I just watched the Walliams programme and...

[Headtorch]

I don't think it was that bad?

Maybe with all the hype I expected it to be on the RB scale, but it isn't.

Undoubtedly a sleaze and probably several cases that could be brought for workplace harassment, but as terrible as I expected. Enough that those companies should refuse to employ him though, which they have, now it's come out.

Which I guess shows how low the bar is.

Except that for the most part he seems to have rather cleverly remained just on the right side of the law. So the victims and the public should say nothing because the criminal bar was not reached?

No, actually, I’m not referring to the victims’ parents at all. I mean that in terms of questioning “is it even that bad” yes it’s extremely fucking bad. If one of us here like me, has a 15 year old, who is then attacked by an extremely famous/national treasure type, you’d say it was that bad. I would slit their fucking throat, but luckily for Walliams he preyed on young people and got to know them. The girl he groomed all the way to his house was homeless, and estranged from her family. He’s then spent years and hundreds of thousands of pounds on legal fees refreshing injunctions until he’s now run out of road. In that time he’s amassed a fortune and was continuing to abuse young vulnerable girls. The parents in many cases probably had no idea. I’m not criticising them at all.

I would slit their fucking throat

You wouldn’t

I am puzzled as to why this allegation is being included in the list involving allegations of sexual assault from underage girls:

(from BBC News)

Lilly Creightmore - who Walliams contacted when she was 18 - waived her right to anonymity.
Creightmore told Newsnight that a month after they first met, Walliams told her she "could move in with him and basically that I could be his flatmate".
She said that after she arrived to stay at his house she "felt instantly pressured to share a bed with him".
"In the evenings, he would sort of come and sit with me and stroke my leg, and one night I think he put his head in my lap and sort of be like, 'are you sure you don't want to come and sleep in my bed with me?' I had an inner strength like, 'no I'm not attracted to you in that way'... I felt I was being manipulated," she added.

If Walliams were not famous, there is no way this would make it onto a list of allegations of sexual misconduct. She moved in with him - seemingly willingly - he pestered her for sex, which is annoying but I don't think crosses a line into criminal behaviour - she doesn't move out, which is what most people would do, but she continues to refuse sex - good for her for having firm boundaries about this - there is no allegation that sex took place.

It doesn't show Walliams in a good light but I can't see that a criminal act has been committed.

I know - this was years ago and circulated online. Absolutely disgusting and shocking - why on earth was he not reprimanded for this?

@WeaselCheeks 100% agree.

It’s never been OK. Throughout the decades.

Always been creepy, even if within the law. Most people have always recognised that. Adults who encourage or turn a blind eye clearly enable.

You can make up that this is the reason he sought the injunction, but that’s not the case. The legal argument was about his right to life and the danger of suicide if the reporting went ahead.

If his lawyers felt there was a case to be made around libel or around prejudicing a fair trial in future, I am sure that would have been the case made.

It's brought up a couple of very unwanted memories for me.

At 15, a couple of similar things happened. At 17, again.

Let me tell you, it is that bad. I don't think I'll ever get rid of the feelings I have about these events. They've changed me permanently.

Sorry, @SodOffbacktoaibu but I don't include Shappi in the same bracket as Lucy Beaumont as a good one.

There was lots of talk about comedian Sean Hughes around the time of his death and a friend wrote a piece, with others contributing, in The Guardian revealing his darker side, his drinking, and repeated suggestions of ill treatment of women.

"I think of women I know who had encounters with him and how horrified they were by his behaviour."

"It’s also worth noting that it is hard to get people to talk publicly about Hughes, precisely because so many people had bad experiences with him, especially women."

"It was as if he was afraid of intimacy, and this meant women would experience the absolute worst of him. No one I speak to will go into specifics – it seems not to be something people want to revisit – but dark mutterings among women who had relationships with him floated around like an ugly cloud, becoming visible again after his death."

It certainly strongly hints of repeated cases of abuse in some form, possibly violence due to drink rather than sexual.

Shappi wrote an article in The Independent saying that attacking or airing grievances about her friend right after his death when he couldn't respond said more about his critics than her friend. In other words, it was too soon.

So she can fuck right off, actually.

I watched it and would question why you didn’t think it was that bad?

If I found out my DD was being contacted by a man in his 30s I’d be furious….and that would be without the further ‘sexual phone calls’.

I genuinely worry that we’ve all become so used to these sleazy, sex pest men that unless they rape, beat and abuse someone, it’s seen as ‘not that bad’

I am puzzled as to why this allegation is being included in the list involving allegations of sexual assault from underage girls

What “list”?

This is a report on the predatory behaviour of DW, some actions in which may amount to criminal allegations. Has anyone said that the report is only about sexual assault on underage girls?

Have a try at grooming and abusing my 15 year old and we’ll see. What a ridiculous thing to say, you don’t know me at all and honestly I think most women see what DW had done as entirely heinous. If you think it’s not that bad, crack on!

I agree OP, but times have changed so much. It's interesting reading the biographies of women who were 'groupies' in the 1980s etc. who were basically given their parents' blessing to hang around pop stars etc. from the age of 14/15 with the aim of - well, underage sex. That whole culture has changed massively, but was normalised then.

OK my love. You crack on slitting throats as you like. I believe you 100%.

Good job he's not an immigrant or there'd be riots

And you carry on being a nonce apologist. Agree to disagree on what constitutes bad when it comes to actual child abuse 👍🏼

It doesn't just happen. It happens because of history. And if you do or say nothing then history repeats itself. The 90s weren't a vacuum. The whole misogynistic system relies on generations not remembering, keeping secrets, and not passing this information down. Only when you talk about it can you see patterns, sense make, engage in building something better.

And its always women with some vulnerabilities who are susceptible to wanting to believe it is true.

This is nothing to do with child abuse or anything about DW. It’s your grandstanding and absolute nonsense about slitting people’s throats I’m calling out because it’s so ridiculous - regardless of the subject matter.

There has to be a change in culture after this. Everyone who employs men who are grooming young teenagers/children on the job should face charges too from now on, we have to stop people turning a blind eye. There will always be groomers/paedophiles out there because the internet feeds their fetish but we have to start calling them out and not turning the other way.

These men are all being enabled in their abuse. And that has to change.

I respectfully disagree.

I don’t think it’s ever been seen as ‘normal’ or appropriate. In the 1960s, sex before marriage, even with someone the same age, was considered shameful. Let alone as a teenager with a much older (and powerful/rich/famous) man.

I was a teenager in the 80s. Creepy/predatory older men were considered disgusting then. As were men who groped or otherwise sexually assaulted. And most men didn’t do that.

Passive-aggressive support emojis are a long way apart from slitting throats. Have a great day.

The list published by the BBC and included in Newsnight.

To put it succinctly, if someone fancies you and you don't fancy them, it's common sense not to accept an invitation to move into their flat and not to stay living there when it's clear they see you as more than a flatmate.

This could easily be turned round to say the woman was using the fact Walliams was sexually attracted to her to get free accommodation in what was presumably an upmarket flat in a good location.

I don't think it has a place in the list of allegations. I think it muddies the water rather than supporting the other allegations.

I can't agree with this. But even if you do - then the system that allowed him to have young girls back in his dressing room at Britain's Got Talent for example has to be looked at....

That was not my experience. I was a teen in the 1980s and slept with teachers at secondary school. It was seen as a badge of honour. My parents had them around for dinner. After that I worked in advertising and we'd go to strip clubs on Friday after work as a social thing to do, and the bosses could sleep with whoever they wanted. No one challenged any of this until much later.