Oh no, not Matthew Kelly too!

[mears]

What a shock tonight on the news - Matthew Kelly accused of child abuse in the 1970's. What if it isn't true - the man's career is ruined. If it is true, what else has he done?
How do you explain to your kids about the nice man from Stars in Their Eyes?

I agree Aloha. Dodgy photos = too many hair products or when you've just woken up with mascara over your face. Not only does it damage the children involved in creating these images (either in real life or by manipulating photos) but it also portrays them as objects, to be used by adults.

I tend to regard all photos of me these days as dodgy. Saves having to accept that that's what I really look like!

For those who want to read the article not just edited highlights, it's here: \linkwww.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,877634,00.html\David Aaronovitch article{} but can't get the link to work!

Have been thinking about this a lot this weekend after looking for a Statutory Instrument on Friday about Oils and Lubricants and being, naively maybe, surprised by what came up. If I found a site that was in any way 'dodgy', I would be very worried reporting it to the police at the moment.

thanks tinker - it is an interesting read. I, too, feel uneasy condemning those who look in the same way as those who act. An extreme example, but how many women here have had fantasies that do not include their partners? does that make them adulturers for thinking of another, and so would their partners be justified in divorcing them?

I'm sure the internet makes people loose touch with reality as all sorts of unexpected information is thrown their way and I agree this doesn't make them criminally bad people. I only have to think of the sites that appeared on some screens in my last place of work....

I also agree with DA's point that hard core paedophiles, the ones who really create this trade, would not be likely to give out their credit card details the net, anyway.

However, I don't think we can stand back and let anyone access anything on the net, thinking of the child victims of this crime. I think somehow we should ensure that all those who access these sites are made to think hard before they prodceed. The threat of legal investigation should be there, so anyone who accesses the sites knows they could be answerable to the police. Perhaps this warning is commonplace already on these sites - I don't know.

I still don't agree on naming and shaming before a charge is bought. But hate the idea of paedophiles slipping through the net.

Aloha, in a previous message you say anonyimity is supposed to endure till after the charge, yet this doesn't happen. Sorry if you have said this elsewhere, but does mean the press and police agreed on this, but the agreement is being ignored? Sorry to put you on the spot, but I can see you have invetigated this in depth, do you think the press is justified in reporting suspected paedophiles before they are charged?

The point is these sites are illegal - they are hardly likely to post warnings are they? It would be like a heroin dealer saying, 'well this stuff is illegal and highly dangerous - do you still want to buy some?'. Also the big difference between these sites and fantasising about adultery is that a mental fantasy involves and harms nobody but yourself. The images on these sites are real images of real children & babies really being raped, buggered, forced to perform oral sex on adult/sibling members of their family etc. By paying to view them you are not just encouraging this behaviour, you are abusing these children yourself as well as funding it and making sure there will be more. The people who ran this site (a US couple) made millions out of it. A good reason to ensure that there was a constant supply of fresh images of depravity, I think. This is why IMO it has to be a crime with the strongest possibly penalties, by which I mean automatic prison sentences. Also DA doesn't seem to know much about paedophiles. The experts in the field estimate about one in five of those who access these sites are active abusers. That's a massive number. This so called 'witch hunt' is actually rooting out real, current abusers and so rescuing children from a life of unimaginable hell - I think around 30 children have so far been taken from their parents/guardians as a direct result of the inquiry. So far arrests have been made primarily of repeat users of the sites. I don't think I'd need to look at babies in nappies being raped more than once, would you? I have zero sympathy for the people who enjoy this kind of thing, frankly.

As for the legal position, I haven't got my law for journalists books to hand ( & don't work in newspapers) but the advice is to not name suspects until there is a charge (the BBC, you'll note, always just says 'a 23-year-old man has been remanded in custody' however, there is such a strong presumption that open justice is in the public interest that you would have to show that any pre-trial publicity was prejudicial to a fair trial before you had any recompense. There have been numerous studies into how reporting affects trial outcomes, and there is a general concensus that it does not lead to miscarriages of justice and that juries are very good at deciding their verdicts on the facts presented to them in court. Once trials are underway (or a defendant is arrested or charged, reporters should not publish prejudicial background material or previous convictions at risk of being guilty of contempt of court. All reporting of cases should be mindful of the presumption of innocence and be careful not to imply that an accused person is guilty.

My comments are not about the MK case. He has been questioned about a completely different case which does not involve internet pornography, of course. I am referring to the inquiry which led to Pete Townshend's questioning and subsequent confession that he had paid to see child abuse on the internet.

The winky was obviously accidental!

First off, have not made any assumption as to whether Mathew Kelly is guilty or not. Do think it odd though, to echo aloha, that armfuls of kids videos were removed from his home in Sri Lanka - where he holidays without his wife or grown up kids. Agree with musica that many adults watch kids' videos - I do too, but wouldn't have bothered taking them with me on holiday. So yes, an odd one. But do hope they have got it all terribly wrong, I worked with him once and he seemed a very nice, funny man.
As for Pete Townsend, apart from being a rock hero, he once caught my dog for me when she wouldn't come back and we bumped heads. He seemed a very nice man too. Could it be that I am no judge of character??!!!

Oh, willow, I don't think it's anything to do with being a poor judge of character ? sometimes apparently 'nice' people do horrible things. I remember when I first met my dh, who was a criminal lawyer at the time, he used to go on call to represent people who'd been arrested at police stations. One night, quite early on in our relationship he was called out to represent a man who'd been arrested for setting fire to someone. When he got back, I asked him what the defendant was like, he told me "Seemed like quite a nice guy". So it's not just you!
BTW I once had a boat race with PT, and he seemed like a nice man to me, too.
(Don't mean to trivialise this discussion, anyone ? still think this kind of crime should meet with the most stringent penalties. But people aren't black & white, as the tabloids would sometimes have us believe. It's far more complicated than that)

Oh, willow, I don't think it's anything to do with being a poor judge of character ? sometimes apparently 'nice' people do horrible things. I remember when I first met my dh, who was a criminal lawyer at the time, he used to go on call to represent people who'd been arrested at police stations. One night, quite early on in our relationship he was called out to represent a man who'd been arrested for setting fire to someone. When he got back, I asked him what the defendant was like, he told me "Seemed like quite a nice guy". So it's not just you!
BTW I once had a boat race with PT, and he seemed like a nice man to me, too.
(Don't mean to trivialise this discussion, anyone ? still think this kind of crime should meet with the most stringent penalties. But people aren't black & white, as the tabloids would sometimes have us believe. It's far more complicated than that)

Sorry ? that bloomin' refresh icon again!

Aloha, thanks for replying. Actually if the sites are illegal, than yes, I agree that viewing them should be a criminal offence. I was under the impression that someone might at random bring up these sites, get carried away, not realise they are illegal - look once, see the awful stuff and then never look again. There are meant to be so many sites of a sexual nature on the net, and I believe so many users of these sites, some of those might cross the line from adult sex to child sex on stupid impulse. I think I'd call them very foolish, but not automatic paedophiles.

I defintely agree that repeated users should be targeted by the police for questioning or more, but still feel uneasly if every person who logs on is treated by the police as a potential paedophile. Though they are definitely guilty of financing a paedophile site - but, imo, that's a different crime.

Thanks also for replying about the reporting constrictions that the press have to adhere to. It is reassuring that research finds juries are not swayed by the media reporting. However what about situations where the case doesn't come to trial? I think I need more convincing that the press reports pre charging do toe the line innocent till proven guilty. As soon as any mention is made of'in for questioning' plus celebrity name plus 'child sex', I think it is human nature to suspect the worst, no matter how discreetly the report is worded.

Can't add more - in a rush. If one in five users of paedophile sites are paedophiles, I agree that the problem needs to be treated very seriously, even if it means that those who are innocent of paedophilia are given the third degree by the police. I agree with the shaming, I'm just not so sure about the public naming.

I don't know as I've never done it myself (!) but I suspect to actually send your credit card details off to the people who run these sites involves a lot more than mere accident. Yes, I've come across quite shocking sites while researching stuff on the net. I typed in 'conception leave' recently and accidentally clicked on a site of what I hoped were fantasies a man had involving a stepfather and his pre-teen stepdaughters. It was frightening and made me feel sullied. I can tell you, it wasn't somewhere I wanted to hang about.

Regarding real paedophiles not sending their credit card information over the web, actually the information is heavily encrypted and very hard to trace so paedophiles would not expect to be found out that way - it took a huge international effort to break the PT paedophile network. I suspect you would have to actively search for the site, be given a pretty clear idea of exactly what was on offer and then make the decision to commit financially to a relationship with the site. From what I know of internet shopping, it's not exactly a one-click operation. Hence my scepticism. I do agree that it is exceptionally difficult to escape the taint of being branded a child-sex offender, but I think we should remember that PT himself put his name in the public domain by issuing a statement (including an admission that he had indeed paid to view children being abused and raped) via his publicist when previously the papers had merely talked about an internationally famous rock star and I had no idea who it was. there is an interesting if baffling snippet about PT and his fascination with paedophila in Private Eye today. Didn't know what to make of it.
The whole Walton Hop youthclub business that MK has been implicated in is very different, mainly involving the seduction of boys aged 14 and up by much older men (such as Jonathan King), with no suggestion of force or of the awful depravity of the internet porn sites. However, it was a very distasteful and manipulative situation those boys were in. Again, no idea whether MK is guilty. If not, then he faces a tough time, but not as tough as has been suggested, as he is still working and still has his friends.
I do think internet service providers have moral responsibility to actively search for child sex sites and take them off. I don't think they work hard enough at this.

I see the police have now issued a statement that they won't be pressing any charges against MK.

Looks like it, though he has been given a police caution because they found Class A drugs in his house when it was searched.