Brooks Newmark "Entrapment"

[FloraFox]

There doesn't seem to be any suggestion "she" asked him to send her the photo, is there?

So simply being an attractive young woman and complimenting national politicians on twitter is "entrapping" men into sending photos of their genitals?

why what is your version of events based on?

In this country, we have a very serious problem of sexual abuse by people in power being hidden for years. A large part of this problem is caused by the hostile reception given to people who make complaints and a culture of closing ranks by other people in power.

There is a limit to what we can do, as individuals, to combat the closing ranks. As individuals however we contribute to the hostile environment in our responses to allegations. Individuals do this by minimising the seriousness of the behaviour of the men and in the way they characterise the behaviour of the women involved. The "red-top version" (so much snobbery in this description, but that's for another thread) is the only version available since Newmark has not given a proper account of what he did. Anything else is mere speculation about what the journalist might have done. In these cases, the speculation is usually coloured by misogynistic attitudes about women lying or leading men on or men being unable to control themselves and that is certainly present here. In this situation, the speculation is also coloured by distaste for the red tops and by the journalist's wrong but completely unrelated use of women's photographs without their consent, as well as a misunderstanding about the appropriateness of stings / entrapment. I believe that from a feminist perspective, we shouldn't contribute to a hostile environment. Guido Fawkes said this investigation was initiated because of rumours they had heard from young Tory activists. If there are real women out there who would like to come forward to talk about their experiences, they are hardly going to do so now given the atmosphere that surrounds this case. I wouldn't be surprised if Brooks Newmark regrets resigning, I'm sure he can't believe his luck at the support he's received.

Since some posters seem to have a problem holding more than one line of thought at a time, just to make it clear that even if she said "send me a picture of your c0ck" (which no-one has said she did), I still think his actions were an abuse of his position and a reflection of male entitlement.

cross-post: To clarify, if Sophie really had been Sophie then I think this would be perfectly valid

This is idiotic.

Yes Buffy, I see that - BN responded as if she were real so his reactions are valid. But she didn't act real. Her motivation really was to get a cock shot.

BN responded to someone whose motivation was to solicit a naked photo. That is fundamental to this case.

If this were a real case, with a real woman describing harassment or sexist behaviour from a more senior male, no-one on FWR would be scrutinising her behaviour and saying she asked for it.

Because the journo was a perpetrator of a sting rather than a victim, his behaviour is absolutely relevant to the discussion of this specific case.

That's not how we approach entrapment in this country. I'm not sure if it was you or someone else who said you had a cultural problem with entrapment so maybe that has is part of the reason you're so against this.

It is his behaviour that is important and he thought he was dealing with a real person, just like the men in the Stinson Hunter stings, just like the punters in prostitution stings, just like John Terry's dad in the NotW cocaine sting.

why you haven't answered what your version of events is based on. Just because it's a red top you think the opposite of what they say must be true?

Cases where the police use entrapment usually aren't prosecuted, for good reason.

The law here is clear that entrapment is not a defence. Entrapment by the police will usually be stayed because it is considered to be an abuse of state power. To get a stay, it must be established that the police did more than present the defendant with an unexceptional opportunity to commit a crime, that they lured him into it. Whether that would be the case for this sting depends on exactly the exchange of messages between the journalist and Brooks Newmark and we haven't seen these in detail. As a result, even if this was a police sting, you can't write it off an entrapment at this point.

However it wasn't a police sting. I don't agree with you that it is unethical nor that the results you get from it can't be shown to be accurate. On the contrary, you would expect someone to behave in exactly the same way as they would behave if the set-up was real. For that reason, there have been lots of prosecutions and convictions using evidence from private entrapment.

empire you seem very confident in your knowledge of the journalist's conduct, that he is despicable and that he is the only person in this situation who has abused women. What are you basing that on?

I said: I don't agree with you that it is unethical nor that the results you get from it can't be shown to be accurate.

You said: I'm not sure what about that statement you're disagreeing with?

Buffy It's interesting that he obviously thought he wouldn't get caught though, isn't it?

Yes and why was that? Why would a man who is a Cabinet Office minister think he can send a picture of his genitals to a person he has never met and not get caught? I don't believe he is stupid. I believe he calculated the risk as low because of the imbalance of his power over her lack of power / ambition. I believe this to be an abuse of his power and it raises significant alarm bells about how he might have behaved had they met in person.

why the quality of your contributions is diminishing, which is quite surprising given the low point they started at.

I note you're still not saying where you are getting these facts that you seem to think are the key to everything.