News1 min ago
Stuart Hall
I am reading today's Guardian and there is a rather unsettling report on page 2 about the sentence that Hall has been given. Its been discussed on here recently whether the sentence was long enough and the Attorney General is now to review the case apparently. So we must wait and see what results from that review.
What is worrying me is that the parents of some of the very young girls that he molested knew about the abuse at the time "but did not report him"
What kind of parent knows that an old man has groped and seriously assaulted their nine year daughter and then does nothing about it ? Those parents allowed other children that came after to be assaulted in the same way. If they had done what they should have done and gone straight to a police station, those other children might have been spared their ordeal.
What is worrying me is that the parents of some of the very young girls that he molested knew about the abuse at the time "but did not report him"
What kind of parent knows that an old man has groped and seriously assaulted their nine year daughter and then does nothing about it ? Those parents allowed other children that came after to be assaulted in the same way. If they had done what they should have done and gone straight to a police station, those other children might have been spared their ordeal.
Answers
I'm sure, in hindsight, many of these parents would have wished they had acted differently. I imagine many of them would have viewed it as an isolated incident and not a 'pattern' of behaviour but have removed their children from any situations where it could be repeated.
12:16 Tue 18th Jun 2013
I would urge everyone to read the judges sentencing remarks in full, before coming to a view on whether the sentence was fair or not - but we will await the response of the AG obviously
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As to why those parents who knew about the incidents involving their own children did nothing - I really cannot say. Maybe they simply did not believe their child, dismissing it as childish imaginings or just made up. Maybe they just could not conceive that such a thing could happen.
Its a crying shame that they chose to ignore or not act upon the reports from their children though- could have saved others from a similar fate and could have stopped Hall in his tracks and brought him to justice much earlier....
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As to why those parents who knew about the incidents involving their own children did nothing - I really cannot say. Maybe they simply did not believe their child, dismissing it as childish imaginings or just made up. Maybe they just could not conceive that such a thing could happen.
Its a crying shame that they chose to ignore or not act upon the reports from their children though- could have saved others from a similar fate and could have stopped Hall in his tracks and brought him to justice much earlier....
I noted in your other thread that people have to be tried by the laws effective when the crime was committed.
As the maximum sentence available for these offences was 2 years at the time that was the maximum available to the judge
He started his consideration at 20 months presumably because in his assessment the crimes, although very serious were not in his opinion the worst imaginable under the offence and then applied a discount for a guilty plea
Seems to me that give or take a few months the sentence was probably about correct.
Obviously someone committing a similar offence today would face a much stiffer sentence under current legislation.
As the maximum sentence available for these offences was 2 years at the time that was the maximum available to the judge
He started his consideration at 20 months presumably because in his assessment the crimes, although very serious were not in his opinion the worst imaginable under the offence and then applied a discount for a guilty plea
Seems to me that give or take a few months the sentence was probably about correct.
Obviously someone committing a similar offence today would face a much stiffer sentence under current legislation.
Many reasons for not reporting such assualt, including parental concern about the additional trauma of a police investigation and trial.
Things were very different in those days - no soft interview rooms, very few WPCs, no specialist child abuse teams.
Some people believe it is better to just put it all behind you and get on - especially as in most cases there was no physical evidence
Things were very different in those days - no soft interview rooms, very few WPCs, no specialist child abuse teams.
Some people believe it is better to just put it all behind you and get on - especially as in most cases there was no physical evidence
If people believed that hc4361, then they were patently wrong !
Apparently abuse that people suffered at the hands of Saville nearly 60 years ago has proved to be so dreadful that these people have seen the need to go to the newspapers about it, not just the police. And rightly so, I may add.
All that those seriously misguided parents achieved was to ensure that Hall and the rest went on to strike time and time again. When all this came out about Saville recently, BBC personalities couldn't wait to get in front of a camera or a microphone to say "well, we all knew something was wrong about Saville, etc"
If they and others had spoken up at the time, an awful lot of people, most of them very young girls would have been spared the terrible rapes and sexual assaults that they suffered.
Apparently abuse that people suffered at the hands of Saville nearly 60 years ago has proved to be so dreadful that these people have seen the need to go to the newspapers about it, not just the police. And rightly so, I may add.
All that those seriously misguided parents achieved was to ensure that Hall and the rest went on to strike time and time again. When all this came out about Saville recently, BBC personalities couldn't wait to get in front of a camera or a microphone to say "well, we all knew something was wrong about Saville, etc"
If they and others had spoken up at the time, an awful lot of people, most of them very young girls would have been spared the terrible rapes and sexual assaults that they suffered.
Under the Sexual Offences Act 1956, the maximum was two years, or, if tried by the magistrates' court, 6 months or £100 fine (!) or both (£100 was quite a lot of money in 1956). The judge was thinking of the old maximum for just one offence, as his starting point. He could have imposed consecutives or a mixture of concurrent and consecutives. It's bit of a legal nicety; the limit is because the 2003 Act is deemed to have created a new, redefined , offence when it redescribes an existing one. If the old Act had been in force but the penalties increased, he could have increased the sentence to the new level; that's what happened to the £100 fine (above). But he can still sentence in accordance with modern thinking, this being a case of multiple counts, he can do it by consecutives for the worst examples and concurrent for the rest, just as he could have done in the past.
Don't suppose that parents wanted to believe the child, but doing so, took the view that a) accusing Hall would get them nowhere b) he would not meet the girl again
Don't suppose that parents wanted to believe the child, but doing so, took the view that a) accusing Hall would get them nowhere b) he would not meet the girl again
/// I'm sure, in hindsight, many of these parents would have wished they had acted differently. ///
One has only to notice what goes off in some overseas holiday hotels.
Some mothers allow their daughters to dress as if they are the younger sister of the mother, and then push them forward for the attention of the foreign staff, and then seem delighted when the waiter, bar staff, entertainer, courier etc takes a fancy to them.
Could this be what happened in some of these cases all those years ago?
One has only to notice what goes off in some overseas holiday hotels.
Some mothers allow their daughters to dress as if they are the younger sister of the mother, and then push them forward for the attention of the foreign staff, and then seem delighted when the waiter, bar staff, entertainer, courier etc takes a fancy to them.
Could this be what happened in some of these cases all those years ago?
These victims have got justice because Hall is famous.
There are many thousands of victims who can't get justice because the don't know who they're attacker was.
Other victims do know the identity of their attacker but because he (or she) isn't famous it is just one person's word against another - if there are other victims they can't be found.
There are many thousands of victims who can't get justice because the don't know who they're attacker was.
Other victims do know the identity of their attacker but because he (or she) isn't famous it is just one person's word against another - if there are other victims they can't be found.
AOG - Hall has pleaded guilty in a British Court of Law to those offences with which he was charged.
Surely you are not trying to second guess the details at this late stage?
He was charged, admitted that he had committed offences and has been sentenced.
To try to suggest that the victims may have been culpable is a rather unsavoury trend.
Surely you are not trying to second guess the details at this late stage?
He was charged, admitted that he had committed offences and has been sentenced.
To try to suggest that the victims may have been culpable is a rather unsavoury trend.
Quite aog, I expect that these girls were "asking for it" especially the nine year-old and the ten year-old whom Hall plied with champagne and as for any of the ones whose parents didn't report it, you just can't imagine how dreadfully they behaved! Are you trying to defend Hall and his type by blaming the parents, aog ? At what point does this stop being a defence and become a mitigation so bad that counsel wouldn't dare to use it?
hc4361...not quite sure what pint you are failing to make here. If a child, or anybody else for that matter doesn't know the identity of the attacker, then it would be difficult to investigate, but not impossible surely ? If a child was attending an event at which Hall, or Saville was attending as well, what was achieved by the parents ignoring their child's complaint ?
I repeat, that all the parents of those children achieved was the further molestation of other children. How can that be excused ?
I repeat, that all the parents of those children achieved was the further molestation of other children. How can that be excused ?
Part of the answer, mikey, may be that the parents had no reason to believe that Hall was a serial offender and so they would not be alone in being able to reporting it. With Savile, it was plain that the police didn't know he was a serial offender; there was no link between various forces which worked to make that obvious. Once there was, the reports came flooding in from people who themselves had thought they were unique. And we know just how far those who did report it at the time got. Nowhere.
Fred...I can't answer for AOG but I quite sure that he didn't mean that the kids were asking for it, and its kind of ridiculous to suggest he did.
But I see very young girls dressed entirely inappropriately these days. Some time ago ASDA ( I think ) was accused of selling clothes for 5 year old girls that made them look like tarts, with padded bras incorporated in them for God sake. The shop soon withdrew them from sale under the resultant furore, and quite rightly so. But some parents were buying these items, otherwise the shop wouldn't have been selling them in the first place.
It would seem that some parents, a small minority I would hope, need to realise what is and isn't acceptable. Dressing their little girls up as tarts certainly isn't.
But I see very young girls dressed entirely inappropriately these days. Some time ago ASDA ( I think ) was accused of selling clothes for 5 year old girls that made them look like tarts, with padded bras incorporated in them for God sake. The shop soon withdrew them from sale under the resultant furore, and quite rightly so. But some parents were buying these items, otherwise the shop wouldn't have been selling them in the first place.
It would seem that some parents, a small minority I would hope, need to realise what is and isn't acceptable. Dressing their little girls up as tarts certainly isn't.
It is very disappointing on threads such as this to see the slow shift of blame turning onto the victims.........
I don't know for certain that they weren't rouge-cheeked little temptresses, but I think the chances of that being the case to be vanishingly small.
Stuart Hall acknowledges what he did was criminal and wrong and I think *that* is the beginning and end of it!
I don't know for certain that they weren't rouge-cheeked little temptresses, but I think the chances of that being the case to be vanishingly small.
Stuart Hall acknowledges what he did was criminal and wrong and I think *that* is the beginning and end of it!
Fred...not sure what your Latin means but I am sure its very worthy and apposite.
I don't think anybody on here is blaming the victims in this affair. I am certainly not and take great exception to anybody who suggest otherwise. But parents need to realise that they should be doing all they can in keeping their children safe.
I have noticed, for instance, that on the Council Estate near where I live, their are plenty of pre-school age children playing well beyond the sight of their parents in these light warm evenings, until very close to and even after darkness falls. And I live less than 50 miles away from where April Jones was snatched from the area where she lived.
If the horrible death of a little girl, as recently as this won't shake the parents up, then I don't know what will. We need to keep our children from harm because there will always be the Halls, Savilles, and Mark Butchers of the world somewhere close, at any time. We don't need to be paranoid about it, just careful.
Seems common sense to me.
I don't think anybody on here is blaming the victims in this affair. I am certainly not and take great exception to anybody who suggest otherwise. But parents need to realise that they should be doing all they can in keeping their children safe.
I have noticed, for instance, that on the Council Estate near where I live, their are plenty of pre-school age children playing well beyond the sight of their parents in these light warm evenings, until very close to and even after darkness falls. And I live less than 50 miles away from where April Jones was snatched from the area where she lived.
If the horrible death of a little girl, as recently as this won't shake the parents up, then I don't know what will. We need to keep our children from harm because there will always be the Halls, Savilles, and Mark Butchers of the world somewhere close, at any time. We don't need to be paranoid about it, just careful.
Seems common sense to me.
@ Mikey - I am sure you are not blaming the victims, Mikey - or at least, you do not mean to.
Here is the problem though.A logical inference that can be drawn from your argument is that the clothes that the children might be wearing makes them a complicit accomplice to their own attack - that somehow. by virtue of dress or demeanour. the victim is "asking for it". This is a form of mitigation ajd defence for a deviant attacker.
It should not matter a jot the way a girl is dressed.This applies to adult women too.
Men are not animals with just a thin veneer of civilisation painted over them,helpless and enslaved their penis and their sexual urges. They have a mind, a conscience, a moral sense of right or wrong, however atrophied that should override sexual compulsion.
"She was asking for it" should never be a defence or a mitigation.
Here is the problem though.A logical inference that can be drawn from your argument is that the clothes that the children might be wearing makes them a complicit accomplice to their own attack - that somehow. by virtue of dress or demeanour. the victim is "asking for it". This is a form of mitigation ajd defence for a deviant attacker.
It should not matter a jot the way a girl is dressed.This applies to adult women too.
Men are not animals with just a thin veneer of civilisation painted over them,helpless and enslaved their penis and their sexual urges. They have a mind, a conscience, a moral sense of right or wrong, however atrophied that should override sexual compulsion.
"She was asking for it" should never be a defence or a mitigation.
LazyGun
\\\\It should not matter a jot the way a girl is dressed.This applies to adult women too. \\\
"Should" is the operative word here.....but life is not always like that.
\\\\Men are not animals with just a thin veneer of civilisation painted over them,helpless and enslaved their penis and their sexual urges\\\
Should read "most men."
mikey is not using the oft used phrase "asking for it".....he is too polite..........but I might use it.
\\\\It should not matter a jot the way a girl is dressed.This applies to adult women too. \\\
"Should" is the operative word here.....but life is not always like that.
\\\\Men are not animals with just a thin veneer of civilisation painted over them,helpless and enslaved their penis and their sexual urges\\\
Should read "most men."
mikey is not using the oft used phrase "asking for it".....he is too polite..........but I might use it.
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