Exposure, newsnight etc discussion part 2

[MrsjREwing]

Last thread full.

Steve has released a statement responding to Lord McAlpines statement.

Fiercepanda
-that's a brilliant link.
It also links through to a great article about the journo who wrote it.
It's asks a really good question who is he and what is his agenda.

tompride.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/child-abuse-scandal-can-of-worms-just-who-is-daily-mail-reporter-david-rose/

Fiercepanda great link, makes alot of sense.

What I don't understand is...

The BBC was slated because it did not show documentary about JS being a suspected pedophile, even though there was no legal evidence to support this.

However, now the BBC has now been slated for showing programme accusing McA of abusing children as there was no legal evidence to support the case.

I don't really understand the difference.

Jimmy Saville was dead and you can't libel the dead? Possibly that is the difference?

#DavidRose - lot's of questions on twitter tonight regarding David Rose. He's definitely being portrayed as a serial abuse denier.

Yes - and also, Newsnight had several witnesses to Savile's behaviour (and a long history of rumour and suspicion), but only one for Lord MacAlpine.

Plus the two dead victims but I am guessing they would not have counted for the purposes of this program.

But surely the whole argument cannot rest on the quality of the witnesses. It seems the BBC is being accused of airing a programme that it shouldn't have as it had no evidence, when previously the BBC was accused of not airing JS programme even though there were only a few witnesses in the programme who had never been heard in court before.

Very interesting all the information about David Rose, and whether he even exists!! I will be reading all those links tonight and my early night will not be happening!

I think it would be good if the media etc listened to this politician (not all Tories are scumbags)
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20286202

Tim Loughton former children's minister
"We really mustn't forget that this is about child abuse," he said.

"This is about vulnerable children and young people, going back many decades, who have been subject to pretty horrific abuse," Mr Loughton said, who was a children's minister until September.

"In the vast majority of cases, it is by ordinary people, people in positions of trust who are there to look after them and singularly failed.

"I fear the publicity around the witch-hunt of celebrities and high-level figures is detracting from the real purpose - which is to root out child abuse that has gone on in the past, bring the perpetrators to book, give the victims some closure and make sure that it's not happening in 2012."

Whilst I can understand people's interest in the celebrity and possible links to the corridors of power aspects I think the focus has to remain on getting the right result for the victims of the abuse. It is important to me to see them get justice, which doesn't seem to be happening yet, whether or not the abusers are dustmen or Peers of the Realm.

Hmmmm but dustbin men can't influence judges, police etc

Hmmmm but dustbin men can't influence judges, police etc

Tips
The problem is that the story is now becoming about the BBC, Newsnight and the misidentification of LMcA. Perhaps if the focus moved back on to the abuse that actually happened and how it was investigated instead of possible high profile abusers we would get a better result.

Xenia. Totally unrelated to all the above. But it is possible to be married, to like women and to also abuse children - both boys and girls. Unfortunately it is not the case that married men do not abuse children, as some have done.

Additionally, a female friend of mine had lots of partners, was married 3 times, and then realised the reason she could not settle was because she was gay, and is now in a secure lesbian relationship.

Chaz - I get your point but this is what has happened in the past a few plebs are thrown to the wolves and the caravan moves on as it appears it is too hard, too complicated, to expensive to go after the more powerful. From my point of view you can get pleb abuser he may have access to a few local children but it's the High profile people who abuse 1000's .who industrialise the access to vulnerable children. Who allow others to abuse who appear to be the enablers who ignore children in police stations, who allow other abusers to walk free who change laws and processes for their purposes.. That's why I think if you go after the top you will hopefully clear out a load of enablers who have protected the worst of the worst. I read about jersey and islington with horror.
Though the news now is about taking entwhistle contractual payment if him
Who has called for that.
Harriet harmen hmmmmm distraction technique do we think?
Was she a member of PIE?

The top bods are still there in jersey they are still in their places of power. Stopping investigative journo entering jersey etc
I always think of the 65 children's teeth found in the basement.

The Australian PM has just announced a Royal Commission into child sexual abuse in Australia that will consider churches, schools, sporting institutions, scouts, the police and any other institution implicated. All kicked off by a Lateline story with a senior police officer who broke ranks.

It's horrible to watch the focus in the UK swing onto Newnight and the BBC and away from the plight of the victims.

You have to consider how convenient it is for people to become consumed by what's happening at the BBC when it is trivia compared to what was done to children in a variety of institutional settings.

but chaz that is exactly the deal we're being offered isn't it? if you forget about high profile people, if the media looks the other way on the higher end of this again, we will offer you up a few more 'plebs' to prosecute just as we did last time.

yes of course the child abuse is the focus but abuse of power in this country by people in positions of 'high' trust is an important matter. and child abuse in the higher echelons (re: the judicial and political system) creates a climate of non prosecution, lenience, looking the other way etc that effects all cases. look at that bloody judge (whose name i forget) with the string of appalling light sentences for child rapists and abusers and offensive statements trivialising the crimes he judged over.

it is stops at the top, if the most powerful cannot get away with this, then that filters down obviously. you can't send out clearer messages of a determination to protect children than you can by saying we don't tolerate this even from those who have the most power, even they will be investigated and prosecuted where guilty.

interesting about the 'fixer' journalist. hope people with better research skills than me are looking at that.

Swalllowedafly -beautifully written and I agree with you even more so
As you put what I was struggling to say so succinctly.

swallowedAfly
Is that what we are being offered?

The Hillsborough victims have got some form of justice by continually demanding a proper enquiry rather than looking for a the Chief Constable's head on a plate (which the rightly have now got). Who influenced the police on that one? or did the police do it themselves.

I know one of the lawyers who worked on the Birmingham 6 case and the changes to the police notes of interview were blatent - who influenced the police to do that?

I know the judge you mean (his name escapes me) and I wonder if he is symptomatic of the wider problem. I don't think there is a huge organised establishment cover up because I don't think people are than co-ordinated. There may be some more localised favours being done. However, for me the real problem is that there is a culture of systematically disbelieving abuse victims especially those with more challenging backgrounds. If the police are presented with a Looked After Child, a "Pillar of the Community" and an abuse allegation, I think we can make a good guess who will be seen as the more credible witness. You only have to look at the Daily Mail hatchet job on SM viz he was wrongly accused of something and consequently acquitted that makes him unreliable .

The Waterhouse investigation was never a trial so I can understand why alleged abusers were not named a the time because people would be accused of serious crimes without any means to properly defend themselves. So the issue is, how many of those allegations were properly investigated and prosecutions brought? If the abuse victims were seen as unreliable witnesses then a decision may have been made not to prosecute because people were stereotyping the victims as troubled kids etc.

Excellent post Chaz. Excellent.

The Hillsborough group illustrate clearly why focussing upon the key issue instead of wailing into a 'but it's all so unfair - lets look at the press and the Tories and the judges and...and..' is important.

Every time this story digresses off into a journalistic control at the BBC or whether Philip Schofield should be waving names off twitter on the tv, it dilutes the stories those brave men and women told of their childhood.

And the desperation that the perpetrators be famous is quite unpleasant. There was something kin to disappointment amongst some when it turned out that it wasn't Lord MacAlpine.

but it IS the key issue. the key issue in child abuse is the abuse of positions of trust. the key issue is 'abuse of power'.

no one is asking for a big head to roll. we're asking for all those accused to be investigated and if enough evidence, prosecuted regardless of how big a head they are.

i totally agree that turning this into media navel gazing or red herring names trivialises it. i don't think that changes the fact though that one of the biggest scandals here is that key figures named and shown in photographic evidence were not dealt with.

and that only sends one message: children and the vulnerable DO NOT MATTER when putting them first means not cap doffing to the hierarchy.

I know it's the key issue Swallowed. it doesn't need capital letters
I simply disagree with you about how best that gets dealt with.
I think it is being lost. And to me many threads on here evidence that.

I agree with the last few comments. The main issue for me is how many of those named in the Waterhouse enquiry, and the previous enquiry, were investigated. It really bothers me that victims like SM were dismissed as unreliable in naming names (while ignoring the fact he was reliable enough to validate the fact he was abused, and had been misled by someone who had a photo of who abused him by giving him a false name) and that seemingly justified not doing anything to investigate how that name emerged. Why? Why dismiss everything because some of what was alleged was hard to take in? At the very least, LM could have cleared his name long before this frenzy occurred. The trail to find the actual person who was in that photo could have been picked up, and every person named should have been investigated thoroughly rather than nothing done with the information that came from both enquiries.

I agree with Pag.

There is/was no question of a paedophile ring in North Wales as Waterhouse found evidence and people were jailed.

Whether the investigation went as far as it should have done is doubtful. Word of mouth named quite a few people at the time. They are either involved and need to be taken to task over it or they are innocent and need to be exonerated. The key issue is that proper investigation takes place.