To be absolutely sick of excuses being made for men's disgusting sexual behaviour? Trigfer warning. Hugh Edwards sentencing.

[UCConfuseMe]

Just read that Hugh Edwards ahs been given a suspended sentence.

And if course it's not his fault. He had a mean Daddy and some mental health issues and some bad things going on in his life, poor lamb.

All that made him say 'amazing' when sent photos of children as young as 7 being molested.

Having a rough time and a strict father doesn't make you a fucking paedophile!!!

Take responsibility for your predatory and vile behaviour!!

How do you figure that? If he’s in prison, he is cut off from children, making children safer. Seems like the perfect management to me.

Instead of using his money to pay for porn he could have used it to pay for therapy. Most people would only be access help from the NHS. He had options and made a bad choice.

I’m asking this kindly as someone who was abused as a child, please, please don’t call it porn. It’s child abuse, just because men wank over it, it doesn’t make it porn.

The problem is that there are still people making excuses for him. The fact that he has not been given a suspended sentence will be justification for some people to pretend he is some kind of victim and The Sun or someone else is the real villain.

There are a huge amount of convicted sex offenders being effectively managed by the police and probation services every day. If someone wants to re-offend, they will, whether or not they are in custody. If they don’t want to, they won’t.

It's an absolute disgrace.
We are a family deeply affected by online sexual grooming and it hasn't been a six month recovery for any of us.
My sd life has been ruined and she's years and years and years of therapy ahead of her ( if she will engage as currently she doesn't and has gone no contact with us as she wants to carry on and we will do anything to stop her) it's left huge anxiety for us and the wider family and it's destroying my dh.
My dds are affected, her nan, her cousins have lost her

And for her. No life, she is isolated from peers and family, didn't pass her a levels, has no job, nothing lined up.

Six months is a mockery and may as well have not bothered charging him. I'm so angry

I'm leaving Mumsnet if anyone comes on here and defends men or says women are worse.

I'm so fucking angry and upset and disgusted by how men get fucking excused for every single shitty thing they do.

How tf has he got away with this. Im seething. If any good comes of this i hope those poor children in the pictures/videos are safe now. Its ludicrous that this is not taken seriously really. Id say, lets march but what good, what change would it do??

if theres no room in prisons, bloody build some more.

Yup

That is men's attitude to children

Actual children

Don't get me started on the legal system

Begs belief

Exactly. Which is why it’s better they at least serve time in prison. Not only does it make society safer, it also sends a message that abuse against children is taken seriously, which victims will take a degree of comfort from.

There are a huge amount of convicted sex offenders being effectively managed by the police and probation services every day.

^

This. There's millions of these men

The suspended sentence is upsetting.

But my main issue is this inbuilt insistence that these men are victims of their situations. Like going through any trauma is an automatic trigger of paedophilia.

So many women go through trauma at the hands of men and don't turn to child abuse images for comfort!!

The question is why do so many men think this is a justified reaction?

Or why is it played off as that?
Why the need to justify rather than condemn??

Why aren't men angry that their children are victims of this???

Some men are sexually attracted to children. This ‘attraction’ / urge can’t be ‘rehabilitated’. It’s who they are. It’s grim. If they’re proven to have acted upon this ‘sexual attraction’, they should be locked away. I’d suggest out of any prisoners, child sex abusers are the one of the most depraved (and there are lots of horrific crimes).

I remember listening to a paedophile talking about how he feels. He was disgusted with himself but said he couldn’t stop himself. Says it all.

I’d rather most females were released from prison (obv not all, some need to stay there), to make room for the out of control penises.

I personally would far rather the money spent on prisons went on early intervention and prevention schemes to stop this happening in the first place.

I hope you're prepared to pay more tax to finance an extensive prison building programme.

If there was evidence that worked, I’d agree, but as a victim of a child abuser, I want to know that the crimes committed against me and others, that have a life long impact, are taken extremely seriously.

Unfortunately it's estimated that there could be up to 830,000 UK based adults (almost entirely men of course) who pose a risk to children. There are about 90,000 prison places.

I’d suggest men should pay an increased tax, seeing as the prisons are needed for them.

Yes the sentencing seems very light to me!

These offences being taken seriously is an entirely different topic to the efficacy of early intervention and prevention schemes. In fact, there needs to be societal overhaul going far beyond the criminal justice system if we are going to deal with this issue once and for all. I am sorry to hear about your experience.

Honestly, I'd want to take a good look at the personal lives (and computers) of the judges who hand these sentences out. Why are they so lenient when it comes to sentencing men convicted of these crimes?

@WinterMorn this is interesting, I wouldn't have imagined this.

that doesn't mean this one is punative.
It means all the others are far too lenient.

these pictures are of Child Sexual Abuse and posession of even one should mean at least a week behind bars.

Comparatively speaking, this is not a lenient sentence.

How the law works - someone is convicted of something. When it comes to sentencing, there will be submissions from prosecution trying to make the convicted person look bad, and submissions from the defence trying to mitigate the offence. Then the judge takes these into account when sentencing.

It's not explaining away or excusing, it's putting the offence in context to see what a suitable sentence is.

Eg if someone was convicted of drink driving, but it turned out they'd just experienced a bereavement, that would be put in mitigation not to say it was ok to drink and drive, but to provide context of why the offence occured and likelihood of it happening again.

Edwards will have had a psychological assessment that probably looks at upbringing, it's relevant but not an excuse as such.

I wish people would educate themselves about how the law works.