Boris

Foot in mouth. Again!

I think we need to be very careful about investigating sexual abuse that took place at any time. On the one hand genuine victims need to be heard and taken seriously but on the other we have people crawling out of the woodwork making untruthful allegations which turn the lives of the falsely accused upside down. The names of the accused should not be revealed until there is sufficient proof to charge them and bring them to justice. Sexual abuse is a crime just like murder and no matter when it took place it should be investigated if new evidence is brought to light. It's the false accusers who are wasting public money.

There have been investigations of people who have died and the results have varied with the extent and corroboration of the evidence.

With people like Cyril Smith and Jimmy Savilled there has been so much and detailed evidence, including circumstantial evidence from so many people, where the stories have been corroborated from other sources, I do not think that evidence from the deceased is needed.

The many accusations of people like Ted Heath and Leon Britton, emanating from 'Nick' and others of his ilk have all been shown to be fabricated and they have all been cleared.

Why would anyone be surprised at anything this idiot says. The outrageous things he’s said in the past are even worse than this. Malarkey, spaffing , pickaninis ( spelling??) and worse. He doesn’t care what he says. If the govt suddenly have £ 100m for knife crime now , perhaps they should have coughed up sooner and not closed all the hundreds of youth clubs etc. either. How embarrassing if he were ever to become PM. And his personal life. Littered with multiple affairs , love child/ children. Hardly the pillar of morality. And YES the sex abuse victims do need justice. There should be no room for anyone to wriggle out of these terrible crimes.

Doesn’t help the family of Leon Britton

Boris? Thought he had disappeared. Guesss he's missing the limelight.

Often these sex offenders are part of a wider circle of others, so although an individual may have died releasing information on the abuse may be tapping into this circle.
As for BJ - no amount of education will make this ignorant, self-obsessed apology of a man speak with any sense of humanity or awareness

Leaving aside Boris Johnson and the distastefulness of his language, there seem to be two possible situations when it comes to alleged child abuse: good enough evidence to bring a prosecution in court, or not good enough evidence to bring one. An alleged child abuser can be either alive or dead. Where there is good enough evidence, I suggest that an abuser should be prosecuted if alive and exposed if dead (as in the cases of Jimmy Savile and Michael Jackson). The fact that a dead person cannot defend themselves is then less important than the benefit to their victims from having what happened to them acknowledged and condemned, and possibly to the public from deterring other potential child abusers.

Where there is not good enough evidence, surely allegations should not be made public whether the alleged abuser is alive (like Cliff Richard) or dead (like Leon Brittan or Bishop George Bell). The distress caused either to them or to those who care about them is not justified.

However, the question of whether there is good enough evidence is usually answered by a police investigation – unless the alleged abuser is famous enough that somebody will make a documentary about that evidence, as with Michael Jackson. So the question then is, given that the police do not have infinite money, how much public money to allocate to investigations of historic crimes (where the alleged perpetrator is still alive – I don’t think police will investigate otherwise) and how much to allocate to investigations of present-day crimes.

There is probably a case for the investigation of present-day crimes having higher priority, as successfully prosecuting a present-day criminal will a) prevent them from committing crimes for a time (while they are imprisoned) and possibly deter them from committing future crimes, as well as b) deterring others from committing the same crime. Whereas successfully prosecuting criminals who have not committed the crime for a long while will have the second good effect but not the first. Both types of prosecution will benefit the victims.

Therefore it is probably better to allocate a smaller proportion of the available money available for investigating crimes to investigating historic crimes.

I wonder what the reason is for having a statute of limitation is on some crimes – that is, an alleged perpetrator cannot be prosecuted for them after a certain period of time.

BJ has been named as possible PM when the present incumbent leaves , now that does scare me.

His way of expressing himself and his personality - wish he were not in public life. BUT his view of spending priorities, I'm afraid he has a point. I do appreciate that we should take past crime seriously - but some (where there is no prospect of further harm to anyone) seem to be investigated on a money no object basis - at the same time as important things to curtail crime and protect the ordinary person are not done because of budgets.

Maybe diverting the money into making funds available for counselling victims of child abuse might be a more appropriate use of the money.

I think what BJ said is par for the course with him. Completely unacceptable language, and making light of the experiences of the victims.

However, I do think there is something in what he says. Pursuing fact-finding missions against those who are now dead is not, imo, a good use of public funds. Pursing historic cases against those who are still alive, is absolutely the right thing to do.

My uncle abused me as a child. He's long dead now. Would I gain anything from some committee finding in my favour? No. It wouldn't make a blind bit of difference. I know what he did to me. He knew what he did to me. Anyone else else knowing doesn't change anything.

Historic cases of abuse, physical, mental and sexual are relevant today. It's the mindset of the establishments allowing this treatment of the vulnerable that need to be challenged. Churches and religious establishments worldwide are arrogant in their attitudes regarding offences . Without these cases coming to light and people being held accountable it will never change , that's never ever going to stop for the future victims . WE need to step up to the plate and acknowledge this abuse of power by anyone in a position of power over anyone in a vulnerable position is not acceptable. Not now not ever and saying "oh it's a waste of time and money' is looking at it from the wrong angle. Healthy , well cared for, nurtured and loved children are less likely to become angry, disturbed, troublesome adults. Boris is a buffoon, an absolute buffoon, an attention seeking clown who doesn't know when to shut up.

Not only people in power , that is looking at it from one angle

Annie it does because he was exonerated and the police made a grovelling apology and paid damages. There was no smoke, just the accusations of someone with mental health problems, accusations that were proved to be totally without foundation.

It doesn’t help MOnica, an apology and a sum of money cannot take away what the family suffered.

Although I find it sad that time and money has to be spent dealing with cases that happened a long time ago people that commit atrocities must always live in fear of being found out, no matter how long it takes. The long arm of the law must be just that.

HurdyGurdy I’m very sorry to hear that happened to you.

ab there are miscarriages of justice in all spheres of the CJS - not just with child sex abuse cases. All we can do is learn from them and try to do better. What we don’t do is refuse to investigate allegations of historic child sex abuse in case it’s ill founded or because the person is dead. As a pp said, there may be others still living anyway who will be revealed during the investigation. The word investigation means finding out facts. Of course it can all be done better but you seem fixated on a few high profile cases rather than the hundreds if not thousands of abused children who deserve justice. I take it you are not following the child abuse enquiry which daily reveals the appalling rate of child sex abuse which has gone unreported for decades and decades and ruined many more lives than the few you are fixated on as sad or regrettable as they are. Can’t you see that?

Perhaps if a victim found the courage to speak out and the person was dead, it might lead to others coming forward. They could then support each other, which may be a good thing.

maryeliza I think the same be they high profile cases or not.

ab you are arguing for putting the wtongly accused before the interests of the abused children. What part of no system is perfect do you not understand? I would also say that in some cases a lack of evidence is not necessarily proof of innocence. The HO under TM ‘lost’ files which dealt with some high profile people and accusations of child sex abuse.

maryeliza fixated on high profile cases

ab I have no idea what your last post meant and do you know what? I care even less. I just can’t be bothered to continue arguing with your minority views, illogical , ill informed posts. Most posters condemn BJ ‘s language and believe historic child sex abuse cases should be investigated. There’s nothing more to say is there so I’m probably off this thread.

In a perfect world, every case would be investigated to its conclusion. Maybe. Though a witch-hunt on someone who can't defend themselves due to being dead worries me.

But in this imperfect world, yes I'd rather see limited resources go to investigating and preventing current crimes.

A lot of people commenting here seem to have missed the point. Boris is not condoning historic offences, he's talking about using resources most effectively. And yes, I'd rather 100 victimes of a historic crime were denied 'closure' than one person got knifed tomorrow.