Rolf Harris

[TigerTedd]

13 minutes ago, ronnieronalde said:

Such a brave post by the way.  On a very sensitive subject you've managed to put across a point of view I struggle to agree with really well.

You clearly trust your mate 100% and that decision should be yours and yours alone. I can't imagine for one second you'd put your kids into the care of someone if you had even the tiniest of doubts. Without being all cheesy, he's lucky to have such a loyal friend stand behind him.

duck the social services.

Although there are no doubt some fantastic caring people working for them, they take their eye of too many obvious cases for me to respect the profession. 

My sister is a social worker, so I know there’s a lot to deal with, and a lot of scum bags out there. But it’s the total lack of common sense that pissed me right off about this one. 

Dont want to get into too many details, cos there’s a lot of he said she said, and I’m always going to come down on the side of my mate, but basically his lawyer told him he should plead guilty, because if he pled not guilty and tried to defend himself, then he’d loose, simply because the courts will always believe the young girl. And if he lost, the courts would see that he’s got no remorse, so he’d end up with a custodial sentence. Better to just plead guilty, and have a better chance of a suspended sentence. 

It was a really shitty situation. He was still almost willing to fight it on a matter of principle, til it occurred to him he’d be leaving his disabled wife without a career if he went to prison. 

Whats poo about that then, is you’ve got to convince the judge that you truly believe you’re guilty, even though he really didn’t. So he’s standing in court hearing the judge talk to him like dirt, and he’s just got to stare at the ground and say it’s all true, essentially purgering himself. 

He then had to visit a probation officer every week for 2 years whose job it was to re-educate him about why what he did was so wrong, and if the probation officer ever thought he wasn’t genuine about his remorse, he could recommend a custodial sentence after all. 

So when you see in the films that people take the plea bargain and get a lighter sentence, it really isn’t as simple as that in real life. 

And to bring it back in subject, I blame Rolf Harris actually. It was all around the time of the whole witch hunt on dirty old celebs. This girl had started uni, and we firmly believe that she basically said the story to a mate and sensationalised it to appear interesting and relevant with her past trauma. Her mate then persuaded her to go the police with the story, and the whole thing just snowballed. We hear that she even enquires about dropping the charges, cos it had all got out of hand, but was advised that she may then be prosecuted, so she sort of had to let it all play out. 

So, yeah, Rolf, cheers for that. 

Funny how Yewtree isn’t flavour of the month in the papers any more, and they haven’t caught any more celeb peados recently. Remember they were looking into that MP peado ring, and eventually nothing ever came of it. It all stopped being the media thing, and it all just fizzled our. Harvey Weinstein stole Jimmy Saville’s thunder and #metoo became the thing instead. 

[TigerTedd]

1 hour ago, StringerBell said:

Paedophiles wouldn't be interested in 17 year olds so that makes no sense. And do gynaecologists need fannies?

Exactly, but because 17 is a classed as a minor (despite the fact that you can get married at 16!) he’s put in the same class as some creepy kiddie fiddler and put under the same restrictions. 

[Comrade 86]

Harris is a sex case, pure and simple. I couldn't give a flying **** what his 'preferences' are, he's no business wandering uninvited into a school, whatever the pretext. And would folk still be soft-soaping his crimes if it had been their daughters he abused while his own daughter was in the bed next to them? Fact is, it's not really for anyone other than the victims and their parents to decide whether what he did was a severe case or not, is it, so best be quiet really as some on here will doubtless be finding your musings utterly disgusting.

[Sith Happens]

10 hours ago, Spanish said:

 

I believe he was found guilty for 11 out of 12 alleged offences.  He was not found guilty for the accusation involving the 7/8 year old, fwiw 

I googled it as wasn't sure but had a feeling younger were involved.

The first article i found does state a 7 or 8 year old.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/rolf-harris-sentenced-to-five-years-and-nine-months-in-prison-for-string-of-indecent-assaults-9583589.html

It might be wrong of course. Sort of irrelevant i dont think its right he should be living so close to a school.

 

 

[TigerTedd]

14 minutes ago, Paul71 said:

I googled it as wasn't sure but had a feeling younger were involved.

The first article i found does state a 7 or 8 year old.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/rolf-harris-sentenced-to-five-years-and-nine-months-in-prison-for-string-of-indecent-assaults-9583589.html

It might be wrong of course. Sort of irrelevant i dont think its right he should be living so close to a school.

 

 

To be honest, I’ve waxed into this debate from a position of total ignorance regarding Rolf’s case. Just something about the originally quoted newspaper article annoyed me. 

[King Kevin]

There re some strange people out there  my wife and myself used to be foster parents .With one exception the children were all young girls  whose parents had split up, mums new partner [or family member] sexually assaults daughter and mum sticks up for boyfriend and kicks the child out . 

Two social workers would be involved ours and the child's, theirs would lie through their back teeth to get a child placed with you so it made their life easier ,we had  kids that should have been in special care [all down to the wifes expertise I must say] but we kept them in a family environment.

We had a twelve year old who was pregnant by mums new family member and the father who had already attacked a social worker found out where she was living and threatened to sort me out ,as I say funny world out there.

[TigerTedd]

29 minutes ago, King Kevin said:

There re some strange people out there  my wife and myself used to be foster parents .With one exception the children were all young girls  whose parents had split up, mums new partner [or family member] sexually assaults daughter and mum sticks up for boyfriend and kicks the child out . 

Two social workers would be involved ours and the child's, theirs would lie through their back teeth to get a child placed with you so it made their life easier ,we had  kids that should have been in special care [all down to the wifes expertise I must say] but we kept them in a family environment.

We had a twelve year old who was pregnant by mums new family member and the father who had already attacked a social worker found out where she was living and threatened to sort me out ,as I say funny world out there.

My sister is a social worker, as I’ve said, and so is her husband. They did fostering for a while. But they stopped when the 14 year old girl they were looking after accused him of assault. Turns out when she was visiting her mum, the mum had the plan that if she accused him of assault, they’d take her off the foster family and return her to her mum. Which of course, never would have worked, cos she’d just go to a different foster family. 

[StringerBell]

10 hours ago, TigerTedd said:

My sister is a social worker, as I’ve said, and so is her husband. They did fostering for a while. But they stopped when the 14 year old girl they were looking after accused him of assault. Turns out when she was visiting her mum, the mum had the plan that if she accused him of assault, they’d take her off the foster family and return her to her mum. Which of course, never would have worked, cos she’d just go to a different foster family. 

I've only been a social worker 11 months and encountered this more than once.