The Magistrate's blog comments on the situation.
I recommend the blog most highly, by the way; he's a thoughtful guy and it's very interesting to read about his thought processes.
In my earlier post I got myself in a tangle. A better way to say what I meant is:
"- it would make sense, given that life expectancy has exceeded 25 for only a few thousand years"
The Magistrate's blog comments on the situation.
I recommend the blog most highly, by the way; he's a thoughtful guy and it's very interesting to read about his thought processes.
I think it became clear yesterday how Chris Langham could escape a harsh sentence.
Seems if you're a senior Jehovah's Witness in Avon & Somerset, you can get off quite lightly (link - beware, you might have a blood boiling moment reading this one)...
I'm astonished that they gave his address in such detail.
And it's quite close to my home too, lovely...
so 24 actual assaults over a 14 year period and because he has had some "therapy" he gets no jail only "three years of community rehabilitation." - mind you that may be worse than jail if he admits to the asbo neds what he's there for...but i doubt he will
It does seem strange on the face of it - but then I'm not keen on the whole idea of "character" affecting your sentence. If you've done the crime, you're a criminal. And if you've done it dozens of times, you're not exactly a first offender.
There's always more to the story, of course, and it's easy to leap to snap judgements. But even his sister thinks he should be locked up.
I heard this story on the radio news yesterday, and it made me so angry
This guy physically abused 24 youngsters, and gets off with a community therapy order. The police officers who dealt with this case must be pulling their hair out. The competence of the Judge in this case needs to be seriously looked into.
They're considering an appeal apparently.
It's easy to rush to judgement, especially in this case, but like it or not we have a judicial process, and that's got to be followed.
Exactamundo.
Sexual assault is a spectrum from touching somebody fleetingly through their clothes right the way through to just short of rape. A history of sexual assaults is worrying but not necessarily an indication of severity.
The police commentator seems not to realise that deterrence is not the be-all and end-all of sentencing. In any event, other people have received very long jail sentences and so it cannot be said that this one sentence cancels out all the 'deterrent' messages that have been sent out elsewhere.
He's obviously pleaded guilty. That means a) great saving in police time; b) none of his victims has had to go through the process leading up to trial, let alone give evidence; c) great savings in court costs and time. Also, he's voluntarily started to undergo therapy.
Against that none of this would have happened if he hadn't been busted by a victim, so that goes on the other side of the scales.
Yeah - if the guy had voluntarily come forward and confessed, if he knew he had a problem and wanted to deal with it, that'd be different - you can see a stronger justification there.
Whereas "confession" when you're about to be caught seems like plea-bargaining to me, plain and simple.
I'm thinking that the BBC report made a significant effort to point out that Porter is a Jehovah's Witness. There are specific issues surrounding JW and child abuse, about which there was a Panorama episode a few years back. Basically, the church's peculiar interpretation of some Biblical passages makes reporting abuse extremely difficult.
I doubt we've heard the last about this story, from that angle.
Sure, the Catholic Church covers plenty up, but the cover-up mechanism is not actually structural within its doctrine, to the same degree. Proportionate to the size of the religion (about 17 million JWs, about 1.1 billion Catholics), I'd say the problem is at comparable levels, if not worse within JW. By the very nature of the issue it's difficult to say, of course, but I'd dispute your assertion.
Anyway, going off-topic a bit into what will probably become another religion-bashing session. I'll drop it now.
Actually, it is - have a look here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/h...en_english.pdf
(The original letter is in Latin)
Section 11 is the relevant part - basically it says "keep it quiet".
Also see here:
BBC NEWS | Programmes | Panorama | Sex crimes and the Vatican: Transcript
To quote:
Now, fair enough, that's just one view - but it's at least some evidence of an intituionalised cover-up policy.Father TOM DOYLE
Canon Lawyer
Crimen sollicitationis is indicative of a world-wide policy of absolute secrecy and control of all cases of sexual abuse by the clergy. But what you really have here is an explicit written policy to cover up cases of child sexual abuse by the clergy, to punish those who would call attention to these crimes by churchmen. You've got a written policy that says the Vatican will control these situations, and you also have, I think, clear written evidence of the fact that all they're concerned about is containing and controlling the problem. Nowhere in any of these documents does it say anything about helping the victims. The only thing it does is say that they can impose fear on the victims, and punish the victims, for discussing or disclosing what had happened to them.
Possibly - I dunno about prevalence of abuse itself, I was talking about the cover-up side of things.
Too late
so...er...nice weather we're having.....
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Bookmarks