Followers of Heretic TOC hardly need to be told “Don’t believe everything you read in the papers”. What is worth pointing out, though, is that there are good reasons not to believe everything – and perhaps hardly anything – in the joint police and NSPCC report into allegations of sexual abuse made against Jimmy Savile out with an almighty, nation-blasting, media-saturating, fanfare in Britain today.
I have not yet read the report, Giving Victims A Voice, but the title alone gives grounds for scepticism: Savile, lest anyone forget, died without facing trial. He is no longer around to defend himself and none of the allegations have been tested through cross-examination in court.
The sheer quantity of allegations may be thought decisive, but “corroboration by volume” is a very dodgy principle once a bandwagon gets rolling and compensation looms as a motive for making complaints.
There is no need for me to bang on about this though. As I recall, the media “scandal” first kicked off in relation to an allegation arising from Duncroft School for girls. So Duncroft is where one would expect “untainted” allegations to have come from if there were any i.e. allegations uninfluenced by any later bandwagon effect. But a former girl at this school, blogging as “Anna Raccoon”, has today posted a very detailed account of precisely why the allegations do not stack up. This is absolute dynamite – or would be if the media were as interested as they ought to be.
Go here: http://snifferdogonline.com/
Except, comments disabled. Further discussion, definitely not.
We already feel like a good puke, and its not from last night’s good beer.
I’m very excited to learn from everyone-who-has-so-far-expressed-an-opinion that the late lamented Sir Jimmy “groomed the nation”. The whole nation! That’s right – I’VE BEEN GROOMED! Jim groomed it for me! For all of us! And all this from a man whose own personal grooming, frankly, left much to be desired.
Now we’re all victims of grooming, maybe we can have a discussion about the ridiculousness of the whole concept. Or maybe not.
I was going to continue by asking who the heck is this Mark Williams-Thomas, but you guessed it, yet another ex-copper, ‘investigative journalist’, and now criminologist with an MA in Something Really Serious, seeking to drum up business to augment his post-public purse income stream.
But then, glancing about, somebody far more interesting popped up, like Bilbo Baggins somebody quite unexpected; the Australian writer Nikki McWatters, and her confessions of a teenage groupie.
Read here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/nikki-mcwatters/predatory-teenage-girls_b_2287890.html
and here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/nikki-mcwatters/teenage-sexuality-we-need-to-talk_b_2368043.html
Now, that’s a bit more realistic, certainly a lot more truthful; I mean, all you kiddies out there, get a grip finally.
Take the One Ring off yer pinkie, stop trying to be invisible, strut yer stuff.
All that can be said about the significance of the Saville sound and fury may apply to the Sandusky sound and fury (note that I say “may” and not “does”). Only the principals know the truth about whether Sandusky’s relationships were initially consensual and only went sour as the boy became brainwashed by society – – and aware of the potential financial rewards. But Jerry didn’t have the prescience to not outlive his accusations.
Jerry Sandusky?
I remain more than somewhat confused by all these high profile individuals being singled out and formed up through accusation and indictment as nothing more in fact than general deterrents, against a broadly embedded social and cultural backdrop of what can only be described as, and I grew up in it myself, generic male bathing, showering and change-room behaviour.
Current feminist theory calls it ‘male homosociality’. Whatever.
Until fairly recently, bathers were banned in YMCAs across the US. In the UK and Australia likewise grammar schools, and on the continent gymnasium schools, were considered healthy environments for boys. Mothers went out of their way to save enough money to send their sons there.
When I was at boarding school boys from 6 to 16 showered together, as football and swim squad coaches showered with them likewise in public facilities, when away from the school itself. I could relate some really very funny dormitory, shower and change room stories, yes, that this latest prudery might deem ‘inappropriate’, but in all those years I never heard of anyone complain.
No, there is FAR MORE to all this than is being presented by this new lot of ‘child protectors’ via the tabloid media.
You mean to say, that’s it? £450,000 spent just to tell us that way back in the 1970s Jimmy Savile dated a couple of fans, asked them if they wanted a bit of a naughty and when they declined he politely respected their wish; sent three fans flowers on their 16th birthday; at a family gathering sat his great-niece in his lap; and on a TV show touched a fan’s bum?
Good God, for the sexually liberated 1970s he was being unsurpassingly polite, or they were astonishingly prudish, or both. The man should have been awarded an extra gong for his morality and restraint, that’s my view.
And you couldn’t even say the report ‘gave sexual abuse victims a voice’. None came out protesting at being targeted by some abusive paedophile ring with the British nation’s worst ever serial paedophile in the slavering lead, they were approached as part of an investigation into Jimmy Savile, and only spoke reluctantly, wanting to know what was the point.
That’s it? That’s the voice of childhood sexual abuse victims, after all these years?
As Pa Danby is wont to exclaim, Well kiss mah ass! Kiss mah ass!