graham ovenden sentencing and lord mcalpine

Ovenden as been found guilty beyond reasonabe doubt, and his many paintings have contributed to good evidence.

I struggle to understand why Lord McAlpine bought those pictures in the first place. Hmm The 'old boy network' disgusts me. How much manoevring has gone on behind doors to help maintain the monetary value of these pictures, how do the people who were the child subjects of these pictures feel about what is happening now, are these pictures now apropriate for placing on the market, given they were painted by a convicted sex offender who abused some of the children he painted? So many issues to untangle and completely wrong to try to capitalise on this situation.

I hope Lord McAlpine does the decent thing and withdraws the pictures.

Just to be clear, Lord McAlpine says he is definitely not a paedophile, he was mistakenly identified and has sued some Twitterers who tweeted his name.

His private collection of photos and paintings of naked pre-pubescent girls by Graham Ovenden are now an embarrassment to him and need to be disposed of sold. How much bad luck can one man have?

this explains a bit about Ovenden and his work

Message deleted by Gransnet for breaking our Talk Guidelines. Replies may also be deleted.

Things that could be "got away with in the seventies" would never be tolerated now.

Who can say what anyone's motive would have been for buying his pictures. Even the Tate galleries showed them.

"bad luck"? Who knows.

Perhaps a bonfire in the back garden would have been a more sensible way to dispose of a collection.

Jingle I don't think it is helpful to put a link to a picture of a naked child painted by a convicted sex offender. I have reported that particular post for this reason.

OMG! It is out there in the public realm. It probably hung in the Tate gallery! We have all seen little girls without their clothes on haven't we?!

How prudish can you get!

If there is going to be a discussion, it is best to know what we are talking about.

I give up!

Indeed Whenim. Ones heart bleeds for the poor Lord. Does anyone knw what he intends to do with the thirty pieces of silver he has obtained in libel payments so far?

Actually I think GN might be more inclined to delete my post questioning Lord McAlpine's motive for buying the pictures in the first place.

I reported it too.

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I believe Lord Mcalpine has donated the money he received to charity.

I too felt uncomfortable viewing the pictures on the link, particularly the ones which showed a girl sitting on a man's lap. I know they are already in the public domain but I had never seen them before.

Jingle the pictures have been removed from display in the Tate for the same reason as objections are being raised here.

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I can understand your feelings about such issues, Jingle, but please don't put this stuff on here. Let's have a reasoned discussion. We all abhor child abuse, and disseminating the evidence of how a convicted sex offender has behaved by posting links to pictures of recognisable children (now adults) is disrespectful to them.

I worked with a woman who had been to a model agency to have a portfolio of photos done when she was a teenager. A few years later, Peter Martin (co-defendent with Owen Oyston, who was convicted of rape) was convicted for sexual offences against children and young women who had done the same thing - gone along in all innocence to have their photos taken as they wanted to be models.

My colleague was devastated when she learned that she had been filmed whilst getting changed in a private dressing room, and her photos had been shared with sex offenders. She wasn't assaulted, but she knows how close she was to being abused, and how that could have affected her life. Peter Martin even managed to smuggle photos into prison and showed them to other offenders.

My point is that any child who was painted by Ovenden will have been affected by this, and continuing to show such pictures is unfair to them.

Oh right. I think that is absolutely ridiculous.

I am really amazed that anyone at Gransnet HQ would be so narrow minded. I thought this was a serious discussion for grownups.

I would have liked to decide for myself whether or not to have a look at the paintings. If they have been hanging in an art gallery without a problem up until now that makes me curious.

It's bloody annoying to me when a few people appoint themselves as moral guardians of GN, tell us what we should and should not put on here and report stuff to GNHQ.

iam64 I agree with you!
Whoops Lord McAlpine! the fact that you have pictures like that does not do your reputation any good! However I am aware that your have not been convicted of any offence. It is probably fortunate they were not on a computer.

I was disgusted by Ovendens "bleats" on being convicted that he only wanted to record the innocence of children. That is just what many pedophiles say to try and justify their actions.

JO8s post of the picture at 09:44 Has given me some idea of exactly what his paintings are about. I had not seen any of them.

That one seems to me to be a clear statement of indecent thoughts. Has that actually been hanging in a gallery somewhere?
Has the Art establishment been ignoring content because of some bizzarre ideas of artistic freedom or what? These images should be destroyed or they will start to command value for all the wrong reasons.

You're entitled to your opinion Petallus. You can search for images of children that Ovenden has abused yourself, or pm Jingle for the link

You can see them Petallus - They are out there if you need to -it's just that there's a thousand reasons why there should not be a GN link available one of which is that these children/ young people are/were someone's grandchildren. Do you honestly believe that there should be no control over what we post links to on GN - goodness, when I think what I've had posts deleted for!!!

It's bloody annoying to me that images of abused children become marketable and are shown via link on a forum!

I put the links up to inform other posters. To aid a discussion.

I am disgusted with Gransnet HQ.

If, as could be possible, they have legal reasons for the deletions, they should say so.