David Walliams

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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!

Yes, there is a pattern that can be detected once there are enough allegations. But the powerless 19 year old that received a letter shutting her down by top law firm Schillings. This is the problem with powerful, rich men like David Walliams they can employ Jenny Afia, a renowned lawyer specialising in reputation management. They were very successful in that they managed to suppress the truth - there's something badly wrong here.

100% @Bellu and I've just posted similar elsewhere. Basic safeguarding would have prevented much of this activity and would support a much more positive culture. So that instead of arguing over whether or not it's illegal to text a 15 year old what you think about them being in a bath, it's really clear that 'talent' don't interact with fans, particularly under-18s, unless in an organised environment. So it doesn't matter what that text says, it's clearly outwith the Code of Conduct which says how we behave in relation to fans and you can then be dealt with. Just one example. It's about preventing them, having clear systems for reporting, and having clear approaches to dealing with them. All of that supports a better culture and would really help people identify when someone is up to no good. It doesn't have to be illegal, it just has to be against the code of conduct, for example.

Obviously these men are still responsible for their actions but the culture and opportunity need to be tackled or it will keep happening.

Poor girl. Tg the injunction didn’t hold up against threats from DW re his MH as otherwise similar men would use the same to avoid scrutiny.

It is disappointing because we are 10 years behind the US and the metoomovement. And at the time, I just thought maybe things weren’t as bad here. Seems like we are having a delayed reaction?

As a teen who grew up in the naughties - yes, I know all sorts of friends who were caught up with middle aged teachers (3!), sports coaches, much older men, partying bisexual men, drugs, the works, and quite a few actual rapes at parties with girls passed out. I never got unlucky myself, it was unacceptable then and it is important to talk about how unacceptable it was and is so that we can better society and protect the current generation and future generations. And most importantly, I do not intend for either of my sons to turn out that way thinking any of this is acceptable, even the instances of barely legal.

It often gets phrased as middle aged women having daughters and feeling “angry”, hell yes I am angry on behalf of some of my friends as each and everyone has suffered long term in very real ways as to what happened to them. And in each case, there was a vulnerability of some sort when it was each a teacher or sports coach. They preyed on these girls. One went to prison, many got away with shit and it is not OK.

She made some interesting points about the nature of her industry. People lack job security so they don’t want to rock the boat and many people are freelance or on temporary contracts so there is no structure to complain to.

Harper Collins, though, presumably do have an HR department…

Agree, but I think the problem is dealt with by who?

Yes Edwards wqs shocking.

@nicepotoftea Well, for example, if his publishing agency had had a clear policy or code of conduct about workplace relationships / relations between authors and junior staff or whatever, then a) it would have been obvious to the young woman involved that he was being dodgy in pursuing it and b) when it came to light the publishers could have taken action (dropped him) on the basis that he had broken their code of conduct. In the case of having young women in his dressing room, the young man who reported that to Lucy Beaumont could have had a clear route to report to safeguarding lead or whoever at the time or, when he mentioned it to Lucy, she would have had a clear reporting route. That would then be dealt with by the production company who would have been able to identify he had broken the rules and again could drop him on that basis. Tbh I don't claim to know the ins and outs of TV production, publishing and so on but it's not rocket science to set up basic safeguarding systems and processes. And as anyone who works with children and young people knows, it's about protecting everybody. So having clear rules eg saying no fans in dressing rooms, that would protect naive 'talent' who don't realise how that could look just as it would protect fans from the dodgy fuckers.

People seem to have been paralysed and unable to act in this 'everybody knew' space where the concern is how can you act when you have no proof? Well, you don't have proof that he's assaulting fans in his dressing room or inviting them in as part of an attempt to groom them. But it would be pretty easy to prove that fans were being taken into his dressing room so if that is disallowed then it becomes easy to act; 'Sorry David, you know the rules, you signed the code and you did the training only last month, we're going to have to terminate your contract'.

At the very least, Dodgy Dave needs to give some of those books proceeds to women and children’s charities. After he tried to silence and play the legal and human rights system. It is an embarrassment and he needs to fess up and spend his cash in the right way.

Harper Collins is a big enough organisation to have HR professionals who have signed up to all sorts of codes of practice, but they seem to have thought the better idea was to pay off one of their employees and try to keep it all quiet.

In the case of having young women in his dressing room, the young man who reported that to Lucy Beaumont could have had a clear route to report to safeguarding lead or whoever at the time or, when he mentioned it to Lucy, she would have had a clear reporting route. That would then be dealt with by the production company who would have been able to identify he had broken the rules and again could drop him on that basis.

I think the point made by Beaumont is that in that industry it's quite likely that he would have moved onto a new job anyway.

I wonder if the Entertainment Unions like Equity should be more involved? Other industries have professional bodies that can strike off members for not meeting professional standards.

HarperCollins have serious questions to answer. There's no 'plausible deniability' there. Senior HR knew.

@nicepotoftea Harper Collins is a big enough organisation to have HR professionals who have signed up to all sorts of codes of practice, but they seem to have thought the better idea was to pay off one of their employees and try to keep it all quiet.

Yes, and they got their female staff to deal with Walliams in pairs. Yet he was let loose on book signings - getting the phone number of 15 year olds. You would have thought the publisher, or the hosting bookshop could have had a staff member on hand? But he sold 60 million books for HC ....

@nicepotoftea Sounds like a good idea if the unions would come on board to support work in this area.

The unions act on behalf of the people paying for membership though. They don't have a regulatory role. People in the entertainment industry don't need professional qualifications to do the job or license to practice so they can't be struck off in the way that for example a doctor or other healthcare professional can.

You could just get one of those big hooks they used to use in vaudeville theatre to pull them off the stage. That would do it. No need for fuss or expensive court cases. Just a great big hook.

Very true.

I think something should be done about NDAs too as these seemed to be abused. Perhaps if a famous person wants someone to sign one they should also have to pay for a solicitor to advise the person being asked to sign.