Q&A on Jeremy Forrest's crime - how can it be best understood?

Before today, it was all so simple. A suspected child abuser would take his place in the dock, have the charges read out, then would either plead guilty or watch his defence decimated in court. We then collectively rejoice at the warm feeling of justice being done, putting our pitchforks away for another day. Then along came Jeremy Forrest, who fled to France with his school pupil – Lady X – and plunged how we respond to child abuse cases into confusion once again.

A lot of absolute nonsense has been written in the press and on social media, ranging from complete misplaced sympathy towards Forrest (and Forrest/Lady X as a pair) to sensational ‘paedophile’ headlines. Here, we aim to settle some of the questions surrounding Forrest.

Was it fair that he was sentenced to five and a half years in prison, when serial child molester Stuart Hall received 15 months, with his sentences running concurrently?

It is not fair, but I feel that it says more about the leniency of Hall’s sentence, rather than the stiffness of Forrest’s.

There is no reasonable defence for the actions of Jeremy Forrest. His behaviour was despicable, and by any standard he is a villain. The decision to run off with his 15-year old pupil when the authorities were closing in on him was an act of gross selfishness, which caused immeasurable distress to her mother (more so than any revelation of sexual activity between the pair). Many questions would have been spinning around her head at that time. “Is my daughter safe? Will I ever see her again? Is she even still alive?”

Having been convicted of child abduction on Thursday (20^th June), the only acceptable outcome was a custodial sentence. The maximum sentence for child abduction is 7 years, but around 2 years ought to have been sufficient for an abduction involving a passenger seat rather than the car boot.

He was subsequently charged with five counts of sexual activity with a minor, each of which he pleaded guilty. I predicted the upgrading of the offences would mean the sentence passed would be between 5 and 7 years. In the end he was given 5 and a half years (or just over 4 “Stuart Halls” in pervert currency).

The press are describing Forrest as a ‘paedophile’. Is that harsh?

It depends on how you base your judgement. In the strictest of terms, Forrest is a paedophile. Within the framework of the law, he would be defined as such. If you want it in more domestic terms, consider it from another angle: if an adult gets on a bus with his or her partner, who in turn buys a child’s ticket, should they really be together? How would you feel if your child started dating someone twice their age?

One lady caller to a daytime radio programme told presenter Jeremy Vine that she was uncomfortable with Forrest being described as a paedophile. She did add however that she would be livid if a Jeremy Forrest entered into a relationship with her 14-year old daughter.

Others still see the situation as an unfortunate love story. Many young people took to Twitter to send their support to the “couple” – yes, you read that correctly.

Overall, rather than widespread disgust, the vast majority of posts on my own news feed merely stressed the Forrest/Hall sentencing distinction. I guess many felt that considering how many pupils and teachers there are in Britain, and how much time they spend in the vicinity of each other, this scenario is inevitable from time to time and the difference in sentencing is unjust.

In sum, while there is cause for huge discomfort in this case, I would refrain from using the toolbox of ‘P’ words to describe him, pending further evidence that suggests otherwise.

What other evidence would be needed to confirm that Forrest is unquestionably depraved?

We need to be sure that this case is an unfortunate one-off and not a snapshot of more dedicated and prolific paedophilic behaviour.

No evidence was presented at the trial that he had a stash of child pornography anywhere – the standard way of removing any remaining doubt of the defendant’s guilt in this Internet age.

At present, there is also no evidence that Forrest has abused or assaulted any other children. At least one woman has made a further allegation against Forrest, but so far she has only taken it to a tabloid newspaper rather than the legal authorities. Until she does that, the allegation must be treated with caution.

If any more evidence emerges, things could promptly change.

What is the difference between Jeremy Forrest and Jimmy Savile then? They’ve both exploited young people, after all.

Ultimately, Jeremy Forrest laid everything on the line for a girl. Logic suggests there must have been some love involved, even if it was misplaced. He risked (and lost) his career. He risked (and lost) his marriage. He risked (and lost) his liberty.

In contrast, Jimmy Savile risked nothing. Every predatory manoeuvre was risk-assessed in his paedophilic mind. He targeted the most absolutely vulnerable. He used his TV programmes, his status and his charity veneer to fill his sleazy boots at every turn. His scheming ensured he did not face justice during his lifetime.

The lack of distinction between the Saviles and the Forrests provide a crisis for the otherwise priceless child protection movement. At present, paedophilia is treated as something dichotomous, something that people either are or are not. There is no scale. In the minds of the most dedicated campaigners, Forrest now joins Savile and Hall in the hall of shame. To illustrate this further, the press could not resist the occasional gleeful use of various words beginning with the letter ‘P’ (most of which have already been used above) as adjectives to describe Forrest.

As this article has tried to demonstrate, Jeremy Forrest’s behaviour was unacceptable and apparently predatory, but to join the Premier League of perverts, more evidence against him would be required.

Did the crime warrant the level of coverage it received in the media, then?

Not ordinarily, but the level of public interest when the pair first went missing meant that the trial was also going to receive unprecedented coverage. This again demonstrates the selfishness of Jeremy Forrest’s actions, rather than taking responsibility from day one.

The outcome is a girl has been left in confused and in pieces, while he has received a custodial punishment that went far beyond what he would have received had he not gone through that tunnel.

One day, Lady X will realise that she was dragged to France, dragged through the media, and then dragged through the courts by a man trying to save himself.

Summary

Forrest was a teacher. Lady X was his pupil. He was in a position of responsibility and should have resisted, however tempting she was to him. He was a professional and should have acted as such. When parents send their children to school, they do not expect them to enter a relationship with Sir or Miss.

Both will require care now to ensure that their mental health does not suffer long-term.

Though I resist casting him in the very harshest of terms, it was only right that Forrest was given some time in the slammer to reflect on what he has done.

Normalising the predators - a response to Jon Henley's article on paedophilia

Today, I read an article so ill-conceived, I can hardly believe The Guardian published it.

Jon Henley, in this analysis of evidence on paedophilic desires, has written something widely criticised as heavily apologetic of paedophiles an their behaviours.

Critics include Labour MP, Tom Watson, and Mark Williams-Thomas - the researcher whose investigation revealed the truth about Jimmy Savile's private lifestyle.

Henley's article claimed to be a review of the conflicting evidence about what causes paedophila, and the harm it causes. Closer inspection of the piece illuminates some worrying claims from dubious sources.

The tone of the piece is set from the offset, attributing a quote to the pressure group now known as Liberty, which apparently normalises paedophilia. Henley goes on to say that in light of the Savile backlash, it would be unlikely for any organisation to make such a claim.

The most worrying aspect of the article was the use of Tom O'Carroll as a source, described by Henley as "a former chairman of PIE and tireless paedophilia advocate."

O'Carroll was cited as saying "[i]f there's no bullying, no coercion, no abuse of power, if the child enters into the relationship voluntarily … the evidence shows there need be no harm." The comments are given an air of legitimacy with Henley's commentary that "[s]ome academics do not dispute the view of Tom O'Carroll."

Leading the criticism of Henley's controversial report is Mark Williams-Thomas, who described his main concern with the article as "giving a voice to a convicted child sex offender who wants [to] say adult sexual contact with a child is not abuse."

The respected Labour MP, Tom Watson, added that the article was "[a] jumbled list of arguments for a more sympathetic approach to paedophilia."

Most worrying to my eyes is the normalisation tone of the piece. That is not to say that exceptions do not happen. Relationships between very young people and adults do happen, and some even survive as the younger party moves into full-adulthood.

However, such relationships are not conventional, nor should they ever be considered as such. Fresh in the memory was the relationship between a runaway schoolgirl and teacher that worried and alarmed the entire nation.

The reaction from the public was remarkably mixed, with some even sympathetic to the pair. Fewer would have argued the relationship as justifiable though.

Any attempt to rationalise the behaviour of the predatory minority must be resisted, which is why Henley's article has been widely condemned by observers of all political shades.

Time for everyone to calm down over McAlpinegate

I am sleeping fairly well at night right now. I have never written a tweet implying Lord McAlpine was a paedophile. (Note: tweet is a common definition of a micro-blog post. Additional note: Paedophile is a term describing those attracted to children typically below the age of 13, though in Britain the word is used a little more liberally to refer to anyone who legally is not expected to pay an adult fare on public transport.)

In fact, I have never written a tweet bearing McAlpine's name, prior to his unveiling as the poor bloke BBC Newsnight meant when implying some shadowy relic of the Conservative Party was abusing children.

And despite witnessing many tweets directly claiming he was a paedophile (along with four or five regularly alleged others), I believed it was unethical to "retweet" any of them. (Note for those not familiar with micro-blogging websites: Retweet is the Twitter term for copying someone else's tweet into your own Twitter page for other Twitter members to view.)

There was one notable tweet bearing his name that I may well have retweeted, but it no longer exists, for the author (a highly respected Guardian columnist) has apologised and presumably removed it. For that reason, it is no surprise that I do not even remember if I retweeted it! However, I best apologise just in case.

The tweet in question did little more than question some of the dubious things written about McAlpine on the Internet, but I suspect in the current climate the author will be in trouble over that.

That author apologised in the form of a tweet and linked it towards a more detailed apology. I decided to retweet his apology to my followers - you know, just in case. I hope Lord McAlpine accepts it and that is the end of the matter.

Now that is clear, I add a caveat or two to the above summary of McAlpine vs Twitter. Firstly, I fear that having won the goodwill of the public in light of some rather diabolical allegations, McAlpine (and more significantly those representing his interests post-McAlpinegate) risk overplaying his hand. Secondly, even if McAlpine's response is legally tenable, it is very much in the context of laws that have not caught up with the demands of print and broadcast media, let alone the online variety. First, I shall deal with the former point.

I personally think McAlpine's response is understandable. If I had been subject to the allegations he has faced, I would be on television too, auditioning my croakiest voice and reminding the audience how devastated I am by the allegations. I would have been demanding the BBC justified its research. No question - I would have sought some compensation from the broadcaster.

Having said that, I also think McAlpine has already done very well. His settlement with the BBC must surely be some sort of precedent for dealing with libel through innuendo and cryptic messaging.

I dare say if the BBC was not so on its knees in the fallout of this and the Savile fiasco, they may have had more of a stomach for a fight. They wanted the episode over as quickly as possible and who can blame them?

So you would think that Lord McAlpine would be happy with the settlement for a mischievous report that caused a lot of harmful gossip, and a clear message sent to the world that he is not a paedophile.

No sooner had the BBC surrendered, his legal team outlined their plans to pursue up to 10,000 Twitter users over the publishing of defamatory tweets in what is described as potentially a libel action with the largest number of defendants ever. The response is hardly a surprise when the first defendant (the BBC) settled out of court despite not actually mentioning him by name, instead allowing public gossip settle that matter. I too would be trawling the cyber and the tangible trying to find my next catch.

His next catch seems to be ITV, who broadcast the segment where Phillip Schofield handed a list of paedophilic names to David Cameron. He (McAlpine, that is!) was believed to be on that list and it is rumoured a camera picked it up. (Note the deliberate use of 'believed to be' and 'rumoured' in that sentence.)

I would be absolutely fuming if I was on Schofield's camera-shot list, and understandably McAlpine must be fuming about it. However, has anyone actually seen names on the list? It may have been caught by a camera, but was that particular camera part of the broadcast feed at the time?

These are crucial questions, because as things stand, despite an apology aired on This Morning, nobody seems to have produced the offending screen caption. I would have thought with the millions of feral Twitter users, ready to shine a light on predatory paedophiles at any moment, the offending screencap would have been doing the rounds within minutes of the broadcast ending. I have not seen any image, and I practically live on Twitter at times!

We were told viewers might have seen the list. It seems nobody has seen it. Someone should tell Lord McAlpine. This time, he is in the clear!

Except nobody will, as his legal team looks towards holding anyone and everyone to account. It is an approach that risks McAlpine losing the goodwill he has earned in the aftermath. I do not have the biggest Twitter feed in the world, so it is not a representative tapestry of views, however I have noticed a change of mood among those I follow.

When BBC Newsnight originally apologised, there was a mixture of sympathy for McAlpine and irritation that a story about child abuse had been superseded by poor journalism. The sympathy towards McAlpine has fallen away on my Twitter feed, and I wonder if he should retreat from further action while he is ahead.

His reputation has ironically been enhanced, as a weak and feckless media (in part brutalised by arcahic libel laws) made huge steps to apologise to him and stress that he is not a paedophile. Many people were quick to sympathise with him.

My second point regarding the post-Newsnight fallout is that I feel that libel laws in the UK need to catch up with the reality of the Internet, or it is going to destroy what is good about websites like Twitter.

Twitter enables lay members of the population to debate, discuss, talk, have a laugh, sometimes troll, sometimes troll aggressively and sometimes troll unlawfully. It is a big room where everyone can shout at anyone, with the rather obvious drawback that whatever is shouted is rendered into cyber-memory. Those words are there forever.

I am no legal expert, but my understanding is that British law is often cast through precedent. There will be many precedents needed in light of McAlpinegate if we are to prevent an online crisis of communication.

First of all, there will need to be an acceptance that although journalists and writers publish on Twitter and other sites, so do people who are not used to their copy being checked by lawyers before they hit the send button. (Note: Journalists have their work checked, and yet they have been known to wrongly accuse – the Chris Jefferies case springs to mind.)

Any developments of law that see thousands of people with a few dozen Twitter followers going to court will be to the detriment of ordinary people, many of whom who already have enough to worry about in day-to-day life. Lord McAlpine certainly would not have the same anxieties and worries that they face.

There is going to need to be a clear post-multimedia agreement governing Internet use which does not penalise ordinary people. I cannot offer much help to those who are directly tweeting allegations about people. As I already said, I am not a legal expert, but I am now old enough to know by now that to call someone a paedophile requires a stack of irrefutable evidence.

I can offer suggestions for those who have retweeted, or wrote implied comments. By letter of the law, it would seem that those who retweet gain responsibility for taking that tweet to their followers, but how many people know this? Any retweet is clearly marked with the original author's name. Ignorance being no defence is a harsh principle to reply here. This is not as black and white as knowing that violence or sexual abuse is legally wrong.

This is important, because there may be no end to this. Courts could find themselves being a revolving door for trivial Twitter actions, with judges having to rule on who retweeted someone else's innuendo. The fact of the matter is that people could potentially be sued for retweeting a comment by a respected Guardian journalist originating from a rather dubious news report by the respected (but heaven knows why!) BBC.

That is the reality, and it seems wrong because it is wrong.

I would suggest that judges become familiar with the Twitter architecture. It is clear how the site works. If someone tweets something potentially libellous with 100,000 followers in tow, then it is obvious that it is going to be spread much wider. This puts the onus on the original author to get it right. Retweeters do so with the original source of their tweet clearly marked, and those retweeters who are clearly not media-savvy should not be punished for not knowing the rules of engagement. If some of those who are media-aware (and legally-aware) cannot get their Twitter activity right, what chance the rest of us?

One logical conclusion is that people will not just be sued for tweets and retweets, but they will also be sued for mentioning the names of high-profile people who are tweeting potentially libellous material elsewhere on the website. For example, Sally Bercow has come in for a lot of unfair criticism for also being little more than careless about who she saw "trending" on the website (McAlpine, since you ask). Assuming her tweets are deemed unlawful, what fate could befall anyone who simply tweeted the text “I wonder what Sally Bercow is up to today?"

Most of the "chattering classes" know who Sally Bercow is.

To find out what Sally Bercow has been writing, she is well-known enough to be the first twitter result if anyone enters "Sally Bercow" into the search box.

If I wrote a tweet "I wonder what Sally Bercow is up to today," there is the argument that I am effectively signposting people to her page containing lots of questionable tweets.

This could happen to a lot of other people too. This is why the law as it stands cannot work.

I also fear what the consequences of these issues could be for opinion. A lot is written about high-profile Members of Parliament, for example, Nadine Dorries, who has recently been a resident of a jungle somewhere on the other side of the world. Dorries has always attracted a lot of criticism from those on both the left and the right because of her unconventional approach to public office.

Nobody can expect to be sued for describing her as a ghastly, awful woman, as it is an opinion that is not necessarily damaging. However, some may feel that Dorries has gone on a TV show to boost her own profile. They may argue that she is deserting her constituents while doing that. They may believe she is not fit to be an MP on that basis.

My fear is that Dorries may consider those viewpoints to be damaging and contest them on that basis. If a portal is opened to sue people for expressing such sentiments on Twitter, then the whole principle of debate is at risk.

Admittedly, criticising someone's fitness for office is not comparable to calling someone a paedophile, but the recipient could still fight the Twitter membership on the basis they feel it is damaging to their future employment opportunities and reputation. There are stakes here that are much bigger than context of one accusatory episode where this is located. The law must reflect that.

For now, I believe everyone has to calm down a little. We must cool down with the feral accusations. I can understand why feelings are running high though. I used to think, and still do to some extent, that Brits are extremely paranoid and irrational when it comes to the issue of paedophilia.

The Sun mixes up coverage of right-wing politics, international affairs and celebrity gossip with regular titillation stories from the courts about paedophile activity. If the stories look peculiarly out of place outside of the context of a local newspaper, it is because they are. In some ways, the newspaper's obsession with the issue is borderline creepy.

It has been known for innocent people to be attacked in the street because they happen to resemble a paedophile mugshot published in the tabloid press. This is not on.

I do believe though that Britain has a bigger paedophile problem than I originally thought. In some ways, the Internet has flushed them to the surface in much the same way as rain brings out slugs. Without being rumbled by an eagle-eyed computer repair engineer, Gary Glitter would still be enjoying regular paedophile holidays to the Far East, unchecked.

Shouting out the names of presumed paedophiles on Twitter is not the answer. We need to apply pressure to get these high-profile child abuse cases re-opened and re-examined, so the offenders can be brought to justice.

It is not just ordinary citizens, many of whom are worried parents and people with good hearts, who need to cool down though. A little understanding needs to be shown by those who are trying to control what is published on the Internet.

Let us not forget the public was wound up by this story by the very classes now trying to stamp down on Twitter activity – those in the media. The wind-up process started earlier in the day of the Newsnight report into the child abuse scandal, when someone connected to the report tweeted to tell people it was likely to be screened and involved an old Tory.

The idea may not have been to cause feverish speculation, but it had that effect.

When the news report went out and (quelle surprise) nobody was named, that raised anger levels further. Bearing in mind Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards paedophila, this outcome should not have surprised anyone, apart from maybe the most moronic of TV executives.

So whereas the Twitter community needs to calm down a little now, so must also those who are the most condemning of us.

Seen but not heard - how victims of paedo Jim were let down

"Children should be seen and not heard." I never did care much for that expression. Even as a child, I could detect oppression a mile off, and for me that phrase was oppressive. Now, in light of the revelations that for 50 years Jimmy Savile was presenting a paedophilic lie to a public tricked into adoring him, I realise how dangerous such beliefs are.

Fast forward to 2012, and those who cannot accept they have been hoodwinked by a cunning confidence trickster for the past 50 years are now trying to say that victims are wrong for waiting until he died to come forward. Yet these children, now adults, were terrified to come forward. It was safer to be seen and not heard.

They were terrified of not being believed. They were terrified of what the consequences would be if they were believed. They were terrified of being the ones who threatened the charity work he was using as a cover for his misdeeds. The victims who did come forward to the police while he was alive found their complaints ignored.

Those who should have come forward, did not. These same people - other celebrities 'who knew', agents and assistants - are still not exactly falling over themselves to come forward now either. In some ways this is understandable, for they should be in the dock for treating his depravity like a joke. "We all knew about Uncle Jimmy" they smirked, as though he was nothing more than a slightly more paedophilic version of Benny Hill.

This is serious though. Anyone who knew Savile's behaviour was more than just a little tomfoolery, and kept his dirty little secret for him, should be put on trial.

The BBC should also be closely examined over their mishandling of the affair. For 40 years, they put Savile on television and radio, gave him children's programmes to work on and made a hero out of him - meaning that in some small way we were all victims of the decades-long stunt.

Following the emergence of the scandal, one which took an ITV documentary to reveal, the BBC response has been defensive, then inconsistent, before finally realising that an independent investigation is inevitable.

This is more evidence that the BBC is far too big an institutionalised beast, and should be broken up, with its local and national, TV and Radio divisions split, so that institutionalised power bases cannot be formed so easily. If there is a call to break up the Murdoch press over transgressions due to its size and crass bureaucracy, then a call to split up the BBC in the same manner is a perfectly acceptable one.

The BBC is not the only organisation with questions to answer. Police forces received numerous complaints about Savile's sick actions over the years. Any police or Crown Prosecution Service failings must be examined.

Then there are the "charity" visits to hospitals where nurses told child patients to pretend to be asleep. I can understand how the nurses felt. Sometimes it is easier not to act, for speaking up often opens up a vault of greater unpleasantness. Anyone who has worked in a public facing role, perhaps in a bar or a restaurant, will have experienced the situation where someone deeply unpleasant occasionally visits. The desire is to impose a permanent ban of the person from the premises, but often it is easier to tolerate the oaf, usually with the comfort of knowing they will be gone in half an hour. Life can carry on as normal until their next visit.

However, this is insufficient in this situation. If these health practitioners knew something, they should have done something. This was about someone taking children to his grubby car to abuse them.

The children who were victims of Savile were let down by everyone. The abuses were allowed to happen by those charged to look after them. Although the misery they experienced was clearly known about, they were left to suffer in silence. To put it another way, they were seen but not heard.