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!!

I'm not sure whether I agree with the sentence here but definitely sex offences and offences against the person are not treated with the seriousness they should be in terms of sentencing. Fraud and financial/property crime tend to attract higher penalties - I wonder how many women are in prison for benefit fraud, driven to desperate circumstances?

What would a week behind bars achieve?

I'm prepared to be called ignorant about the legal system because, well, I am.

I just don't think mitigating factors or number of offences should be considered when it comes to this particular type of crime

Crimes against children need to come with severe sentences. How do we change the system so this begins to happen?

how "Effectively" are they being managed?

If they were all in one place, we could use those scarce police resources to do things like protect women and children.

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

@UCConfuseMe Same for male victims. It's offensive to them too, when abusers use childhood trauma as an "excuse" for child abuse.

The man I know who was sexually abused as a child despises child abusers. Really despises them. He wants them to have the death penalty.

I understand why he feels that way, as what happened to him as a child has continued to cause him mental health struggles as an adult. I can't personally support the death penalty, as the risk of just one innocent person being mistakenly convicted (even with DNA etc, it can still happen) is too much of a risk.

Definitely though these crimes need to be taken more seriously, not excused, and prison needs to be used not only as punishment or deterrence, but most importantly - protection of the public. If an offender is genuinely lacking mental capacity/seriously mentally ill, then there's secure hospitals.

I think they should be chemically castrated. Completely remove their sex drive. I know people say that it's not about sexual gratification, it's about power and control, but I was sa'd and it was definitely about gratification. Only a subset will be perverted psychopaths who like inflicting pain. Removal of the sex drive has to help in the run of the mill cases.

Edwards is disgusting playing the mental health card as well. He's only 'mentally ill' because he got caught. I hope he spends the rest of his life being alone and miserable. I expect he'll turn into one of those disgusting debauched older men buying others for his 'needs'.

I don't think people realize how many men people are in possession of such images. I'm not up to date on the latest stats but is used to be about 90k convictions a year.

Why not? If it's a crime against children but the perpetrator is in early 20s, grew up in care experiencing regular abuse themselves, it's relevant, right? Not an excuse or a get out of jail free card, but relevant.

Crimes against children do carry severe consequences. For example, look at Huw Edwards - he's lost his career and family, likely will struggle to do anything much with the rest of his life, on sex offenders register for years.

Calling for long sentences for everything just results in prison overcrowding and early release as we've just seen.

He has a history of mental health problems stretching back before this all came out.

it's more about sending a message than anything else.

because over and over and over and over again we are seeing men convicted of possession of thousands of images of child sex abuse not doing any serious time. They live at home and you are never ever going to convince me that they are being managed so thoroughly that they are not in a position to offend again. Undetected.

While we all watch rapists never even get to court. Or people being jailed for things that would be much better handled with community service (the rioters who have not injured a person would be far far more effectively and visibly punished if they were put to work fixing the mess) etc etc.

There is a lot wrong with the criminal justice system in the UK, and I am perfectly happy to say that i want people convicted of the worst crimes (harm against the person) do jail time.

How hasn't lost anything, let's be real. The victims here have.

An donce again, this isn't just any old crime. He has harmed very young children.

He should be on the register for life at the very least.

Absolutely or lets bring back the death sentence to free up space

Speaking from experience, some are managed very effectively with extremely stringent risk management. It all depends on the assessment of the individual.

erm…I thought when people broke the law and are a danger to others they went to prison. Who is prison for if not people involved in this kind of behaviour?

and 7 years on the sex offenders register? What happens at 7 years? He suddenly unpeadophiles? No he’s still a fucking peadophile. he should be on it for life.

i would also castrate anyone involved.

and why on earth would we care his reputation will be damaged - like that’s punishment? It’s not. It’s a natural consequence of being a peadophile surely. Not something we should use to be like welll he did lose his reputation so he got comeuppance?! That is not like for like

I totally agree!!

I have poor mental health atm, no father, shit mother

But I manage life well without BEING A FUCKING PAEDOPHILE 🤬🤬

Most of us have had mental health struggles.

My stepfather is a farmer, a profession that comes with a tragically high suicide and poor MH rate.

He is really poorly. Has to have regular contact with nurses.

Has never abused a single child.

It's not an excuse.

It's just not enough. This is the abuse of kids FFS. I hope it wakes people up.

It's gross.
Someone I knew quite well got a suspended sentence for 8000 images of children including the rape of infants under one and the case is even more complex than that.
He was given no prison sentence because he was lonely.

I cannot stress how lonely many people I have met who are lonely and haven't felt the need to watch babies be abused.

He was named and the address of his street reported on locally and I really expected some kind of response from his community as its in a relatively high crime area with lots of violence and he's had no repercussions, (I'm not saying I want to see him harmed by anyone, I'm saying I'm surprised he wasn't a victim of at the very least his windows being put in with bricks).
It's a very strange time, I feel we almost accept child abuse these days.
When I lived next door to a man who was imprisoned for CSA and CSAI even the local milkman threatened to smack him in the street.

Given prisons are overcrowded, he is not likely to be a threat to society I think the sentence was appropriate whee we n comparing other sentences.

Honestly, if we aren't sending people to prison for crimes against children, why do we send anybody at all?

Or is that the point?

And who will staff them??

We have no staff either.... anyone here on this thread fancy it??

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

They are

It's because there is so much of it that they can't lock them all up. The police can't even arrest all the men they know are looking at images. There are too many.

NAMALT but far too many are. Try starting a conversation about restricting access to streaming porn and they will all come out going on about it being too hard and infringing their liberties.

I'm sick of it too. Not sure what the answer is.

I don't work in the justice system, and maybe you do, but to lay people whether or not it's a custodial sentence is semantics. Someone only goes to jail if they break the conditions placed upon them, conditions that normal people don't find at all difficult to abide by. It shouldn't be called a custodial sentence because there is no custody UNLESS there is further wrongdoing.

Under no other circumstances would a punishment work this way, if we tell a toddler who's done something naughty not to do it again because next time they'll be in trouble, that's not a punishment, that's a warning.

Sure he does, but most mentally ill people don't ruin children's lives and support child abuse by viewing the images.

People like him need to get a bloody grip.