Peter Wilby - warning CSA

[IcakethereforeIam]

Just read this article in the Guardian. It reminded me of a very similar one I read recently. I wanted to post it on here but completely forgot where I'd seen it. The previous article (probably the DM) was fairly scathing on the Guardian virtually ignoring the conviction of its former editor and completely ignoring the ramifications of his behaviour while in post. He was a user of csa material and used his influence and position to undermine safeguarding, smear whistle blowers and victims, and kill stories.

I wonder, in a few years, will we look back and see even more influential men and women currently using their influence and positions in the current war on women, children and safeguarding?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/02/peter-wilby-editor-child-sexual-abuse

The last sentence of the article is a question that I can answer

Wilby leaves us a tough question: will we ever learn?

All the evidence points to 'No'.

Just noticed it's under the Observer banner, but it's got today's date.

Just in the interests of accuracy, he was an editor of the Independent on Sunday, not the Guardian. He was a columnist for the Guardian.

The Guardian have belatedly taken down the eight columns (out of hundreds - so too many but not a proportion that would automatically wave red flags) in which he argued that we're all making too much of a fuss about paedophiles.

The Independent don't seem to have said anything at all.

Thanks for the correction, he seems to have been everywhere and not been shy of using his influence.

"The Guardian have belatedly taken down the eight columns (out of hundreds - so too many but not a proportion that would automatically wave red flags) in which he argued that we're all making too much of a fuss about paedophiles".

Is this true? As that's what we're seeing now - and in significant numbers - a number of men (and some women) arguing that women talking about safeguarding children are using transphobic dogwhistles.

That is so so sad and it makes me so angry. I think if people could really grasp just how prolific the issues of child sexual abuse are there would finally be some scope to address it. So so so many children are abused by people who should care for them. So many children are abused to fill the boots of the taboo fantasy life of creeps. Families and organisations close ranks when abuse comes out and act to prophecy abusers more often than not.

There is more than a paedophile on every corner. In Ireland we have an abuse survivor organisation called 1 in 4 because at best estimate that is how many children they believe in the population have experienced sexual abuse. That suggests that 25% of all children experience sexual abuse. You see 4 children and those stats mean that 1 out of them is likely to be sexually abused during childhood. I’ve read statistics that say it is 33% of girls. When are people going to wake up to the scale of abusers that need to be out there for those kinds of numbers to exist.

Inter generational trauma means that sexual abuse gets passed down through generations of children as much or more than eye colour yet every instance of it is reported as rare as the rarest of diamonds rather than endemic and prolific common behaviour that needs to be addressed head on through completely cracking down on it and enormously investing in education.

This is the Daily Mail's story on the subject. Obviously they have their own bias, but based on the Guardian's actions and the article in the OP it does seem that he was systematically and unsurprisingly minimising the risk of child abusers and defending the right to privacy of the accused and those released from jail.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12446779/amp/Peter-Wilbys-paedophile-editor-Guardian-New-Statesman-campaign-PROTECT-child-abusers-GUY-ADAMS-Left-wing-columns.html

Most people still don't have a clue how widespread and embedded into powerful institutions this is.

I think this is the original article I read (Guy Adams in the DM). Just reread it. I said it was scathing, it pulls no punches at all.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12446779/Peter-Wilbys-paedophile-editor-Guardian-New-Statesman-campaign-PROTECT-child-abusers-GUY-ADAMS-Left-wing-columns.html

I'm disappointed the Guardian has removed some of Wilby's articles - I think they should have been left to stand so we could see exactly what he was up to. One of them was shared on social media shortly after his conviction, and it was chilling to read. If anyone wants to read it now there is still a cached version available, but I imagine it won't be there for much longer. I don't know how to archive these things but perhaps someone else does?

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:i2eq5-WpQDAJ:www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/nov/11/media-hysteria-child-abuse-savile&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

Thanks for these links. How utterly sordid and depressing. I note he was accompanied to court by his wife. Why? His actions are entirely his own fault and she may well have known nothing about his proclivities, but once he was arrested, how could she bear to be in the same house with him? He has two adult children, so may be a grandfather. This makes him potentially a risk to their grandchildren. The lives of those closest to him have been turned upside down. What a piece of scum he is.

So, asks GUY ADAMS, why haven't either of those bastions of Left-wing sanctimony taken down his columns?

I don't think the articles should be taken down. I think they should be amended to lead with a paragraph stating in no uncertain terms his crimes and his use of a platform to promote a pro-paedophilia agenda.

Making the articles disappear in a 1984 style serves The Guardian at a detriment to the public.

Edit: Cross-posted with RoyalCorgi. (OMG! I can edit!)

I agree the articles should be left up.

Archiving is pretty straightforward RoyalCorgi.

htt ps://web.archive.org/web/20230902133520/ webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?cd=8&ct=clnk&gl=uk&hl=en&q=cache%3Ai2eq5-WpQDAJ%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww. theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2F2012%2Fnov%2F11%2Fmedia-hysteria-child-abuse-savile

MN breaks some links to archives so this one has had 3 spaces inserted to keep the URL intact. You can copy it and remove the 3 spaces to get the working URL.

I think, I've just archived the cached article upthread

https://archive.ph/ZJAul

I have been trying to find the picture showing the faces of white men in organisations that were influential in various laws/policies that have then gone on to be convicted of crimes like this. I think I saw it on here with a contrasting list of women who are trying to maintain women’s and children’s rights.

Can anyone repost it for me please? I was trying to explain to a Guardian reader of 50 years why they need to read more than the Guardian to get a balanced viewpoint. I mentioned the wi spa reporting being completely biased and not updated to show their reporting was such. And Suzanne Moore and Hadley. I think they are realising that the days of them championing women’s rights are over.

That article by Dean Nelson is so sad. As a young journalist, he must have had very little influence. It is a reminder of the scale of the numbers of people affected. I completely agree that Wilby's articles need to remain with an addendum explaining the author's conviction. He used to write regularly for the New Statesman and even edited it at one point. I wonder what they will do. I always wondered why they allowed him to continue to write for the magazine when it nearly went broke under his editorship.

I feel like people like Wilby who denigrated campaigners like Bea Campbell were incredibly effective in creating a 'nothing to see here' culture.

Well that is a most revealing final sentence.

“Precisely because child abuse has become the most odious of crimes, allegations should be made only after the most rigorous testing of evidence.”

Note the wording: “has become” not “is”.

In other words, he doesn’t himself consider that it is the most odious; rather he observes that it is treated as/ described as the most odious.

Are there any other cached versions of his articles? The piece published under The Observer’s banner say that he argued for “nuance”. That struck me as William to the sleight of hand that Tatchell uses. It would be enlightening to compare and contrast Wilby’s and Tatchell’s writings.

Thanks, nauticant and IcakethereforeIam.

Good point, LoobiJee, about the revealing wording.

Sorry “similar to” not “William to”. Auto cucumber.

I imagine she thought he wasn’t guilty.

Until he’s convicted, he’s rightly presumed innocent.
She wouldn’t see the evidence until the trial, all she’ll have had is his assurances.
Paedophiles are cunning and manipulative. He duped a lot of people. Why single out his wife for believing him?

Archiving webpages is simple:

Go to an archiving website such as https://archive.org/ (for this website you click on Web which pulls down the relevant section) or https://archive.ph/, find the box where you can paste a webpage link that you want archived, press a button to save, archive, or whatever the webpage. You'll then be presented with a link at which the archived webpage is available.

The benefit of this approach is that you have a validated online archived copy of the webpage and it's much less susceptible to a challenge, eg "that's not real, it's Photoshopped".

In fact, over time, quite a lot of Wilby's articles have been archived at https://web.archive.org/, see <a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/www.theguardian.com/profile/peterwilby" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/www.theguardian.com/profile/peterwilby.

That's really good to know. I would hate for them to be lost.

Bah, MN has wrecked the link again, copy this:

htt ps://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/htt ps://ww w.theguardian.com/profile/peterwilby

paste it in a document, remove the 3 spaces I've inserted, copy the deleted-spaces link, and post it in a browser.

If anyone close to me, especially living in my house, were to be charged with possession of images of child sexual abuse, I would want cast iron proof that the police had made a mistake, long before the trial. But yes, point take about how manipulative PW likely was.