To think paedophiles should be banned from "starting a family"?

[SaggyNaggy]

ca.news.yahoo.com/paedophile-caught-137-000-indecent-083106459.html

Here's some info to save clicking:
Police found 400 videos in Category A, which is the most extreme, with another 255 films in Category B and 186 films and 851 images in Category C.
There were 1,692 movies and images ranging from Category A to C as well as the 4,336 videos and 137,000 images that remained uncategorised.

Sentence:
Sentencing Arrowsmith to 10 months in prison, suspended for two years, Recorder Martin Butterworth, said: “You are 41 years old, with no previous convictions and you pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity.
“There are three charges against you in relation to the possession of indecent images of children.
“I am taking into consideration your previous good character, you have a wife who supports you, a steady employment and your hopes to start a family in the near future.
“These are not victimless crimes, they encourage serious abuse of sometimes very young children.
“You were less than honest about the nature of the images.”
Digby Johnson, defending, told the court Arrowsmith and his wife, who was not present in court, were trying for children and wanted to start a family.
Arrowsmith, of Church Gresley, Derbyshire, was ordered to pay £250 costs and carry out 160 hours of unpaid work as well as being made the subject of a curfew restricting him from leaving his house between 7pm and 5am.
He is also banned from working with children and was ordered to sign the sexual offenders register.

Banned from working wowoith children but can quite happily have his own...

Im baffled, truly, truly baffled.

The thing is eatsleep, this vile man has done more than just think about it. If the fantasies had stayed in his head that would be one thing but by downloading and viewing 137k images he has moved on from his depraved thoughts. Is he actively seeking help? Or has the lenient sentence done nothing to deter him. Will he go on to actually abuse a child irl? Has he already? I think it's just too ridiculous for words that starting a family should be an option for this degenerate. Even if you take the view that he is sick, mentally ill, was abused himself he still needs to be stopped.

In reality I believe social services will only be involved if girlfriend / wife discloses to midwife / health visitor etc that he has been charged etc.

I know of someone locally who sexually abused a child , later had a child with a vulnerable young woman , she didn't know about his past because he never told her, baby was ultimately removed because when she did find out she wouldn't give him up. Social services were only involved because someone who knew his background reported him.

In the last year he has had a child with another vulnerable young woman, who split up with him due to unrelated reasons, then found out about his past. She didn't disclose anything to any professionals because he never told her either.

What sort of fucking idiot would want to start a family with someone like that

Probably the sort of idiot who'll no doubt use his suspended sentence as "proof" that his crime was only minor ... after all, if he'd done something really bad he'd have been jailed, wouldn't he?

No, I agree kate, he has done vile, criminal things and is therefore a criminal. On the bare bones of the facts I agree, the sentence seems wildly lenient. I was just making the point that we aren't in the habit of punishing people for their thoughts, however ill-deeds do indeed warrant come-uppance.

knew someone who as soon as they had the child had social workers turn up and tell her he was a paedophile apparently if she had given birth to a girl they would have been unable to do anything as he had only ever been convicted of offences against boys

they should be able to tell people sooner so they can make a rational decision

Interestingly all the responses to this have been along similar lines; that a paedophile will always think like a paedophile. But let's not forget this isn't the thought police. You cannot punish people for the bad thoughts they have, or you believe they have. And actually people aren't criminals for having bad thoughts. They're criminals for acting on them. You can be a kleptomaniac who seeks all the help in the world to help them not to steal, because they know stealing is wrong. So can people change? Even if they have a hardwired thought process I think it is possible to change whether or not you act on it... but there are no guarantees, and obviously the risk is higher. I would think for this person's potential children the risk would surely be too high?

I totally agree with this post. However, all this "previous good character" bullshit. WTF? This isn't a fucking driving offence, or a night out that ended badly! It must have taken so long for him to accumulate that collection, which shows a really worrying level of calculation. This wasn't a one off loss of control.

Castration would have been my sentence. Sadly I'm not in charge.

I agree with the pp who said no amount of therapy could make me attracted to children instead of adult men or women. They used to think you could 'cure' homosexuality, as well.

In addition to that, who has that many images or videos on their computer of ANYTHING? I find certain actors attractive, but to me that means a few snaps that I really like might be saved. Not 137k.

I find it concerning the fact people still believe "the abused go on to become the abused". Many studies show that when known paedophiles claim to have suffered abuse themselves & are asked to do a polygraph test to confirm, a high % decline & admit it was a ploy to get a reduced sentence. Only a small % of abused kids actually go on to become abusers.

Views such as this, actually deter real victims from going to the police through shame, stigma & fear of others thinking they will go on to abuse.

The only people these kind of views serve well and benefit are the paedophiles themselves. As society & these views are still indirectly placing blame on the victim, instead of the perpetrator.

Excerpt from wilkapedia on how predominant is peadophillia:-

" The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) defines it as a sexual preference for children of prepubertal or early pubertal age.[4]"

Please pay attention to the words "sexual preference", a sexual preference is hetrosexual, bisexual, homosexual.

We need as a society need to accept and understand that it is from a psychological point a sexual preference albeit horrific & a hard concept to get the mind around, but why would paodophiles as a demograph be any less in number in our population than any other sexual preferences - straight or bi, or homosexual.

It is just easier for society to minimize the risks in our minds to believe the odd bad man is knocking and only the abused go on to abuse is a complete falsehood and an insult to all victims who strive to not have to listen to or read or meet ignorant people who have no experience in this field spouting messages like that that other people then believe to be true.

So NO i would not want anyone with a proven and significant sexual preference/orientation for children to have any access to children, even his own.

What is this country coming to when this is even a viable option for a judge? He should be disciplined or struck off in my view!

I think peadophiles should be steralised. If someone had sexually abused my children I'd want them steralised. I'd want them to fuck off to an island and have to live it out alone. I'd want them turned into a Human Centipede ffs.

Why should they be allowed to go about their lives as if everything is fine? If they have served sentences...so what? What about the children born of these people, what about them and their choices? Keep taking the children away and shoving them in homes? They could have tons of children and all that is ever done is social services is involved or they're taken away? It's insane.
If anyone believes that these sick bastards can be rehabilitated and monitored their whole lives they're living in la la land. If that belief is held so firmly then they can all live around you and you won't mind at all.

He's perpetuating the victimisation of those kids even further. There are people who were filmed being sexually abused as children and now, even as adults, have to live with the knowledge that paedophiles are still downloading those videos. Once something's online, it's there forever. They were essentially turned into "porn stars" against their will. (I use the scare quotes because it's not porn, it's just images of child abuse - but the fact remains that the kind of people who download it will consider it porn.)

Put him in jail until he agrees to chemical castration. He is a danger to the public.

The moral high ground is overrated imo

I am probably going to be flamed which is why I have changed my name but penguin bollards, cancel the cheque etc

My partner is on the sex offenders register. He had images of children - not young children but borderline legal. He wasn't sexually turned on by children. He was in a dark place with his previous relationship and delving into pornography took a step too far and into dubious as to whether legal. He decided he wasn't happy with whether he could tell they were legal or not and stopped looking. Unfortunately for him they weren't legal and he was traced during some police investigation into the website. He was arrested, admitted it, served a short jail term and is on the sex offenders register. His criminal term has now ended butler all offenders he is subject to a protection order on his pc that we are awaiting a court date to have ended.

During all the proceedings he wasn't allowed to live with his kids and was only allowed supervised access. He has participants all the rehab tasks, always co-operated with the police and social services teams involved.

He is now deemed to not be a threat. He is allowed unsupervised access to his older kids. When I found out I was pregnant social services were involved for an assessment and I was deemed safe as was my dd. He was initially required to be supervised but was fully allowed to partake in changing nappies, bathing her etc. That supervision has now ended. Social services have no involvement whatsoever and the child protection officer from the police is actively supporting his application to have his time on the register terminated.

Not all these people are inherently evil. Some just get caught in something by accident and they don't know how to get out of it.

Offenders still have rights. If you deny them human rights then you are no better than those who participate in ethnic cleansing. People change, people can recover.

He's being punished for helping fund an industry that horribly abuses children for profit.

Exactly, and rightly so. I was saying that the reason he should be further limited (such as not being able to live with children, even his own) would be the continued risk he poses, not the disturbing nature of his thoughts.

Tjose men who do have children don't have to put forward their names to midwifes or HV. The woman could easily say she is a loan parent. There is so many gaping holes in todays society for people to pass through undetected. If the pregnant woman did give details of the father the midwife does ask a lot of questions. One of them was have you been referred to SS and so on I don't think that mother would keep her child if the father is on the sex offenders register. She would have to leave him to keep her child.

In my experience he will be known to SS and it's more than likely his wife/partner will be asked to chose between him and her baby. Surprisingly many mothers choose the latter -- hard to get one's head around.
Midwives, Health Visitors etc liaise with social workers etc or family members or neighbours will notify SS. Hard to evade the system.
His solicitor has let him down in a big way using this as a plea in mitigation and not advising the couple it is futile to try to start a family.
When the inevitable happens the paedophile will blame SS and accept no accountability for the situation.

Yeah and I agree that your thoughts are your own eatsleep. I also believe that we have the capacity to change and be rehabilitated but when it comes to paedophiles all my reasoning goes out the window, it's such an emotive subject. But I don't want to live in a society with thought police.
Valanice I have used the term child pornography without ever thinking of it till I read your post. But as you say it's not porn, it's abuse and should be termed that.

Not all these people are inherently evil.
No one is inherently evil. But there is a massive difference between ypour partner and the subject of this news story.

You don't download thousands of images and 100s of sick videos by accident or just because your curious or in a bad place. You do it because that's what you want to look at to get your sexual kicks.

There in lies the evil.
The second he looked at an image he knew was wrong, the moment he clicked the "Download" button, thats the moment right there where the person turns from a decent person doing their best to hide their dark thoughts and becomes an evil perpetuator of the crimes imaginable.

I find it interesting "he is allowed access to his older kids" which implies the authorities have seen fit not to allow him unsupervised access to your younger children, but you say earlier "he wasn't sexually turned on by children".
I think you need to pull your head of the sand and realise he is indeed attracted to kids, hence the reason he was viewing child abuse images and hence the reason the authorities do not give him unsupervised access to your younger ones and probably no contact at all with anyone else's kids! as, he is a risk because he is sexual attracted to kids how much more proof do you need!

But let me guess you love him blah blah blah and when he does finally get his hands on some innocent child - because he can no longer control those urges and the authorities who regularly fail to keep up with monitoring them all - I wonder how you will justify it to yourself then

He's being punished for helping fund an industry that horribly abuses children for profit. In the same way that nobody punishes

^^
This
This sickens me and I don't understand how people can forgive more easily. In my view he has still actively partaken in child sexual abuse and should be fully held to account for this.

One thing that we must preserve is the possibility of rehabilitation.

Everyone deserves the opportunity to rehabilitate. Unfortunately Rehabilitation is patchy at best.

I know 2 ex heroin addicts who did atrocious things to feed their addiction. They have been clean for over 15 years, served their time in prison and work so flipping hard with addicts to get them off drugs, stable and integrated in the community. If they hadn't been given that chance they wouldn't be here now and they wouldn't be helping the people they do.

Do I think a paedophile can be rehabilitated? possibly but that brings up the question over the nature of pedophilia. Is it innate or learned? Some paedophiles and researchers have claimed its innate others claim its learned. If its innate then the law, as it stands now, isn't good enough but we cannot morally force sterilisation upon another person. That is a slippery slope we shouldn't even be peering down.

Lots more works needs to be done with paedophiles to understand the cause, if any, of their desires and hope that opens up new treatments and better understanding, to prevent child abuse, for everyone including the pedophile themselves.

Personally I do believe that some learn this behaviour but for the majority I think it is innate and wont change. The best option there is to work with those men (and occasionally women) to manage those desires and give them to tools not to offend be it through specialist parole type officers, doctors and therapists so if the urge to offend comes to such a point they have somewhere to turn to and a way to prevent it. This would also help them find homes and jobs away from children.

Preventing child abuse must always be the aim sterilising a pedophile wont stop them abusing. It will only stop them having children.

This is a very interesting article with a lot of links to research studies exploring possible causes with one study examining the possibility of 'faulty wiring', brain injury and it possibly being passed on to any potential children.

this one has lots of link www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jan/03/paedophilia-bringing-dark-desires-light

on the 'faulty wiring' aspect news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7116506.stm

on sex offending running in families ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/44/2/713

Didn't someone unknowingly have a baby with John Vennables? The police didn't inform her of his identity until after he had got her pregnant. He was locked up for having images on his pc and apparently, the police didn't disclose half of his crimes. Who knows what that man's wife is thinking. It's disgusting, to think she would bring children in to a situation like that, to satisfy her desire for a child.

protectmyidentity Nobody could tell you not to have children with a convicted sex offender; that was your own free choice to make

However I wonder if you'll be prepared to accept responsibility for the choice you made if it all goes horribly wrong ...