Charlie Elphicke Jailed for 2 years v Eric Joyce suspended sentence

[MillyMollyFarmer]

I don’t know enough about the law to understand the reasons for the huge difference in the sentencing of these two cases.

Eric Joyce got a suspended sentence for crimes involving children, distribution and possession of images. While Charlie Elphicke got 2 years for assaults on women. While obviously I see the later involved touching, Joyce involved images, but they’re images of horrific abuse of children including a baby.

I just don’t understand the sentencing of the two. Surely part of the reason for putting someone in prison is the risk of reoffending. I would of thought there was far more risk involved with Joyce reoffending.

One is thinking about criminal acts, one is carrying them out. Isn't that the difference?
Both are abhorrent.

Possessing and distributing child abuse is a crime, he was convicted but avoided a jail term because of his alcoholism being under control and the support of his partner India Knight.

Elphicke was the primary actor in causing harm to the women he assaulted. Without his actions those women would not have been assaulted. If he did it again more women would be harmed.

Joyce was not the primary actor in the harm caused to the children in the photographs. Without his actions those children would still have been harmed. And if he looked at more photos it wouldn’t directly harm other children. He took advantage, after the fact, of something that had happened (And took pleasure in it) but he did not cause that thing to happen (at least, not in a direct way and probably not in an indirect way though I don’t know if he paid the creators for any of the photos he had).

From the perspective of what we tend to punish as criminal, Elphicke’s actions are significantly worse.

Oh no he’s absolutely indirectly causing abuse of children because it wouldn’t be there if he and other pedophiles didn’t create the demand for it. I watched something where experts were talking about at what point those viewing became the physical abusers, I believe she said after about 50-100 images or videos they are more likely and most viewing in those numbers do become the physical abuser. So watching child abuse is a very big indicator to police, that’s why police take it so seriously. You’re almost never just finding someone who only watches.
Another part of the sentencing, in fact it’s in both judgements, is the likelihood of them doing it again. I think based on both cases it’s far more likely children need to be protected from Eric Joyce. The image he sent involved penetration of a 12 month old.

I cannot think of many more serious crimes than child abuse and think Eric Joyce should be in prison (and India Knight lose her column ST column for supporting him).

That’s my thinking too. It’s child abuse, very serious offence much more so than the other case. Although not the perpetrator, as it involves children and they know viewing large amounts indicates likelihood of physical offences..., I just don’t get why the other is considered ‘worse’ on balance. It’s more likely, based on data, Joyce would reoffend than the other guy- although I still think he should get prison time.

I absolutely don’t understand it and it is a travesty that Eric Joyce has not had any more severe punishment for crimes of that kind.

The Sunday Times should be boycotted for multiple reasons. India K's column being just one of them.

I don't compare the two

Eric Joyce should be in prison for what he did, irrespective of how other types of criminals have been punished

Downloading images of child abuse creates the market for them. Somebody obliges in providing them. It's all part of the same chain and all should pay with their liberty.

Joyce pleaded guilty, which would have been a mitigating factor. He had also been undergoing rehabilitation treatment, which is another one.

It's not possible to rehabilitate a paedophile

It's not possible to rehabilitate a paedophile

Exactly. That’s the biggest issue with his sentence.

I don't think it is possible to rehabilitate a sex offender of any "persuasion" either

www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/magistrates-court/item/sexual-assault/

Judges have to follow sentencing guidelines for the specific offence. They don't just make it up according to their own personal whims. Example above.

Abusing a position of trust/power is an aggravating factor in sentencing.

I don't think it's fair or useful to compare two offenders and try to use the victims of one to support an argument the other was not punished appropriately.

It is perfectly adequate to look at the Eric Joyce case on its own and make arguments about whether the sentencing guidelines are right and were followed correctly without dragging the victims of another abuser into it in this horrible "yeh he touched you but this victim was a baby and you're an adult" comparison.

Two things can be abhorrent and different at the same time. There is no need to start trying to put them into a hierarchy, diminishing the trauma of one to try and protect the other. That harms the victims of both perpetrators.

Two things can be abhorrent and different at the same time. There is no need to start trying to put them into a hierarchy, diminishing the trauma of one to try and protect the other. That harms the victims of both perpetrators.

I agree with that, I’ve not dismissed either of the cases. I said he should get prison time.
There may not be a need but it can be useful if we suspect other factors influence sentencing to compare cases like this which both have high profile people involved. That happens all the time. It’s no comment on the victims. That isn’t what is happening here and I resent being told I’m doing something that insensitive when I’m not. We clearly do, as a society, see child offences as more serious. That’s not a comment on adult victims but on the effects things happening in childhood have on someone’s life.

I was under the impression experts thought most creators of child abuse images who are not selling them for money would abuse children whether the images were taken or not. So while viewing does create a market for the image, it doesn’t create a market for the abuse - which happens anyway.

Thinking abhorrent things isn't against the law. Creating a market for children to be sexually tortured is.

A few years ago I read a piece by a woman who is now a campaigner against child sexual torture imagery. One of her earliest memories was being taken to the basement of a department store as a small child, where she and another child had to engage in sexual acts, which were filmed. And that was just the start - things got rapidly darker, from there. Her parents had made her available, and they did this to her throughout her childhood in order to pay for their lifestyle. They weren't paedophiles, and never directly abused her. They just wanted the money. She was raped, from very small, most often by grown men. Her distress and pain was part of the appeal, commercially. The images and footage remain all over the internet. Her parents weren't even especially poor - just greedy and ruthless. She was made to feel responsible for the family's income.

She commented that as an adult in group therapy, her peers would be devastated over one rape, and she found this astonishing. She literally could not remember how many times she had been raped through her childhood, or by how many men. And her parents did this to her - solely for the money. It's unfathomable, but it happens, because as long as men exist who will pay to watch children being raped, people will provide their children to be raped for commercial gain. That woman would never have been abused, had there been no market of men wanting to consume the footage. People like Eric Joyce.

That is what people do when they access this. They encourage people to rape and sexually assault children for profit, or to make their kids available for such abuse. It's a commercial transaction as well as paedophile criminality. And it's funded by the remote participants. They've supported a market - and the cost can be counted in raped and trafficked children. They're not solely thinking abhorrent thoughts, and it's not without impact on child victims. You might as well argue that meat eaters who don't personally work in abbatoirs are vegetarians.

Eric Joyce is absolute fucking scum, and he belongs in jail. That's not the judge's fault. As has been said, there are judicial guidelines. But as a society we don't take it seriously enough as the human rights atrocity it is. This is an industry that trades on the mass commercialised rape of children. Anyone engaging in it, in any way, is complicit. And the criminal penalty should reflect that fact.

Found the piece.

The journalist cites the UN in saying that child sexual abuse online was a billion dollar industry - and the article is almost a decade old.

Thank you for your post. It’s overwhelming and deeply disturbing. It’s also important, no matter how difficult, for us to share this and really stress everything involved in child abuse, everyone and every link and every cause. We must see it for how serious it is and our sentencing should reflect that.
I don’t really care now if anyone thinks I’m creating hierarchies. We already have one and I didn’t create it. If we take one so seriously that sentencing reflects that, then the other should too. That’s the damn point.
Anyone connected to any image of child abuse should be in prison. I would never trust anyone like that again.

I do understand why you are querying this. My only suggestion for an explanation is that Eric Joyce pleaded guilty whereas Charlie Elphicke initially pleaded not guilty and only changed his plea at the last minute. We do not know if Eric Joyce provided information that would be helpful for the police and Crown Prosecution Service. The judge today also referred to the 'pack of lies' he had told. His trial also involved several attacks on women and the attempts he made to prevent the women reporting him. I think allthose factors made a custodial sentence more likely. I think Charlie Elphicke plans to appeal.

I wish the entry point, regardless of plea, was prison time for distribution or possession. Such as, starting point of 2 years

Charlie Elphicke also belongs in jail. His sentence is justified - he treated women as objects for his own use. It's not that he doesn't, it's that Joyce belongs in the next cell.

The sad aspect is that I am surprised at Elphicke's sentence. Men who harm women without leaving visible scars rarely seem to attract custodial sentences - and when it's domestic abuse, not always even then.

The problem with understating the harm of virtual CSA offences is distinct and discrete from Elphicke's case. As we all know, the real surprise is that he was charged at all. Recent statistical evidence is that the odds of that happening were vanishingly low to begin with. So that's one positive - a judge took what he did seriously.

Excellent posts by wbw.