The Robert Hughes arrest is troubling in a lot of ways, to me especially. My daughter Jenny nearly got that role (the character, Jenny, was named after her), and I’m glad she didn’t. The rumours about Robert were pretty ferocious a few years into Hey Dad’s run, and it was said the show, though still top rating, was cancelled because the rumours were true.
A lot of adults have been in the situation Hey Dad’s producers were in when that happened. Nearly all of us have known of an uncle who was kiddy-fiddler or a priest who liked that sort of thing, or an older brother abusing his sister. Nearly all of us have not reported it. And nearly all the children we knew of were hurt because we did not report it. Because we kept silent. The Catholic Church is full of tales of suicides long after because of child abuse that was not stopped though it was known of, years before. It is a human tendency not to look at the ugly, nor talk about it much, nor call the police nor be a witness at the trial.
This is largely because the law is an ass when it comes to pederasty. The law aberrantly holds that a man is sane when he is sodomising a baby and so must stand trial before a jury. But he is not sane. How could he be.
It is in part because of this that reports of assault are rarely made. The witnesses realise the accused may be beaten to death in prison, it happens quite a lot, and they do not want that. So they keep silent.
I have kept silent about a man in our neighborhood, now dead. It is a very, very exhausting thing to make a charge like this, knowing the culprit will be out in ten years from now and may have a go at you or your family. Burn your house down, or whatever,
If they were given medical treatment and locked up in a comfortable asylum or hospital, that would be good with me. But gaol … I’m against gaoling anybody. A dentist’s drill applied for four minutes without anaesthetic would be punishment enough. Gaol is just a waste of breath.
Who is with me on this?
Name:
Sick people ought to be in hospitals, mentally ill people should not be roaming the streets.
We ought to give people a chance to rehabilitate themselves, no underage youths in jails and not even Bin Ladens should be shot or hung…
Is it really as common as all that, that “nearly everyone” knows of one? That seems to make it a sort of inverted compliment that it has at least been exposed, or partly exposed, in the Catholic church.
Hi wife Robyn lost a good friend, Liz Mullinar over it. Love is (willfully?) blind sometimes.
I disagree about jailing. There are some instances where that is the only appropriate course of action.
Hughes, if the allegations are true, is not insane but foolish and disordered.
In which case treatment and medical detention would seem more appropriate.
They should be burned at the stake. Stop being so forgiving . This attitude of insanity is grotesque and doesn’t address what is most imprtant. DETTERENCE
The act is repugnant for sure but agreed that gaol is the wrong solution.
But for me the publicity around this particular case, statements from alleged victims,the police giving an impression of being ‘media tarts’ all sensationalised in print and pictures, right over the top.
It was interesting to see Virgin air
reviewing its policy of not allowing unaccompanied kids to sit near a male on a flight.
Such is the hysteria that all males are considered pedophiles it seems.
Helvi your point about the mentally unwell being on the loose; I don’t know about any other state but it seems the norm in Victoria which is just plain wrong.
I agree Chris.
Reading that Virgin incident left a nasty taste in my mouth.
A tiny minority should never be empowered to affect perceptions of the majority.
wHAT IS MORE REPUGNANT? A BABY BEING SODOMIZED OR THE PERPATRATOR BEING PUT DOWN. THE FORMER IN MY BOOKS. IF YOUR CHILD OR ANY HUMAN IS TORTURED IN ANY WAY WOULD YOU BE CONTENT FOR THE OFFENDER TO B CARTED OFF FOR MEDICAL ATTENTION IN THE NAME OF CIVILIZATION. I THINK NOT.
‘A dentist’s drill applied for four minutes without anaesthetic would be punishment enough.’
Not good enough I’m afraid. Who is to say the perpetrator won’t re-offend after the pain has worn off?
Surely a minutes introduction to a hangman’s noose will cure the offender forever and spare the taxpayer a bit as well?
Maybe some of you lot would think it a good idea for the offender to sit down with his victms and show his remorse and profuse apologies and that he would never do such a thing now that he has seen what damage he has caused. Oh and I am sure during this period of contrition he would also state that he would hope no children would walk home from school on their own just in case he should be nearby at a time the devil takes hold again.
Good. You’ve stopped shouting.
Reading parts of your post above, if Bob ever writes a melodrama you might want to audition.
Euphemistic you mean. And you’re also wrong.
Which, of course, is almost a definition of a euphemism.
“Child rapist” is simplistic language. Sometimes it’s true of pederasts, sometimes it’s too extreme a description. It depends what they do to the child. It’s never defensible, but it doesn’t always warrant that description. I thought we’d got past that kind of hysteria about child sexual abuse.
In my profession I see many victims of childhood abuse, and it’s simply not possible to generalise about the offence in the way you have. The crime varies enormously from case to case, as does its impact. In that respect it is no different from any other form of sexual offence. An informed and subtle response to this phenomenon is not helped by taking rigid positions on it.
Sure, the term “kiddy-fiddling” does make it seem less serious than it is, but let’s not be so fucking precious. We know what Bob means. I thought political correctness was supposed to be the exclusive preserve of the Left.
So very difficult. The competing interests :
innocent until proven guilty
protection of children
likely effects on children – not just the victims
likely effects on family and friends of the perpetrator
likely effects on family of the victims
prevention?
punishment?
deterrence?
detection and the “dobbing” issue
in institutions, the closing of ranks
All of that and more – and no hard and fast way of deciding any of the balancing acts that are required.
I pity those who have to try to balance the competing interests.
It is all very well to react in knee-jerk fashion as some have and will, but these issues are difficult, complex and not amenable to simplistic solutions.
I understood that it is a predilection rather than an illness or insanity, (both of which homosexuality was considered to be for ages). Which makes it harder to know what to do about it.
Predilection would seem about right unless illness or insanity. I know someone who when faced with a major medication withdrawal following neurosurgery was triggered into a state of hypermania and exposed himself to young girls.
If he’d been properly medicated he would never have done that and even the idea of behaving in that way would have been quite abhorrent for him. So, the case for illness. Insanity, ditto.
So you’re back to predilection. And whether it’s a case of poor impulse control, ‘just do it and to hell with the consequences’, or some narcissistic sense of invulnerability, I’d argue that in all cases the abuser would be well aware of the illegitimacy and illegality of their actions.
So, do the crime, do the time.
Your preference F.I. for a Monet or Manet matters not if you end up smashing the canvas.
As a first step the clue is to refrain yourself.
I don’t disagree with either Canguro or Stan: but, I hope that there are good cures/treatment/whatever in gaol, so that it’s not just recycling offenders.
Look at it this way: Failure to report virtually ensures that more innocents are damaged.
Good idea M Ryutin. Next Sunday all parishiners should sign a petition to that effect and present it to their clergy.All atheists can contribute by whatever means they find most effective.
Apolgies in advance for grammatical rudeness and the concentration camp that is the three and a half seconds it will take you to scroll over these musings without reading them.
As much as I want to agree with you, if it was a relation of mine; much like abortion or any other issue, how can you know until they are your shoes you are standing in? However one might feel about the issue is seemingly irrelevant, as the law and its relationship with feelings and opinion is rather a dark tale; as seen in The Seventh Seal. Mirroring the ‘medieval realism’ in a modern tale, perhaps death would be a balding TAB-guide-sporting-mouth-breathing-pederast, maybe he just hands you a paper to fold your face into and that’s that.
A 6’2 kiwi in the back of a shipping container unloading Kelloggs – I hardly knew him yet out of the blue, from an ordinary conversation he admitted to me that he was abused by an uncle. He had only ever told his wife. Just like that. I remember telling another bloke about that story and how cold he went.
I said to Doug in another thread that one has to have faith in the justice system. These are the people that deal with this heinous unthinkable shit day in day out and they do it well; if not, the best. Despite what the Murdoch papers will have you believe, Sydney is a safe place as Australia is a safe place and our justice system WORKS. It has been working since we landed here. We have the luxury in this place to sit back and relax, to be complacent.
This isn’t script writing, conversation, drama or anything creative. Justice has no place for the fallacy of deep offence resulting in vengeful violence, not even in the delivery of punishment. I have seen a father of a murdered son hug the killer and assist in his rehabilitation. His reasoning was for me the final nail in that coffin. One must have faith in the justice system. The father absolved himself in a selfish and logical act because life must go on. I’ll get less time for murdering an adulterer caught in the act than killing a man in cold blood, even if it was the same man for the same reason, only premeditated. The indecipherable thus, or the incomprehensible, should be punishable by death at the hands of a mob, but a jealous lover that takes a horny man’s life, that’s okay; matches up well with my view of the world therefore no worries. That would be B, and I am after C.
A teacher in this way is much the same as a copper or anyone else employed by the state. We all exercise discretion in regards to the law with dialectics: AB = C. A, being one polar opinion, B being the other and C being the result that the linear passage of time dictates. Without insulting Armenians, if there was another Holocaust on the same scale as WW2, the second time round would be a far greater crime. In a culture where history is the least favoured/most avoided subject perhaps this is something to consider.
I fear some readers may be unfamiliar with the liquidity of culture, of how the roles that love and family dictate change and morph over time. A friend in Rome was one of three things: Someone you met at the gates to do business, someone you meet in a courtyard and someone you do business with inside your home. In ancient Egypt the gods made love to make world. In Christianity, God is said to have wanked for six days. Never mind the giant phalluses adorning pagan rocks or Corinthian temples. ‘The gun is good, the penis is evil! the penis shoots seeds and makes new life to poison the earth with the plague of men, as once it was! But the gun shoots death and purifies the earth of the filth of brutals. Go forth and kill! (Zardoz) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOROvO2fxTc
Enter Tony Abbott.
More injustice is perpetrated in and by the prison system, much like how child abuse is entirely prevalent in society independent of a single church; to focus one’s malcontent on one institution would be naïve and misguided, just as much as a knee-jerk-reactionary that screams for another man’s blood is the reason we have a justice system. Despite the fact that more abuse has been dished out to innocence via the justice system; via the inhumane equivalence of a concentration camp; a Long-bay or the Tamworth boys home that produced Neddy Smith & Co. (Picture a naked thirteen year old in a state institution with a cardboard box on his head with a token pinhole from which to see through and compare that with the fifteen year old in a Japanese P.O.W. Camp), all we have is the law. It is my contention that the progressive result of the law’s implementation, C, is not only worth having faith in, its existence demands it.
In regards to housekeeping and the fallacy of deep offence : http://theconversation.edu.au/are-all-ideas-equal-not-in-the-classroom-7571
Julia Gillard favours a model of reconciliation that requires no words, Nun. What is progressive?
Thank you William. And though I present a cynical view of most things, I actually do have confidence in our system of justice. It gets it right vastly more often than it gets it wrong.
The nature of our media is of course to report on the failures, the miscarriages of justice; it makes better copy than “99% of all offenders received appropriate sentences” – which is about the truth.
I suppose four minutes of torture might be some kind of deterrent and provide some measure of revenge/justice. But gaol is a lot surer protection of the next potential victims.
Does Robert Hughes seem an appropriate person to lock up in a mental asylum? Who can say? Expert psychiatrists with full access to information I suppose … certainly not us. On the surface he appears to be a perfectly competent person able to control his impulses when there’s no easy targets around, so gaol seems far more appropriate.
To let child sexual abuse continue for fear of reprisal … understandable I suppose given that so many people let other forms of abuse continue for the same reason. But not excusable. You may still be able to think of ways to lessen some of the damage you collaborated in.
A close friend told me how the older boys in a boys boarding school dealt with a brother (teacher) who was abusing younger boys. They took the brother behind the gym and belted him thoroughly.
I doubt it cured him, but perhaps he thought twice before trying it on again.
Is that a solution? Hardly – the perpetrator will move on to greener pastures, and the victims are unlikely to feel much better for it.
In reply to William, you say if it was a relation of one it might be different. This shows a somewhat lack of empathy for your fellow man or child or baby. Maybe that is the prevailing problem. As for your 6’2″ Kiwi as we are no longer in medieval times I think it is great that victims are being encouraged to come forth which can have a very positive effect’ releaving them of the guilt they so wrongly carry with them forever in many cases. Any psychiatrist will tell you it is best to talk about it than keep it within As for the judicial system some judges are great others for various reasons some as we have learned shall sick personal reasons are shockers. Recidivism is rampant with these offenders with or without the media. The sooner they are outed the better. especially for the victims for whatever peace of mind they so deservedly can enjoy.
The point was the bloke wasn’t encouraged. I was only nineteen, he would of been at least thirty but the roles were reversed and I didn’t/still don’t understand why me and why then. We were talking of football and the weather, of nothing, and wham. I thought I knew a bit then and that was only the first shed I’d worked in, Shad, which in Western Armenian is great or a lot. I say 6’2 perhaps to underline the surprising shape and form these things take in reality as opposed to a stereotypical assumption of what a victim looks like, or where you will find one.
Empathy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7lXYwcRppI
Hungry Beast- Prison Rape : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q2I6BYarFI
Louis Theroux – ‘A Place for Paedophiles’ : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z29LbVcOARo
Tamworth Boys Home: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qvpOrizMaI
Don’t become a character out of Snow’ Town. I’ve also seen a video in the murky depths; of mob justice South American style handed down to a motorist who killed a child. It was probably an accident. Then there is the kind of justice where a family of Indigenous Australians can be murdered for ‘stealing’ or digging up potatoes that the week before, they were being offered.
The young man in Maui that killed a girl with a jetski or a similar man who hits a black swan in Perth for the fun of it.
Upon reflection, as in Once Were Warriors, who knows, and What Then?
Had many sleepless nights thinking about how you protected a child rapist, erm “Kiddy Fiddler” Bob? I wonder how many children might have been molested by him whilst you kept his secret?
Stop stirring Bannaman.
as for William he probably found you to be of a sensitive caring nature which from my impression I truly think you are.People will open up to this rare gift that some have. There is no describing it . some just have it. onya
Yes, let’s leave apologists for “kiddy fiddlers” alone, and the “kiddy fiddlers” alone too, eh?
This is proof why creatures of your ilk can only and will only ever amount to pre-Copernican obscurantists.
In my books a right winged lunatic is of equal if not greater consequence than a sex offender.
I would prefer to discuss the problem how society will rid itself of you. This is a Utopia of greater worth, one that is easier to discuss, to frame in terms of reference that do not allow you and people of a similar mentality to align themselves with anything that resembles humanity. You have no solutions that do not involve a pair of scissors and an open sewer. You rape meaning and subvert democracy, wilfully, knowingly, at least partially aware of the havoc you reap on the world, justifying all of it with the dream of your fucking box on the hill. It is your warped logic that allows perverse socio-economic circumstances to manifest themselves into reality and into all manner of beings in the first place. Therefore you are guilty. At my worst I am a palp-like deranged graffitist that means well. At your best; you BananaBrandis, are a ghoul of the highest order; a pile on the arse of a Packer, nothing more and nothing less.
I don’t know what to do about sex offenders, but it is a worthy point to acknowledge that we do have a functioning justice system which incorporates a prison system that arguably exists as nothing more than a waste of breath and often as something far worse; as an instrument that perpetuates the same socio-economic cycle of poverty that spits out teenage pregnancies and welfare dependencies by the existentially threatening dozen. Really, how do you sleep? Knowing that your hard earned tax dollars go to supporting such squalor? You should really do something about it. Why don’t you take up the task, like the rest of the Moncktonite baffoons and get busy appearing to attempt to make the world a better place. The path that the kind of vengeful rhetoric you preach only adds to the vacuum that exists in contemporary politics but in conclusion, that suits you down to the ground, down beneath the rock that I plead for you to take to, swiftly and never return. You are a pollutant.
As a kid, much like now I enjoyed video games. One morning, I was perhaps nine or ten, waiting for the rental store to open on a Saturday morning, when a couple of typical ‘Dero’s’ came walking through the shopping complex, swearing and arguing violently. After a short time, the mulleted-skinny-pikee wannabe approached a scowling me, and asked me if I had seen where his lady friend had gone to. “I don’t know and I wouldn’t tell you if I did”, I said, disgusted at his outrageous disregard of chivalrous convention and vehement in my own. He then set about castigating me for my insolence with threats and posture, the culmination of which was a hocked ghoulie, into his palm and into my face.
Years later, I was sitting at Leumeah Station waiting for a mate, when the same guy, was castigating a Cityrail worker for some reason. He jumped the tracks like a real rule breaker, over to my side. I wasn’t going to say anything but he scowled at me, as if to say “yeah I’m a cunt, what are you going to do about it?”
So I said, to his back, “Oi. Remember me?”
He didn’t remember. So I told him where I knew him from. He didn’t remember that either. A train approached on the other platform. My blood rushed and my bowels jerked. He just got out of Long Bay he said. “Come over here, away from the cameras.” Not the last time I’ve heard that.
At that moment, unannounced and unexpected, a mate arrived. I did not know was coming at all and he was brandishing his skateboard and perplexed at the goings on he found me attending to. His elbows lifted. My eyes burned into this scourge from my childhood, but nothing happened. There was no action.
Weeks later, at the same spot, talking to a met friend, the same man approached. “Here we go”, I thought to myself, but he approached in peace and apologised. I accepted his apology and we parted ways.
The next time I challenged someone who claimed they had just emerged from prison I was well pissed and not so lucky.
“and I wouldn’t tell you if I did” – there’s your problem right there, William.
Your problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_disease
Good one William
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