16 Sep
8:44pm, 16 Sep 2024
11,661 posts
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Fields
my concern is more for the victims of child sexual abuse not the offender who creates a market for images and videos of this abuse by paying for them. Consuming the images of the abuse is still abuse, every time the images are accessed is another abuse; so I believe the offender sentenced today is an abuser of children. I don’t know what the appropriate sentencing is but the “poor me” defence made by the offenders legal team is pretty unsavoury reading. My personal view is that offenders of this type basically cannot be rehabilitated and will almost always reoffend. This particular offender has the wealth to change their name and appearance and relocate to SE Asia where lives are cheap and bodies are typically smaller than westerners. I would not be surprised if this is something that gets reported in a few years. |
16 Sep
10:50pm, 16 Sep 2024
3,834 posts
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riggys99
I actually agree with Fields. Whilst the punishment may be within the guidelines I don’t believe it is sufficient. Anyone can sit on a course and give the answers expected to “pass” it. In this case the offender probably has sufficient wealth that being put on the sex offenders list will have no or little real impact on his life. I don’t see how anyone can say he won’t offended again. The only real punishment for this crime is a long prison sentence. Fields wrote:
my concern is more for the victims of child sexual abuse not the offender who creates a market for images and videos of this abuse by paying for them. Consuming the images of the abuse is still abuse, every time the images are accessed is another abuse; so I believe the offender sentenced today is an abuser of children. I don’t know what the appropriate sentencing is but the “poor me” defence made by the offenders legal team is pretty unsavoury reading. My personal view is that offenders of this type basically cannot be rehabilitated and will almost always reoffend. This particular offender has the wealth to change their name and appearance and relocate to SE Asia where lives are cheap and bodies are typically smaller than westerners. I would not be surprised if this is something that gets reported in a few years. |
16 Sep
11:43pm, 16 Sep 2024
46,148 posts
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SPR
BBC has a pretty comprehensive article on the sentencing: bbc.co.uk
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17 Sep
1:06am, 17 Sep 2024
19,147 posts
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JamieKai *chameleon*
It's an incredibly emotive subject matter. Whilst I do work in the justice system, I'm not well versed in the reams of research that goes into the accredited programmes - but I don't believe it to be a simple case of turning up and giving the right answers in order to successfully complete. Especially in this case, as I earlier mentioned, I imagine they will have to deliver it 1 to 1 rather than the usual group setting, which really would give him no space to hide. I understand the retributive response from many here, but other than removing him from the population for a period of time, a prison sentence would do little to prevent recidivism, especially in the current prison system. At least this way there will be monitoring, challenge, and should he fail to comply then breach proceedings and almost certainly at that stage a spell in custody. I know many don't rate the efficacy of the Probation Service, but they do fine work in many cases - sadly those at the top don't understand the need to promote the work that is done in a positive light, meaning the general public really only hear when things have gone wrong. |
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17 Sep
4:02am, 17 Sep 2024
3,835 posts
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riggys99
To be honest I just feel the sentence doesn’t give sufficient punishment as well as rehabilitation. I don’t see how rehabilitation can change someone’s sexual preferences. You can make a heterosexual homosexual and vice versa (not comparing either to what he has done). In my working life I have seen people manipulate psych teams to get what they want by how they answer questions etc. If he “fails” the rehabilitation will a prison sentence follow or just further rehabilitation. I don’t underestimate the work a stretches probation service does my son works with ex offenders. Maybe I am more of a flog em person than I would like to admit.
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17 Sep
7:17am, 17 Sep 2024
25,617 posts
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larkim
The point about the sentencing is that the sentence he received is exactly what any other person would have received. The fact that it is lower than most of us would assume is proportionate for that sort of crime, put in context with some of the sentences in the public consciousness at the moment from the JSO ones through to the racist riots and social media comments, is the issue. Parity of crime / punishment is incredibly hard to get right and it's important public discourse. The problem is that it is discussed in the context of individuals which colours the discussion. |
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17 Sep
7:24am, 17 Sep 2024
11,663 posts
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Fields
Thanks for that evenhanded post @JamieKai  I accept I don’t come at this from a neutral perspective, and certainly don’t have any knowledge of whatever treatment and preventative programmes there are. And agree it would be rare to hear about “successes” from the treatment. I also look at this through the prism of sentences for VAWG, and as in an earlier post I despair that crimes against the person are not punished as vigorously as crimes against property or indeed protest. But that is a separate topic. |
17 Sep
7:28am, 17 Sep 2024
22,135 posts
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Dave W
Should emotion be taken out of sentencing? Should we trust the professionals who do this stuff day in and day out to get it right? Knowing that it is the public eye so much do we really think the judge got the sentencing badly wrong? If he or she had there are avenues open to the CPS to appeal an unduly lenient sentence. Personally I think that the two approaches mentioned in the posts above are not mutually exclusive. A bit of prison time followed by rehabilitation. I personally don’t think that a suspended sentence is a deterrent. It might stop Edwards doing it again but it has no deterrent value against others. |
17 Sep
8:00am, 17 Sep 2024
29,292 posts
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richmac
It's more keeping politics out of sentencing, eg JSO. And yes we should trust those professionals to do their jobs, we should also resource them adequately. You don't hear about the success' because, well there's nothing to tell and that's the point. |
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17 Sep
8:01am, 17 Sep 2024
11,664 posts
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Fields
The lack of deterrence is a big issue for me too I think. I think prison sends a message to others, this offender in particular is financially insulated from the loss of work / income that may come from it but most others aren’t. |
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