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@jen_jen wrote:
. . . . . . . . . yes his behaviour as a teen was bad but it was behaviour resulting in his feelings about realising he had been abused – as he said, when it first started he didn’t like it but he didn’t realise it was wrong until he was older; his feelings of helplessness at the situation and the anger; his feelings of being let down by the people who should have protected him . . . . . . . .
This is incredibly common. The proportion of young miscreants who act out the consequences of abuse is said to be ridiculously high. I personally know a young man who started indecently assaulting young girls. When caught it was found that he had been lured into someone’s car and molested himself, not realising it was wrong on a conscious level, but troubled.
This is another reason why, despite our wish to maintain childhood innocence, we need to educate young children enough to know where the lines should be drawn.
The impact of abuse can run deep and last for a lifetime. Another reason why it needs to be dealt with even when historic.
The concerns I am expressing here are actually less about the accused and more about the effect on the victims.
No matter what other allegations there are, each case still has to stand or fall by its own merits, and cases brought against serial criminals fail for lack of evidence (the Yorkshire ripper was found guilty ten times, but not guilty twice, in the same trial). So are we saying that our justice system wont kick in for many victims of abuse, and proper investigations wont take place, until more people come forward?
We appear to be suggesting that we need multiple accusations in some cases before the Police investigate. If that is true, we are setting ourselves up for more Saviles, or worse, condemning people who are victims of one off abusers to never having justice. Sadly I think in practice, this is exactly what happens for many people, faced with accusing a “respectable” person, as opposed to an ordinary Jo.
I’m not sure what we are saying here. Either the Police don’t take things seriously until there is what amounts to overwhelming pressure, or that they prioritise other cases because they don’t have the resources. In either case its hardly a situation we can cheer about. Public life is littered with people who, with all the best intentions, do what they think is best. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t question it.
I have no doubt that, in practice, in the case Jen highlights, the initial small piece in the press was the key to unlocking the path to justice for the family. However not all arrests reach the press.
So victims have to rely on the possibility of the press publishing in order to get justice? Just as well we had disclosure and that the press lottery worked, or Jen’s friend would never have obtained justice. Whatever the rights and wrongs of disclosure, it is the random nature of this that really worries me. Whoever is to “blame” we can hardly regard this as a fully functioning justice system.
Guilty is of course a legal definition and there is no guilty verdict without getting cases to trial. We know that most victims of sexual crimes never report them, and those who do often withdraw their complaints, when the consequences of an investigation (or lack of it) becomes clear.
I am not against disclosure. I am just concerned about some of the reasons we think we need it. Disclosure is clearly a double-edged sword, which is in practice used very unevenly. There is big difference between asking the public if they recognise someone on CCTV, and parading a series of potential abusers in front of them to see if they will come forward as new victims. There is no system whereby all arrests are placed in the local press so that people can trawl through to check if they have anything to contribute. As a consequence we don’t have a handy list of potential abusers to refer to (whether or not that would be desirable for other reasons). It is therefore a lottery.
We are half in and half out of disclosing things to the public. We rely on stories being juicy or scandalous enough to report, and the Police deciding to disclose in the first place. Justice for some and not for others. I am just genuinely pleased that this rather flaky system eventually led to a proper investigation in the said case. I just worry about the countless others it doesn’t work for.
This is a difficult area which would worry most sensitive people. There are no perfect answers, and no principles we can cling to no matter what.
Apart from the need to listen carefully to victims’ stories and investigate them properly. And we know that doesn’t always happen.
Apologies and final long posting on this subject.
Was just trying to make a complex point in a difficult area, rather than directly disagreeing with others as such.
I honestly believe that we are failing people in too many ways, and the more cases of “we’ll do something if more people come forward” I hear, the more worried I am. Serial offenders exist, but they are very far from the whole story, as people I have been involved with know only too well.
I am happy that disclosure works for some, but for many an attitude that requires more victims, only means cursory investigation, followed by no justice.
I don’t think that it’s always a case of police not investigating when there is just one complaint, I think it’s more a case of the difficulty proving it.
Abuse is rarely witnessed by a third party, the only witnesses are the abuser and the victim. If there are no physical signs of abuse and no witnesses and no cctv, what do the police have to go on other than an accusation? If there is no previous history and no previous cause for concern and the accused denies it, where do the police go from there? Someone making an accusation is not enough evidence in itself, there has to be more.
That is why abusers get away with it for so long.
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