Saturday
Not only is innocent until proven guilty on the way out. The idea of limited and defined punishment for crime is too.
It appears the Sex Offenders Register which is supposed to.... well, I am not really sure what it is supposed to do, other than provide meat for the slavering tabloids, creates an ad hoc police power to get you banned from performing on TV. The BBC reports Police alert over TV contestant, in which a police spokesman says:
"There were concerns that with him being on the programme he might be seen by his victim or the victim's family and there would be consequences from that. Lancashire Police spoke with the producers and suggested that it would not be in anyone's interests for him to continue with the programme."
One does not suppose the "victim or victim's family" could remain unaware after an entirely predictable national media alert. And the consequences for the man concerned of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people who had no reason to know being told in the broadest terms he is "a sex offender" and the rest left to the mob's squalid imagination? While 'sexual offences' is a broad category, from thought-crime, to bad manners, to genuinely consensual but officially barred conduct, ... to the most serious violent crimes, one can be registered for any of them, even if there is no trial and no other punishment. The public obsession runs only one way, however.
You'll be even more pleased to know that this man has an entry on the Register simply because his crime was to tickle the feet of a 14-year old boy at a party. How bizarre that such a thing is considered worthy of a place on the Register.
I genuinely feel sorry for him. He's had his life ruined all because Lancashire Constabulary felt the need to warn against a dangerous feet-tickler, apparently because children were involved in the show.
Posted by James at June 16, 2007 03:34 PM
I'm glad you revealed his 'crime' James. I also feel sorry for him.
I don't know the exact nature of laws in the US but it has been my impression most judged guilty have committed real offenses; typical being an adult making unwanted physical contact with a minor, with the intent and/or completion of sexual gratification. Maybe the laws should be narrowed to cases of unquestionable abuse to justify revealing an offender's identity because if I were a parent I would want the right to know if such an individual were living in the vicinity of my home and neighborhood where my children play. So I agree with the establishment of a Registry but only for specific acts fulfilling an obvious definition of what is indeed a transgression, as it has been proven time again such persons have a high likelihood to offend again.
Posted by Steevo at June 16, 2007 07:29 PM
Of course, in Viriginia there is that 17yo boy facing a ten year prison sentence for getting a blow job from a 15 yo girl at a party. He has already spend over a year in jail awaiting trial. After he finishes his jail term he will be on the sex offender's register for life.
Posted by ResidentAlien at June 17, 2007 01:03 AM
Paedophile-crazy UK: Hate it and leave it.
Operation Ore has gone tits up and is looks set to become the miscarriage of justice of the century.
Don't you feel an irresistible urge to drag a stick across the bars of Authority's cage?
Do you love children? I told you, they dropped charges. Any resident UK Internet correspondent submitting that type of politically incorrect "joke" could expect to become acquainted with the inside of a police station cell, if not lifetime membership of the Sex Offenders' Register. So how's the weather down there in Cheltenham?
Posted by Terry Wrist at June 17, 2007 02:39 AM
