Me, usual?
No, I don't want everyone to say that.
But I do think people need to consider the affects of his crime more deeply than they seem to be doing on this thread.
It's wrong to say that nobody cares. People do care. His victim most of all, and he's spoken out to tell people exactly how he feels about George being given this job on the BBC. I don't think his feelings should be dismissed out of hand.
And I don't think we should pretend the crime never happened, just because George has served his time and been hired by the BBC, as was suggested in the post I quoted. I'm not sure the BBC are the best judge of character unfortunately, or sure that being employed by them is a sign that his past is of no concern anymore.
As I said, I liked him before, I like him now. His crime has done me no harm though, so my feelings about him are in no way as important as those of his victim, and I think his victim deserves to be heard and acknowledged.
On a website that promotes the We Believe You campaign, and one that's been so very vocal about the Ched Evans rape case (to use probably the most high-profile example) I don't think we should forbid ourselves from talking about the past crimes of people in the news.
George committed a violent crime, he tricked his victim into visiting his home, ambushed him with the help of a friend, beat his victim, handcuffed him to a wall, threatened him with sex toys, chains, and straps, then attacked him again with a chain as he finally made his escape in just underwear and shoes.
His victim was apparently left "shocked, degraded, and traumatised" by the attack, according to the judge at the trial, and by his own account has needed years of therapy to recover.
I'm all for people changing their ways and working to prove they deserve their second chance. From all I can gather, George seems to have done that, although I believe an apology to his victim would be a part of that and his victim says that has never happened.
But I also feel it's an injustice to his victim to try and sweep all of that under the carpet under the banner of "he's served his time" or "nobody cares now" and insist that nobody talks about it because people like George and we should be leaving him alone now.
We wouldn't say that on here about other people who committed that type of violent crime, his victim is right about that.
Again, it's a double-standard between a 'likeable' person like George committing a crime and an unlikeable one like Jimmy Savile or Ched Evans committing one.
And I'm not going to pretend that's okay with me. But I'm not the person on the thread telling other people what they can or can't say about it.