was no where for her to report properly and she went to the Guardian. What a woman! Wonder what her ex husband thought of this?

Have you not followed the story? He met Alex before she did her GCSEs. He knew she was still at school. What do you think they had in common? If it was her amazing personality and she was just ‘the one’ why did he keep targeting young girls on social media. Why the repeated use of lawyers?

When I was 18 I was living in a house share opposite end of the county from my parents and having an amazing time

Good for you. I knew and know plenty of 18 year olds who have struggled and he knew how to target girls who were vulnerable.

Has your dh ever called out a mate on their behaviour or has he stayed silent because everyone is laughing? Not all men are violent but the majority stay silent.

My husband keeps asking me why I’m angry because ‘we’re not all like that’. Of this I am aware but TOO many men are like that and it’s just so tiring. And it pisses me off that we NEED other men to call it out and stop it because nobody is listening to us women.

Yes I think this about NF too. He's a ' follower' and maybe one of those guys who laughs along at disgusting behaviour from his mates so he can be fame adjacent. So yes disappointingly probably a prick but that's as far as it goes, I assume.

Exactly. Disgusting.

Interestingly the Newsagents also had a thing about NDAs yesterday but about Brand rather than Walliams. Wonder how many are out there stopping women from speaking up about their assaults?

Richard Osman. also made the HR point that Lucy Beaumont was talking about with regard to Brand. He kept changing jobs and, other than the BBC, never really worked anywhere with recourse to HR.

Agree, it doesn't meet modern community standards.

Simon was aware of Walliams comments on BGT and did nothing.

They all knew.

Brand is similar, and least one of his victims said she thought he was gay.

Deliberately, to make women think he's not a threat I strongly suspect.

I’ve always quite liked NF too but assuming he hasn’t been involved in anything nefarious doesn’t it still make him probably a bit of a prick? That type of a guy who is attracted to edgelordism and wants to be part of the hilarious bro gang and their ‘edgy’ ‘jokes’.

I don’t mind his look and I can’t imagine him changing. I think he’s just a bit silly with an infantile sense of humour as you say. I know he was part of the party scene with Brand though which is why I worry. I’m not surprised by Brand or Walliams but Fielding would throw me.

I think the only one I was surprised by in recent years were Schofield and Huw Edwards in truth, the others seem more obvious?

Is it conjecture? He was leading her to his hotel room rather than her own and she was completely wasted. I think it’s pretty bloody obvious what he was doing. No idea why you’re trying to excuse his actions.

I think fundamentally 16 is the age of consent to stop teenagers being criminalized and we need to review the law to reflect what society thinks about relationships between older men and 16/17 year olds. The DW case has shown the absurdity of a law that means a 17 year old sending an older man a sexy pic is a criminal offence but the older man is free to have legal consensual sex with that girl. I think we all know the law is somehow not right in this are but we don't know how to fix it through new law......

Neither did I. So many problems with it. It made me really uncomfortable.

I rememebr Chris Evans and Billie Piper. I think Billie has saved Chris's career by carefully being very effusive about their initial relationship.........(they met when she 15 and started dating at 17).

I agree needs to be some thought put into this. Surely they can work something out which doesn’t criminalise appropriate relationships between young people. There is generally quite a lot of inconsistency and confusion around laws in relation to the 16-18 age group.

My dd recently had a situation where an older man in his 30s, married with kids, was pestering her 17 yo friend who is autistic. He was robustly chased off by the friendship group and the girl’s sister. But not everyone has these protective around them so I don’t know what we do about that.

So how soon can Walliams be stripped of his OBE? I think. The government are in a slightly tricky position here (or the crown authorities). There are no formal charges so the government are going to be forced to act on allegations and web though the allegations are compelling it does set a precedent.

I think the OBE goes in time but it will be with public pressure.

I’d agree. Although SC has a reputation for being harsh all I’ve read about him seems to indicate that he’s not sleazy or creepy in real life and actually behaves pretty well. I’ve also read that Hes actually polite and courteous to fans. I hope this is true - it’s almost a given now that celebrities are vile off-screen.

I think the law needs to change to protect 16/17 year old. It should nir be legal for someone un their 30s to be having a relationship with a 16 year old.