Rolf Harris

I haven't seen all the details but I don't understand why you think the girls' parents should be charged with child neglect Anniebach?

Time will tell, with all these trials. I think we have all been shocked by the allegations though.

It's true that we have to watch what we post on an open forum , this is not friends chatting over a coffee.

Yes, I think best to keep Schtum about this till the Jury is out. Wouldn't want to cause any problems.

Am I allowed to comment on historical child neglect ? no one has been charged with this offence, thanks

Printmiss is right in saying that things that were accepted (or tolerated) years ago are viewed differently now (although of course, child abuse was never acceptable). Many of us had to put up with and deal with the sort of groping that would today be considered assault. However, I am all in favour of those guilty of "historical" child abuse being brought to justice.

What troubles me about these cases is there is no evidence, just one persons word against another, I think compensation payouts should be stopped too

There is corroborating evidence in the form of letters sent, and kept, between offender and victim, in those charges that result in a conviction. Interesting that this time Stuart Hall made a guilty plea on one of the charges.

I haven't heard of one letter where an accused has said they abused a child

Anniebach paedophiles do not think they are abusing..they kid themselves it is loving and consensual.

When talking to sex offenders in treatment about the lies they tell themselves, they do eventually have to stop kidding themselves that they weren't causing harm. Otherwise, why was it done in secret? Why use threats and bribes to keep their silence? I hope Stuart Hall and others are participating in sex offender treatment in prison, but suspect that Hall's decision to plead guilty to an indecent assault this last week is a strategy to get a favourable report to avoid a consecutive further sentence.

I don't considered a stage in a hall full of people to be a secret place whenim

Neither do I, Anniebach

I think that is referred to as 'hiding in plain sight' or words to that effect.

Whilst not referring to any particular case, I think it is quite amazing how people can not notice anything 'in plain sight', usually because it never occurred to them that anyone would do such a thing. Especially trusted family friends.

Let us hope we are all more aware these days.

Exactly, anno. Sexual predators who have spent years building their image as trusted pillars of the community, or prominent people who are known for spending their lives entertaining and being amongst children, can get away with 'accidental' touching, hugging and squeezing and generally getting their hands on children in full sight of the public, whilst secretly indecently assaulting them. The child will be confused and unsure what has happened and the carers will struggle to believe that any harm has been done or intended.

I think people in the seventies were as aware of groping children as we are now, this is not something which has only recently come to the notice of the public

Yes, we've always steered clear of obvious gropers. It's the sophisticated, practised, planned indecent assaults that are disguised as cuddles which have harmed children. No child expects a finger to be pushed into their genitals during an outwardly friendly pat on the back or cuddle. That's what sex offenders trade on. It's done and everyone around them is behaving normally as though nothing untoward has happened - how does a child interpret that? It's not an accident and the sex offender will have been fantasising sexually about that moment of opportunity. This comes direct from convicted sex offenders who have taken some responsibility and described how they have operated.

When, I thought a practiced abuser would have had many victims . What is troubling about much of these cases is we do not know and will never know the truth but it's sad that decent men are more and more afraid to even touch a child on the shoulder , tickling is now abuse, a hug is too.

We have these cases from the sixties, seventies and eighties, yet the vile abuse in the North Wales Children Home is still not being properly investigated

Practised abusers do often have many victims, Anniebach. They don't all want to complain for a variety of reasons, not least because they are left feeling ashamed or think they won't be believed. What a huge burden for a child to carry, on top of what's been done to them.

Yes, I agree with you about the North Wales children's homes abuse. Many children from Wales and the North West went into those homes and having suffered abuse have still not been able to put it to rest. I feel so sad about all the many other children who, now adults, are wondering whether it is worthwhile them complaining, too. To be faced with media doubt and public speculation that they are jumping on the bandwagon to get compensation is enough to put anyone off complaining.

No caring adult should feel they cannot hug a child, or give them a comforting arm round the shoulder. It never has, and never will, constitute abuse. Children need affection from responsible, protective adults.

I think we are naive if we believe we can judge a TV personality's real personality just from the way they present themselves in public. Many people have one persona in work and another in private (or several).
Also there is a mass of scientific evidence that demonstrates that people perceive what they expect to see.
And that people will generally seek to eliminate "cognitive dissonance" - when various bits of information don't "add up" they will tend to settle on one simplified version of what they have seen.

When, I can't agree that a cuddle or a tickle will not be judged as abuse , I only wish it were so ,many men are feared to give physical comfort to a child , just as teachers are feared to put a plaster on a cut knee

We can agree to disagree. Cuddles are given and received freely amongst the people who are trusted and do not overstep boundaries in the world the children in my family know. They aren't left with anyone who is unknown to them, and the chances of them being abused are low. No child is immune, but we can minimise risks and keep them safe enough. If people do what they can to protect children, listen to them and believe what they say if they express fear or confusion, but allow them some freedom to learn and take small risks, children can learn about staying safe and become sufficiently resilient to cope with life's knocks. It's sad to hear of children being deprived of hugs and spontaneous affection, for fear of it being misinterpreted.

Extract from a recent discussion in a Scottish conference about protecting and nurturing children:

'At a recent health committee meeting, leading child protection expert Alyson Leslie of Dundee University said that she felt society had gone "completely ­bonkers in the culture and ethos that have grown up around child protection". It seems to Leslie ridiculous that people could not "hug or reach out to a child, particularly when the child is in distress". For her it is imperative that we change the message.

Yet it's hard to see how to shift the culture. After all, for the most part it's not necessarily about legislation or actual bans but about countering a general pervading fear, a paranoia that reigns everywhere from the play park to the nursery, which makes men, in particular, police their language when talking about children and the warmth, affection and responsibility they feel towards them. One man I talked to on this subject (who isn't a father) uttered the words "show kids love", then retracted them as if they were somehow inappropriate.

One thing we can do, says Leslie, is change our language, stop talking about child protection and instead talk about child nurturing. "The more we talk about child protection," she adds, "the more we create the sense that we have to take children and put them some place safe, away from everyone." As she notes: "Child protection is not about restricting nurturing affectionate contact but encouraging it - with safeguards." '