UKC

So Ms.Harman appears on the Marr show calling for a full judicial inquiry ino the Saville case and questioning why the police failed to take action on the past.

Well, Harriet, it may be partly because the the National council for civil liberties of which you were legal officer was actively campaigning for relaxation of the laws on the age of consent (and your mate NCCL secretary Patricia Hewitt was actually speaking in favour of this) and you were speaking in favour of allowing relaxation on the laws on photography of naked children.
Both the paedophile information exchange and paedophile action for liberation organisation were affiliated to the NCCL.

So, Harriet, your organisation helped create the climate in which this behaviour became possible.

And Mr.Marr didn't think this worthy of questioning.

We should have a full inquiry into this......

In reply to Postmanpat:

Have you no shame, there clearly no link between debate about the age of concent and crimes of sexual assault, be they against adults of minors.

I disagree with Harriet Harman on many things, but your post is just nasty and regressive.

In reply to The New NickB:

Agreed

In reply to The New NickB: Clearly. If the age of consent was 12 then there would be fewer paedophiles.

In reply to The New NickB:
Rubbish. If people are campaigning to abolish the age of consent they are creating a climate
In which sexual ctivities with minors is considered a 'grey area" and the authorities less likely to take them seriously.You surely don't believe that all Saville and others' activies involved physical force is. "assault". They involved exploitation of positions of "power' that when done to an adult would be regarded as cynical and unpleasant but not illegal.

The age of consent is in place to stop such exploitation of those considered unable to take responsibility for protecting themselves hence the concept of "statutory rape". These campaigns sought to remove those protections.

I assume Harman and Hewitt saw these campaigns as extending civil liberties rather than an a charter for paedophiles but that doesn't mean they didnt provide encouragement to paedophiles and Harman should acknowledge that.

In reply to Postmanpat:


What's your point caller?

In reply to bouldery bits:

That Harman is a hypocrite for criticising the authorities of the time for turning a blind eye when her organisation had been and was increasing the likelihood of thy happening.

And that Marr is failing in his duty as a journalist for not asking her to explain herself on this.

In reply to Postmanpat: You are really stretching here. There are plenty of countries with lower ages of consent without noticeably higher sexual abuse problems than then UK. The key word is I think 'consent'. Try getting worked up about Harman's comments onpress reglatin instead - you will be on firmer ground.

In reply to Postmanpat: I agree with your sentiments.

In 1976, the NCCL in a submission to the Criminal Law Revision Committee of the British Parliament argued that "Childhood sexual experiences, willingly engaged in, with an adult result in no identifiable damage… The real need is a change in the attitude which assumes that all cases of paedophilia result in lasting damage".

In reply to MG:

Well if the age of cneeonsent is lower then by definition the level of illegal sex with minors will fall. If the age of consent were 12 then Saville might simply be regarded as a bit of a lad like most rock stars of the era.

As I pointed out elsewhere, all this was happening in an era when previous sexual standards had been eroded so premarital sex, gay sex, public nudity etc had suddenly becme acceptable and it was not clear where the new boundaries lay. The new boundaries became established eventually as permiiting most sexual activities only between consenting adults but in the interim people like Saville were able to exploit the "grey areas". Campaigns to reduce the age of consent muddied the waters further.

Any serious inquiry into why Saville was allowed to happen has to examine the context in which it happened. Harman should embrace that since she and her colleagues were part of it.

In reply to Postmanpat:

It has never been a grey area at least in law, so nothing to exploit. The man it seems was a serial child rapist/ sexual deviant.

D

In reply to Postmanpat:
>
I realize that might happen if laws were poorly framed. But do really think Sweden say has loads of unpunished Jimmy Savilles? As above, consent, is essential.

In reply to Dauphin:
"At least in law" being the key words. Of course he was as you describe. The question being asked is how the hell was he allowed to get away with it.

In reply to MG:


Don't you realise that Sweden relentlesssly persecutes innocent people accused of sex crimes on the flimsiest of pretexts... or am I getting confused with Julian Assange ?

In reply to MG:

Well the age of consent is 15 in Sweden so it's not so different to ours. Quite possibly there are heaps go guys exploiting 14 year olds in Spain and if they dont use force thy are "doing nothing wrong" and if the girls can't prove force was used then the guys will get away it.

In reply to Postmanpat: I really think age is irrelevant here. Many of Saville's victims were older. It's the lack of cosent and coercian that is the problem.

In reply to Postmanpat:

PMP. You are way offbeam here. Jimmy Savile (at least the one spelt with one L) was molesting and assaulting children and young teenagers long before Harriet Harman had even gone into politics i.e while she was still at school and university. Anyway, as someone else has said, age only one of the issues. He assaulted many young people who were over 18.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Much as I despise Harriet I don't hold her solely responsible for the loathsome Savile with one "l"s activities. But I do regard her as party to a muddying of the moral waters that allowed the BBC and others to turn a blind eyes to such activities.

Regarding the routine molestation (as opposed to assault) of older women, I genuinely wonder whether this thing went on to this extent before the sixties or whether the moral confusion of the era enabled it?

In reply to Postmanpat: Oh come on! You think that in an age of widespread live in servants, under employors with huge power over them, this didn't go on as much if not more than the 1960-70s?

In reply to Postmanpat: Here you go
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=sexual+abuse+1930s&sou...

In reply to MG:

It was a genuine question not a rhetorical one. Take your point.and Ive seen it on Downton

In reply to Postmanpat: At a guess a fairly constant level of abuse in all times and societies, moderated a bit by opportunity. Should do some research...oh, wrong thread, sorry:-}

In reply to MG:

Slightly off topic but you get the idea - far from uncommon way back when people were properly sexually/socially/morally repressed by the state.

http://cai.ucdavis.edu/waters-sites/prostitution/ChildProstitution.htm

D

In reply to Postmanpat:


I think you'd find (if you could go back and see) that it's always gone on since the year dot.

In Victorian times (for example) attitudes towards rape and the molestation of servants and women from lower down in the social orders were awfull, even if unspokenly so, there are some written accounts of crowds gathering to watch women being raped in the street and not doing anything other than cheer/jeer.

In the 60s contraception ment women found it more difficult to have 'no' taken for an answer than before it, but compared to earlier times things had improved I think, and things like morality are often subjective when it comes to looking at an era in time and what is happening in a society.

I think Caitlin Moran said something interesting once about witches and women being more commonly thought to have special powers, which was that in times past when feudal landowners could rape women and cast families out of thier homes, saying that a curse would be put upon them if the didn't desist was probably the only power many women had at the time.

I'm not too sure if the 60s have been responsible for any changes in attitudes for the worse towards women when (IIRC) femenism started then as well.

Tim

In reply to Timmd:
Yes, you're no doubt right although maybe the manifestations of it maybe changed.

In reply to Dauphin:

Repressed by the state??? Your link depicts abuse by private individuals enabled by poverty and a low age of consent. The state raised the age of consent to help tackle that abuse.

The main interest in that link is to consider that we are moving back to greater wealth inequality, the destruction of the welfare state and campaigns to lower the age of consent.