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"historic sexual abuse"
astor
Posts: 575 Forum Member
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As a woman who worked in a glamorous but fairly male dominated environment in the seventies and eighties I experienced my fair share of gropers and sexual chancers.
Annoying, but like most girls at that time, we just dealt with it and moved on.
What a bizarre world we live in now that old men from that era are being hauled before courts and given prison sentences for historic bum nipping whilst gangs of men in our Northern cities are not being properly prosecuted for the most disgusting sexual abuse of under age girls.
Annoying, but like most girls at that time, we just dealt with it and moved on.
What a bizarre world we live in now that old men from that era are being hauled before courts and given prison sentences for historic bum nipping whilst gangs of men in our Northern cities are not being properly prosecuted for the most disgusting sexual abuse of under age girls.
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Except these gangs of men are now being prosecuted.
I must admit I can't see a problem with historical sexual abuse being prosecuted. From my understanding the cases which the CPS have followed through on have involved a little bit more than just bottom pinching.
Re your last paragraph, astonishingly inaccurate on both counts I would say.
For sure, many Pakistani men in this country have done many many terrible deeds against youngsters and have gotten away with it.
It does indeed seem that some people are easy targets,whilst others just fly beneath the radar.It's always easy to hide behind the race card.
I'm interested to hear why you think I am "astonishingly inaccurate"
I barely remb last week, so if you asked me what I was doing years and years ago, I'd be stumped.
And that's why they are hard to prosecute.
Why on earth are you (and the OP, for that matter) dragging ethnicity/nationality into it?
By the same logic:
'For sure, many white-British men in this country have done many terrible deeds against youngsters and have gotten away with it.'
or even,..
'For sure, many men, the world over, have done many terrible deeds against youngsters and have gotten away with it.'
Are they?
I am also concerned that we seem to be judging the past with the social attitudes of the present. I feel where the historic groping (and in most of the celebrity cases we are talking about non penetrative violations) was perpetrated against someone of say 14 or thereabouts the pursuit is justified. I am too young to remember, but find it hard to believe that putting your hand up the top of a teenage girl to fondle her breasts was ever acceptable even in the 1970s
Personally I don't feel it is acceptable to any women of whatever age but that's because I have the sensibilities of today and seemingly things were very different in the recent past.
The other day I happened to see Carry on Again Doctor; a film that was in cinemas around 1970 under an A certificate. Among the many dubious scenes by today's standards there was one in which Jim Dale encounters his old flame Barbara Windsor in his office. He leers at her and makes a phwoar sound then chases her around the office. He eventually chases her around the desk as she squeals 'Jim no!' or WTTE and catches her, pushing her back onto the desk and presses himself on top of her kissing her. She wiggles her legs about and tells him off again while not appearing to be traumatised or even offended.
That, in those days was considered to be good clean fun, cheeky but acceptable comedy. I bet hardly anyone batted an eyelid (maybe Mary Whitehouse). That presumably was the zeitgeist of the times when many of these historic offences occurred. It seems harsh to me to dig up the peccadillos of men who were behaving quite normally for their time.
The ring was blown open in 2010 and 5 of the main people involved were sentenced.
Some of them have been released as of this year, but they did serve 3-4 years in jail. Others are still in prison IIRC.
I'm not saying it's been handled brilliantly - it hasn't, but the way the OP speaks you'd think nobody of Pakistani origin has ever been prosecuted or convicted of these crimes, when they have.
The newest revelations relate to stuff that happened before 2010, as well as things that have happened subsequently. As long as the victims are willing to testify future charges can be brought against those who are guilty.
Reading between the lines though, the reason they seem to be struggling with prosecutions is the victims don't seem to wish to testify.
After the way they were treated by the authorities previously who could blame them.
Maybe this, but I wouldn't presume to know everything.
The profile of the victims is that they were generally more vulnerable and socially isolated that even your average rape/abuse victim.
It's very hard to get people like that to testify even if they received impeccable service from the police and local authority.
These cases are legally speaking a real nuisance to crack, and I think it has far less to do with race/ethnicity than people think.
The council and police knew exactly what was going on, they even tried to cover it up to help race relations, it's all in the recent report.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal
These should be by far more important than trotting out these old historical cases.
One has to wonder if there is rhyme or reason in doing so???
There shouldn't be any issue of choice in the matter, both types of crimes should be given all the time and resources the police need, as should the prosecution of anyone who makes false allegations. Historical cases are just as important as today's and my heart goes out to the victims of the 60's and 70's who for whatever reason did not feel like they could stand up to these criminals and have then had to live with the after effects of their abuse for decades without any support or comfort, I find it bewildering that some are suggesting they do not deserve the chance to achieve justice.
If you're talking about historic cases where the woman has been raped, then obviously that is a different thing, and she would have had to live with the effects of that afterwards, but if you're talking about the historic cases where someone has basically just been touched up for a few seconds, then as unpleasant and unwelcome as that may have been to them, what on earth though would they need "support and comfort" for??
Would a woman really be living with the "after effects of their abuse for decades" just because she worked with touchy feely men in the 70s and 80s and had her bum pinched a few times!
A lot of peoples opinions on here are so OTT it's laughable.
The OP imo is definitely right in what she says.
I think maybe some people should really think again what the word abuse really means, and I strongly doubt it's got anything to do with having your bum pinched!
I remember reading the thread about DLT and for all the hype surrounding his case, I never once read where he had actually raped somebody, and i remember thinking, that as much as he's a groper....what is all the fuss about though? Especially considering it happened so long ago!
Yep, I'm pretty sure that maybe 25% of men from the 1970's would be up on similar charges were the process to be pursued to its logical conclusion. For offences such as "groping" there should be a time limit on their pursuance. After one year, they are time barred, otherwise it becomes a witch hunt, difficult to get meaningful evidence, and a waste of public money.
There's something vaguely absurd about "Yes your honour, on July 29th 1975, whilst in a pub, this pervert placed his hands on my bum for 5 seconds" - in my opinion anyway.
Only for the more serious accusations, such as rape and more violent sexual assaults should there be a court process after such a long period of time.
I hear what you are saying, but those clowns are now being pursued and prosecuted.
i found out a couple of years later that the same man had a history of it [and other pervy acts] and had trapped a woman in her greenhouse and wished i`d taken it further.
I remember those days very well. being pushed against a wall having my boobs groped and when trying to get away, getting told I was a lesbian or frigid and being laughed at by the groper and their mates. hahaha God it was all so funny in those days.
Just out of interest, what stopped you at the time ?
my then husband found and threatened him and then the man came round with his boss on the monday trying to pass it off as a bit of fun and "only tickling". it would have been pointless going to the police, i doubt they would have entertained it. i wouldn`t bother now because he`s most likely dead but if he were up for any other of the same offences i would speak to the police about it.
this was in 1987.
If a girl of 13 had sex with an older man then the attitudes of the people at that time was that the girl was a bit loose and it was failing of her and her parents.
If a woman got groped it was her fault because of what she was wearing and how she presented herself.
I think the problem with this period of history was that sex liberation of women which was going on at that time was competing against the historic Victorian values of the older generations.
Any sex act against a woman during this period was generally regarded by the establishment to be the fault of the new 'promiscuous' women.
I can understand why woman did not press charges at that time as they were more than likely be labelled as a tart rather than a victim.
With the Saville enquiry into Historic sexual abuse it has allowed these victims to come out and say that yes they were a Victim and no it was not their fault.