Sarah's Law

[Dorrin]

Listened to Jeremy Vine yesterday in light of the government minister going to U.S to see how Megan's Law works as he interviewed the N.O.T.W editor about Sarah's Law and their brave crusade to protect our children and thought bollocks!

First, anyone who is a danger to children should remain in prison, they should not be let out and put on registers etc. The "experts" who say they are now ok should be prosecuted if the paedo then re-offends, this would do away with the need to publish their addresses as they would all be in Wormwood Scrubs.

Second, as was seen when the N.O.W published names awhile ago, some poor innocent sod is going to get a kicking from the howling vigilante mobs who think it is their right to mete out their own justice. If my daughter had been assaulted by some perv, I would move heaven and earth to get my hands on the perv as I had a vested interest. Have never understood the mentality of the rent-a-mob who are always to be seen at court cases baying and trying to kick the side of the police van as it transports the accused to and from the court. They all appear to be overweight oiks who would do better going home and looking after their own children.

Brings me on to my third point, when my Daughter was young I knew where she was, she didn't go wandering the streets. I've heard victims parents go on about if they knew there was a paedo living locally they would have taken more care of their children! I'm sorry, when you become a parent it is your duty to protect your children, you cannot wrap them in cotton wool but you can ensure that they are not off wandering the streets. I remember when the Soham case was going on, driving along and seeing groups of young kids as young as 3 & 4 off by themselves, what do their parents think they are up to?

Fourthly, during the interview, Vine asked the N.O.T.W editor why they had not written anything recently about Sarah's Law and he mumbled some inane answer when what he really meant was that public interest had waned so it wouldn't sell papers and they were more interested in other dangers to the public eg blackening the name of Heather McCartney because she was so evil and had married Macca?

[Bob Singleton]

I know the Payne family as they are local to where I live and the older children were at the same school as my daughter.

Without wishing ill on people who have suffered the loss of their daughter, they were hardly model parents. Convictions for shoplifting, affray etc., investigations into benefit fraud, all the older children at one time or another being excluded from school for violent conduct towards either other pupils and/or teachers... the list goes on.

Their children used to run wild at all times of the day or night... it really wasn't unusual to see the 7 and 9 year olds (as they were then) roaming the streets of Hersham at midnight.

Did the parents know where they where then? I doubt it, as they spent most nights spending their benefit money in the Barley Mow.

If lists of registered paedeophiles *had* existed before their daughter was abducted and killed, I still don't think they are the sort of people who would have bothered to find out. And even if they had found the information, are they now trying to tell us that they wouldn't have visited the grandparents because of this? I don't think so.

The sad fact is that they rarely knew where any of their children where, and the children were just as likely (if not more so) to be killed in a road accident.

[Jonone]

I think we've kind of been here before in the last few years, and still the problem continues to be overstated and exaggerated. Yes it's one that as a society we ought to take seriously and the 'management' of offenders is important. I was watching the tv on Sunday night and someone made the valid point that in the great majority of cases the abuser is known to the abused .. family, extended family, friends. Yet time and again the perception is created of a swarm of predatory paedophiles at large. Is it another case of the government creating a 'phantom menace' and then giving us a 'solution' to it to make themselves look capable and make us feel protected by them ?

Like many issues relating to crime and public safety etc it is deserving of our attention, but a sense of perspective is helpful. I echo what has been said elsewhere about shared responsibility too.

[sky blue alzer]

I remember the last time the NOTW did that 'name and shame' stunt. All those idiots ( was it Portsmouth or Southampton or somewhere?) chasing people out of their houses because they had similar names to the people in the papers or because they 'looked like paedophiles'. There was also cases of people being branded paedos by their neighbours simply because they had a better house/standard of living/car/clothes, as well as people using it as an excuse to settle old scores. And then there was the case of the paediatrician being attacked as well......

[Sam Slater]

Jonone wrote:

[quote]Is it another case of the government creating a 'phantom menace' and then giving us a 'solution' to it to make themselves look capable and make us feel protected by them ?[/quote]

Nah, I think it's the media who build up these crimes to sell papers. They then turn to the government to do something about crimes they've 'bulit up', which shows the media iin a 'caring' & 'concerned' light. Of course all the tabloids want is headlines and money.

It's a win, win situation for the media. If it happens again, the media says the government doesn't care, so they get headlines. If the government does do something and it happens again, what the government did about it, isn't working, which gives headlines.

It's not just sex crimes either. Just about everything people care about in society is built up by the media.

[Sheik Yerbouti]

You can't say they are not model parents , If you read the press or listien to the news this Payne woman is one step away from sainthood all this law is for is to win back the BNP vote on hellhole estates where most of the abuse is by drunken slobs within the family.

[Flat_Eric]

No-one in their right mind would condone kiddy-fiddling, but the hysteria surrounding it has - I would argue - now got completely out of control to the point where paedophilia has now become like witchcraft was in the 16th and 17th centuries.

In those days, the local oddball would be burned out of their home (and more often than not either burned at the stake or drowned in the local pond) by a torch-wielding mob of baying villagers. These days it's possees of shaven-headed, tattooed dads accompanied by denim-skirted, chain-smoking mums (often with 10 year-old Luke and 8 year-old Amy in tow as well for "emotive effect") waving "PEDOS OUT" (spelling error intentional) placards outside the homes of their local sex offender (or sometimes even just people who they merely SUSPECT of having an unhealthy interest in children), daubing graffiti on their doors and putting bricks through their windows.

We now live in a society in which people are sometimes even branded as paedos and hauled before the courts for things as minor as taking photos of their kids naked in the bath or owning copies of the porn movies that Tracey Lords made while still under 18. (Yes: owning those vids could - at least theoretically - land you on the Sex Offenders' Register and at the mercy of your local rent-a-mob!)

The problem is that in recent years, the media and the government have focussed on a number of high-profile cases and created the illusion that there is an ever-growing army of peadophiles lurking behind every park bush or school gate, ready to pounce on the next passing primary-schooler. In reality though, the problem is probably no worse now than it was back in the 1950s.

Of course in those days it was largely hushed up and went unreported - which is an equally bad thing. But the pendulum has now swung to the other extreme and things are just getting silly, with baying lynch mobs kicking police vans outside courthouses, sensationalist headlines in the gutter press and a flurry of well-meaning but deeply flawed "initiatives" like "Sarah's Law" and "Sex Offenders' Registers".

Another worrying aspect is that the government is using the hysteria surrounding paedophilia as an excuse to increase censorship, citing the excuse that it's all in the interests of "protecting children".

Bascially I can only agree with what others have written above.

[dynatech]

Many, if not most, cases of paedophilia stem from the abusers being abused themselves in unlightened war-time and post-war Britain. A hell of lot of it went on, but people chose to put their heads in the sand and ignore it, or were just blissfully ignorant.
Another problem the media have created is this demonsing sex offenders as all being the same (i.e. they paint Gary Glitter as unfavourably as Roy Whiting despite there being a world of difference) and they have effectively created sex offfenders by making looking at pictures illegal, therefore making sure the world is full of 'em (figures never lie, do they?)

> The problem is that in recent years, the media and the
> government have focussed on a number of high-profile cases and
> created the illusion that there is an ever-growing army of
> peadophiles lurking behind every park bush or school gate,
> ready to pounce on the next passing primary-schooler. In
> reality though, the problem is probably no worse now than it
> was back in the 1950s.
>
> Of course in those days it was largely hushed up and went
> unreported - which is an equally bad thing. But the pendulum
> has now swung to the other extreme and things are just getting
> silly, with baying lynch mobs kicking police vans outside
> courthouses, sensationalist headlines in the gutter press and a
> flurry of well-meaning but deeply flawed "initiatives" like
> "Sarah's Law" and "Sex Offenders' Registers".
>
> Another worrying aspect is that the government is using the
> hysteria surrounding paedophilia as an excuse to increase
> censorship, citing the excuse that it's all in the interests of
> "protecting children".
>
> Bascially I can only agree with what others have written above.

[mart]

Thanks everyone for a rational, coherent thread.
I just heard on the radio that one possible effect of Megan's Law in the US has been to drive a lot of offenders underground.

Mart

[randyandy]

mart wrote:

> Thanks everyone for a rational, coherent thread.

I find a lot of the posts about as rational as the media some are against.

There is no excuse for child abuse but reading some of the comments in these posts you would think there is.

I am not looking for an argument but some of the comments here show that the entire debate from both sides is a muddled mess.

I don't know what the answer is. Reliance on 'experts' to come up with something sensible usually ends in failure making things worse not better.

All I know that one child abused is one to many.