Does the GMC think we are happy to take our children to see a GP who has a child porn habit?

[DrPr]

The Hereford Times says that a GP who downloaded child pornography that the General Medical Council said was "abhorrent and repugnant" and that they found "shocking", describing acts between adults and boys, is OK to keep on being a GP because it is not going to interfere with his job. I don't know what to think. Some parents won't mind, but some will and are we going to be told about him so that we can make a choice? Would we be happy to take our sons to him? What does everybody else think?

No I would choose to see a different GP.

isn't that what Pete Townsend said ?

research

a GP would know the potential disastrous consequences to his career were he to get caught in possession of such material

to go ahead and seek it it anyway demonstrates either a monumental sense of entitlement and stupidity or a compulsion that he had no conscious control over

both of those scenarios do not bode well when they contribute the moral make-up of a person in such a priveliged position

Well yes. I was referring to the material itself, and the comparison that has been made between porn using adults and children. Individual children were not involved in the making of this material.

I'm slightly concerned that I'm coming over as an apologist for this man and his actions. In fact I think we should be condemning what he has done, so people who do the same as him can't think, well, I don't do what they're complaining about. I'm not the same.

As I said, what he did deserves condemnation IMO, and, also IMO, makes him unfit to practise as a family doctor. But I am not a member of the GMC panel...

Then he was researching it for 4 years...

Redacted minutes are available here

They note that he was "a good and useful doctor with a 25 year unblemished record" and that what he did wasn't a criminal offence.

I would argue that just because someone chooses to read a fictional account of something, that doesn't automatically mean they are tempted to engage in the same behaviour. Think of the popularity of crime fiction with accounts of brutal murder/torture/rape from the criminal's point of view - should a doctor be struck off because they read something like that?

Another bizarre ruling from the GMC

They are a perfect example of an industry where self regulation doesn't work imo

Okay just noticed I missed the minutes on the last page - whoops.

Ok fair enough he wasnt doing reserach.

I would never take my kids to this doctor.
He should be banned from praticing as a gp.

to quote AnyFucker:

"of course children were harmed...every time this kind of filth is distributed and so-called upstanding members of society perpetuate it, children (as a homogenous, at-risk group) are harmed massively"

Can't believe I just read this - it sounds like some kind of send up from Brass Eye.

NO children were harmed in this - that is like suggesting that my boss actually suffered some kind of psychic brain damage when I imagined beating him round the head with a shovel...

Yes, sexual child abuse is a massively emotive subject but it does not do anybody any favours to descend into irrationality.

squirrel, rightly or wrongly, reading fictional accounts of sexual activity with a child is different to reading the odd Agatha Christie

Just out of interest would you count Lolita by Nabokov or Lost Girls by Alan Moore as pornography (I don't although both bits of fiction make me uncomfortable to be honest)?

Where does art cross over into the unacceptable?

nothing irrational about it - anyone who consumes and provides a market for this material contributes to the normalisation of children as ponrnographic subjects - clearly this adds to the culture of commercial child abuse and increases the risk overall

not rocket science

When it involves sex with kids.

Agree, AF. Any adult who ^chooses* to read fictional accounts of child pornography has crossed a line. It's even more concerning that a GP, who is supposed to be there to care for children, would enjoy this kind of reading. Nothing irrational about that view at all.

Of course children are harmed. Many people that read this sort of 'material' will progress onto child porn images. To think otherwise would be foolish.

amber1979...are you actually saying that the distribution of child pornography, in whatever form, is not harmful to children ?

really ?

and you would compare a silly fantasy of bashing your annoying boss with a blunt instrument over the head, with some of the scenarios depicted between individuals interested in the sexual exploitation of minors ?

sheesh

Good point about Lolita - which I read twice.

What about Romeo and Juliet - Juliet was supposed to be about 12 or 13......?

Some people here should really watch the Brass Eye special on peadophillia.

I'm stuggling to recall any reference to child abuse and pornography in Romeo and Juliet.

AF, no I did not say that. Photographs of children being sexually abused, are clearly evidence of real harm to children. People who consume these things perpetuate a market demand which further encourages this harm. Obviously this should be very, very illegal.

Written material? You're going to throw out vast amounts of previously respected literature.

I make that comparison as I object to the idea of a "thought crime" becoming part of our legal system. Yes I am aware of the required mens rea of criminal offences, but nobody can or should be convicted of simply thinking about a crime.

You are comparing Romeo and Juliet to the kind of written porn that by the GMCs own admission was 'abhorrent and repugnant'

and expect us to take your views seriously?

To Maisie, Gibbon, AF et al...

So those Misery memoir books, such as "A Child Called It", they should be banned too and everyone who reads them put under suspicion?

They have extremely graphic descriptions of child abuse - not usually sexual (? have only read one that my SIL lent me, they leave me cold so can't comment on the wider genre), but even so, are we to really believe that reading about such horrible things (and let's face it, these books are best sellers, even if we don't like them there are obviously masses of people who do) will lead the reader on to physically abuse a child?

I think it's a fairer comparison than the Agatha Christie/Val McDermid one... but you don't lose your job for reading misery porn.

Amber - this wasn't 'art' that he was accessing. To quote "The Panel found the material that you viewed to be abhorrent. Though consisting of text rather than images and, as such, fruits of the imagination,
the stories embody a perverse distortion in their portrayal of children and
children with adults"

Reading Lolita (if that floats your boat) is one thing. Accessing this type of material repeatedly for 4 years (and from an NHS computer at times) is indefensible.

Of course I won't be taken seriously - I'm sticking my kneck out and refusing to join in a tabloidesque panic where people are actually suggesting we legislate against thoughts.

As I said before, peaophillia is an understandable hugely emotive subject, so anybody treating it with cold logic is going to be at best condemed and at worst accused of being an apoligist.

Flame me, I'm fire proof.

this man wasn't convicted amber

but it doesn't make what he did morally ok

and throws into question his standing as a professional in a priveliged position

we cannot speculate on whether whatever it is that he got out of reading fictional accounts of sexual activity with children would escalate into trying it out for himself

but I certainly don't think he should stay in a position where he is dealing with vulnerable children and young adults...do you ?

A child called it being compared to graphic, vile, beyond comprehension fantasy child porn?

Am I on another planet here?