Owzabout That Then? The Jimmy Savile Revelations & Aftermath

[Stormkhan]

Exactly. I've always maintained that those who in effect cover up abuse cases should automatically be given the same prison sentence as the abusers. This would concentrate their minds somewhat.

I agree to a certain extent. Get caught aiding and abetting an abuser then you're as bad. It might encourage them to be more thorough in their cover-up, though.
Besides, we all know how any revelation of criminal activity in large organisations is handled - scapegoats get thrown to the wolves, the organisation washing their hands of the matter.
Hypothetical situation: a large institution, such as a school, with a board of governors and wealthy patrons, parents etc. wants to protect their reputation. A paedophile teacher is suspected. The school just protects it's reputation by 'quietly' letting the teacher go. It's covered-up abuse by removing the criminal. If it goes public that this school employed the criminal then they can say they 'investigated' the case and found no evidence apart from the word of the victim.

 

[Ogdred Weary]

More and more we hear about historic cases and there's only one conclusion; most - if not all - authorities, churches etc. put defense of their reputation or 'brand' over actual duty of care.
That's why I'm baffled that it's not law that if abuse is suspected then the police must be informed immediately. It's usually the case of the church, school etc. make their own investigation to determine if abuse has happened and then they can choose what to do with the abuser. There's no immediate requirement to report it to the police.

There aren't enough police and I doubt there could ever be enough to deal with every instance or claim of abuse.

I suspect every single institution/business/organisation/extended family as it as some point or another, in some cases it might well be isolated events or individuals in others it will be long term and endemic.

 

[maximus otter]

The Sexual Offences Act 2003 was brand-new legislation when l retired, and l wouldn’t have been involved in that sort of thing anyway.

A casual glance at it reveals s.73 Exceptions to aiding, abetting and counselling:

“(1) A person is not guilty of aiding, abetting or counselling the commission against a child of an offence to which this section applies if he acts for the purpose of—

(a) protecting the child from sexually transmitted infection,

(b) protecting the physical safety of the child,

(c) preventing the child from becoming pregnant, or

(d) promoting the child’s emotional well-being by the giving of advice,

and not for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification or for the purpose of causing or encouraging the activity constituting the offence or the child’s participation in it.

(2) This section applies to—

(a) an offence under any of sections 5 to 7 (offences against children under 13);

(b) an offence under section 9 (sexual activity with a child);

(c) an offence under section 13 which would be an offence under section 9 if the offender were aged 18;

(d) an offence under any of sections 16, 25, 30, 34 and 38 (sexual activity) against a person under 16.”

l have rendered (1)(d) in bold. My perception is that this section might be capable of being perceived/represented as a figleaf for not reporting to the police allegations of sexual misconduct with children: “l discussed Billy’s allegations with him, and pointed out that any police investigation would be long and harrowing, and possibly culminate in a terrifying court appearance. Billy decided not to proceed…”



maximus otter

 

[PeteS]

I agree to a certain extent. Get caught aiding and abetting an abuser then you're as bad. It might encourage them to be more thorough in their cover-up, though.
Besides, we all know how any revelation of criminal activity in large organisations is handled - scapegoats get thrown to the wolves, the organisation washing their hands of the matter.
Hypothetical situation: a large institution, such as a school, with a board of governors and wealthy patrons, parents etc. wants to protect their reputation. A paedophile teacher is suspected. The school just protects it's reputation by 'quietly' letting the teacher go. It's covered-up abuse by removing the criminal. If it goes public that this school employed the criminal then they can say they 'investigated' the case and found no evidence apart from the word of the victim.

Which is exactly what happened in the case I got involved with. The school didn't even have the perception to realise how far I would go, the head teacher even have the temerity to appear for the defence in the court case. Lost their job as did others.

 

[Coal]

Which is exactly what happened in the case I got involved with. The school didn't even have the perception to realise how far I would go, the head teacher even have the temerity to appear for the defence in the court case. Lost their job as did others.

 

[Ghost In The Machine]

Which is exactly what happened in the case I got involved with. The school didn't even have the perception to realise how far I would go, the head teacher even have the temerity to appear for the defence in the court case. Lost their job as did others.

When I taught I saw Head teachers who, in various situations, made terrible decisions then had to somehow cover up the consequences. Different scenarios and not this particular one. But just because nobody when I was teaching (or now) is ever trained to be a head teacher - they're often people promoted beyond their capabilities, and on several counts.

So, appearing for the defence would be an act of self preservation and totally in line with what many of us would expect, I guess. (Try and help get perp off the hook because they've utterly lost sight of the thing never being about them and their careers, but about them beng there for the kids and on the kids' side). You can see why I'd never have made head teacher.

Kudos to you, Pete. Glad that justice prevailed.

 

[escargot]

There aren't enough police and I doubt there could ever be enough to deal with every instance or claim of abuse.

I suspect every single institution/business/organisation/extended family as it as some point or another, in some cases it might well be isolated events or individuals in others it will be long term and endemic.

Thing is though, where there is an accusation of abuse within an institution that gives an offender access to children or vulnerable adults, it's vital to chase up allegations because there could be offences against multiple victims. It's unlikely to be limited to one.

 

[Coal]

Thing is though, where there is an accusation of abuse within an institution that gives an offender access to children or vulnerable adults, it's vital to chase up allegations because there could be offences against multiple victims. It's unlikely to be limited to one.

Another key point is that this is is exactly where you are going to find those kinds of predators.

 

[Ogdred Weary]

Thing is though, where there is an accusation of abuse within an institution that gives an offender access to children or vulnerable adults, it's vital to chase up allegations because there could be offences against multiple victims. It's unlikely to be limited to one.

Absolutely. I imagine/hope that the police, certainly post-Savile and possibly before, would look into any allegation, even if it seemed spurious.

What I meant was: all sorts of abuse, not just sexual, of the vulnerable, not just children, is sadly likely far more widespread than most people are willing to admit or face. I imagine that most of the cases are not reported as the victims are too afraid and that a fair amount that are reported within institutions etc are hushed up internally, sometimes successfully.

I was trying to articulate that if every single instance of abuse was suddenly made public tomorrow, there would not be enough police to deal it or if every time something happened they were contacted from tomorrow onwards. I'm also talking about recent or contemporary abuse only, if you factor in historical abuse the figures would increase enormously.

Abuse is something people, more often men than women, do to one another all the time - that doesn't make it OK, it just makes it appallingly commonplace and "normal".

 

[Cochise]

Abuse is something people, more often men than women, do to one another all the time - that doesn't make it OK, it just makes it appallingly commonplace and "normal".

I agree that physical abuse is more often carried out by men - but these days we recognise other forms of abuse and they are considerably more 'equal opportunity'.

I'm sincerely glad i grew up when I did - there was more discipline of children but actually far less control and confrontation. (And exploitation?)

 

[Ogdred Weary]

I agree that physical abuse is more often carried out by men - but these days we recognise other forms of abuse and they are considerably more 'equal opportunity'.

I'm sincerely glad i grew up when I did - there was more discipline of children but actually far less control and confrontation. (And exploitation?)

I'd imagine sexual abuse is more perpetrated by men/teenage boys than women/teenage girls - though whether that is 10% more or 10 times more is another matter. I wouldn't be surprised if cases that were purely psychological abuse were majority women/girls - though again I don't know what percentage more.

 

[escargot]

Absolutely. I imagine/hope that the police, certainly post-Savile and possibly before, would look into any allegation, even if it seemed spurious.

What I meant was: all sorts of abuse, not just sexual, of the vulnerable, not just children, is sadly likely far more widespread than most people are willing to admit or face. I imagine that most of the cases are not reported as the victims are too afraid and that a fair amount that are reported within institutions etc are hushed up internally, sometimes successfully.

I was trying to articulate that if every single instance of abuse was suddenly made public tomorrow, there would not be enough police to deal it or if every time something happened they were contacted from tomorrow onwards. I'm also talking about recent or contemporary abuse only, if you factor in historical abuse the figures would increase enormously.

Abuse is something people, more often men than women, do to one another all the time - that doesn't make it OK, it just makes it appallingly commonplace and "normal".

Yup, the scale of it enormous and always has been.
I've read that male prisons are gearing up to accommodate greater numbers of older inmates because of the historical abuse cases being investigated.

 

[Cochise]

Yup, the scale of it enormous and always has been.
I've read that male prisons are gearing up to accommodate greater numbers of older inmates because of the historical abuse cases being investigated.

As if. They'll get nowhere, just like the case against Savile. Powerful protectors. A certain senior politician and pretender for PM for one. You can see it in their eyes.

 

[Kondoru]

Thanks Pete, for doing the Right Thing.

Just the other day someone (who should know better) told me emphatically that the vast majority of abusers were men; so much that men, even if victims, should be regarded as part of the problem.

This is what we are up against.

 

[PeteS]

Thanks Pete, for doing the Right Thing.

Just the other day someone (who should know better) told me emphatically that the vast majority of abusers were men; so much that men, even if victims, should be regarded as part of the problem.

This is what we are up against.

I knew a violent female abuser who lived not too far away. She was in a position of trust as well. She got warned several times but ignored the warnings. Got several years behind bars eventually.

 

[escargot]

I knew a violent female abuser who lived not too far away. She was in a position of trust as well. She got warned several times but ignored the warnings. Got several years behind bars eventually.

I've known some, in an industry where it's notoriously true that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

Not talking about sexual abuse here, more rough-handling and threats. It was tolerated where institutions were situated a bit out of town and staff might need to travel to work.
It wasn't worth commuting for the poor pay, dismal chance of career progression, unsocial hours, heavy work, lack of perks and so on.

So there was a smaller pool of possible employees and dodgy ones were likely to get the benefit of the doubt.
You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

 

[Ghost In The Machine]

I knew a violent female abuser who lived not too far away. She was in a position of trust as well. She got warned several times but ignored the warnings. Got several years behind bars eventually.

Some here may remember my tale of my ex neighbours, who only eventually moved house when the local press exposed their address after he was found guilty of animal abuse (torturing a puppy). Thing was, his wife was also on all the recordings submitted as evidence in court, yet she was found Not Guilty on the day. She'd worked in care homes for the elderly.

Even being on the same recordings, as a female, she got away with the abuse, was let off and as a result now has no criminal record and could go out tomorrow and be caring for our elderly relatives not long after...

One incident we recorded was they were talking about the dog and he said, loud and clear, "Belt him!" There was a second's pause then a yelp. How that wasn't evidence of her attacking the animal I dunno. There were incidents we weren't able to bring up in court of stuff we'd seen but not recorded and in every single one, it had been her, not the husband, hurting kids or animals. But none of it was admissable as it was deemed irrelevant. Those magistrates let her off, despite hearing recordings of her hurting a young animal, and knowing full well she had worked and could work again, as a carer for vulnerable people. It looked like he got a guilty because male and she got a not guilty because female.

I keep an eye on the local news as I think it's inevitable that there will eventually be an incident that will hit the press again and it will be directly the fault of those magistrates who refused to convict her of something they heard recordings of her doing.

 

[escargot]

. It looked like he got a guilty because male and she got a not guilty because female.

It would be more complicated than that.

 

[Ghost In The Machine]

Another key point is that this is is exactly where you are going to find those kinds of predators.

I trained as a teacher in the late 1980s and so before a lot of the legislation or the culture that listens to the victims of this kind of crime, rather than the perps. In fact, the culture firmly favoured the perpetrators, I guess.

I dunno how common this was in education, or whether the thing we observed was a one off, or whether it happened everywhere. I was on a PGCE course with I forget but 80-100 others. Only a handful were male (primary teaching). One of the male students creeped us all (male or female) out. He seemed to have an unhealthy interest (we thought) in teaching girls' gymnastics. Really creepy looking bloke as well but he never actually did anything anyone could tangibly say was "bad". Many of us loathed PE and teaching it anyway and our course was so brief as to maybe only spend a few days, a week tops, concentrating on teaching PE including gym. So we didn't learn much most of us til we were on the job. But it was in the context of that I remember people saying "X is a bit into girls' gymnastics, isn't he?" and it was related to stuff he'd done in clubs etc out of college, IIRC.

At the final teaching practices only two students on the entire course were possibly going to fail - both male students, and he was one of them. But somehow they both scraped through and passed. But we heard that X, although he squeaked through and qualified, would have an "extra eye" on his during his probationary year (not sure how that worked but it was the case). Some of that because he had almost failed qualifying but some of that because of his unhealthy interest in girls' gymnastics.

These days he'd be failed, I have no doubt. They'd use his crapness in the classroom as an excuse to just not qualify him. I have been out of teaching for years and that probationary year got stricter after I left - but I also doubt they'd just "keep an extra eye" on a suspected paedo now. (Or how you'd administer that, given that the individual school decided whether you'd passed probation or not and all it consisted of was assigning you a "mentor" who was meant to watch you teach now and then).

This was in a very large city, around 1989. IIRC he went to teach in London. The other guy who almost failed - lovely bloke, but not one of nature's teachers lol - never taught anyway.

I do wonder if X got the PGCE purely to work in that environment, in gym clubs etc - but he'd have had to be a classroom teacher for a year first to get Qualified Teacher Status... I can't recall his name, now so can't go and see if he ever turned up in the newspapers.

 

[Mythopoeika]

These days he'd be failed, I have no doubt. They'd use his crapness in the classroom as an excuse to just not qualify him.

With so many teachers leaving the profession...? Things may become more lax, I suspect.

 

[Ghost In The Machine]

With so many teachers leaving the profession...? Things may become more lax, I suspect.

Scary thing is, IIRC he did just disappear into London which in those days was a load of different LEAs, so how they earmarked him as "watch this one", I have no clue... Those amateur/ afterschool clubs for kids learning gymnastics, would probably be run by people who weren't qualified teachers, on the whole, in those days? So he probably had the pick of where to work a year on.

We all found it unsettling but nobody seemed to know how common that was, as a scenario "Oh we'll just keep an extra eye on him".

 

[escargot]

Scary thing is, IIRC he did just disappear into London which in those days was a load of different LEAs, so how they earmarked him as "watch this one", I have no clue... Those amateur/ afterschool clubs for kids learning gymnastics, would probably be run by people who weren't qualified teachers, on the whole, in those days? So he probably had the pick of where to work a year on.

We all found it unsettling but nobody seemed to know how common that was, as a scenario "Oh we'll just keep an extra eye on him".

Can you ask around, see if you can find out his name?

 

[Ghost In The Machine]

Can you ask around, see if you can find out his name?

No, I've lost contact with my old college mates years ago - doubt I could find anyone online I knew from there! (But they wouldn't remember either probably - he wasn't close to anyone on the course). I can't remember his name but can totally remember what he looked like!

 

[PeteS]

With so many teachers leaving the profession...? Things may become more lax, I suspect.

You used to be able to look at a government web page to see a list of the names of teachers and what offence they had been suspended or dismissed for. It amazed me that drugs, porn on school computers and similar only resulted in a short suspension. Perhaps a sign of the shortage of recruits to the profession?

 

[PeteS]

I've known some, in an industry where it's notoriously true that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

Not talking about sexual abuse here, more rough-handling and threats. It was tolerated where institutions were situated a bit out of town and staff might need to travel to work.
It wasn't worth commuting for the poor pay, dismal chance of career progression, unsocial hours, heavy work, lack of perks and so on.

So there was a smaller pool of possible employees and dodgy ones were likely to get the benefit of the doubt.
You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

I'm guessing that you're referring to the care industry, where this stuff, whilst not exactly rife, is reported frequently. Surprisingly, the Police don't always want to get involved even with CCTV evidence. Care Quality Commission appear to keep a very watchful eye on care homes where this happens though.
A good few years ago Ms P sacked a couple of care employees who were under investigation by various authorities including the Police. They immediately got a job at another care home nearby, which goes to show that the system sometimes grinds slowly. A bit scary really.

 

[escargot]

I'm guessing that you're referring to the care industry, where this stuff, whilst not exactly rife, is reported frequently. Surprisingly, the Police don't always want to get involved even with CCTV evidence. Care Quality Commission appear to keep a very watchful eye on care homes where this happens though.
A good few years ago Ms P sacked a couple of care employees who were under investigation by various authorities including the Police. They immediately got a job at another care home nearby, which goes to show that the system sometimes grinds slowly. A bit scary really.

Spot-on. I've personally known staff to drift between care jobs in exactly that way, for the same reason.
Places are so short of staff they'll take on the known bad'uns unless it's so illegal it's impossible, say if someone is licence from a stretch for GBH. Only a small exaggeration there, as you'll know.

Here's an old Guardian article I cited in one of my Criminology papers. It was of course newer then!
I've mentioned it before on this very thread.

Hidden plague of sexual abuse grips care homes

Professionals refused to believe it at first, but there is now undeniable evidence that the abuse of old people in homes is on a level with the paedophile menace
...
'Anyone who bothers to look into it cannot fail to realise that the sexual abuse of elderly people in care homes is horribly prevalent,' said Ginny Jenkin, director of Action for Elder Abuse, whose helpline has received around 160 calls from frantic families and care homes since 1997 concerning extreme sexual abuse in care homes, a figure she says grossly underrepresents the true level of the abuse taking place.

'People find it hard to understand why anyone would want to abuse an old person, but someone suffering some mental and physical frailty is the perfect victim: they can't defend themselves, they can't get away, and if they're able to communicate they're probably not believed. What more could any abuser want?' she said.

'It's not about sex, it's about power,' she added. 'There are even pages on paedophile websites encouraging men finding it hard to access children to gain employment at care homes. They say the sex is just as good and there's far less risk of getting caught.'

'...the sex is just as good and there's far less risk of getting caught.' Chilling.

This is still not a massive national scandal. We can see why.

 

[escargot]

No, I've lost contact with my old college mates years ago - doubt I could find anyone online I knew from there! (But they wouldn't remember either probably - he wasn't close to anyone on the course). I can't remember his name but can totally remember what he looked like!

You will suddenly remember his name when you least expect it.
The subconscious is grinding away, sifting through all the thousands of names you've learned over the years, comparing them to your clear memory of his face.
Give it time.

Also, some people have a scarily accurate memory for names. Chances are, one of your former colleagues will know what Pervy Sir was called and should your paths cross, they will ask if you've heard any more of him.

 

[Erinaceus]

I can remember plenty of names from work until I transferred to a different location in 1980 but can only recall a handful since then. It seems the wrong way round.

 

[escargot]

I can remember plenty of names from work until I transferred to a different location in 1980 but can only recall a handful since then. It seems the wrong way round.

The names are all there, lurking.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

I'm not sure the Steve Coogan drama about Savile, due out sometime this year, is a good idea:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2...-air-this-year-despite-concerns-over-reaction