Ludwig in fairness you have put a heap into this topic and by any forum standards Poirot has also contributed to the hilt as well, thoughtfully and on topic, both of you have in my book done well. I honestly don't know why it got so out of hand. I can be as bad as anyone here dishing out satirical nonsense at times, and in fairness I deserve to cop plenty back, but the last thing I would do is "report" anyone to he who must be Obeid about anything. So fellas I ask you to put an end to this and move on. Remember its only a discussion forum and there no sheep stations at steak or lamb chops for that matter!
Cheers to you both, and lets move on.

p/s I'll be starting The Cliff Richards thread very shortly LOL.

Paul, on 4 Sept you asked if I still stand by my original post.

I wrote:

.......
>>I was very dismayed when I heard the news that Rolf Harris had been found guilty on all 12 charges and now faces a substantial jail term.

Sorry, but this just doesn’t add up.

It seems that the worst of it was a bit of groping, which really amounts to somewhat risqué activity, and nothing worse than that.

He apparently did it openly, and gained a reputation for it. Even though he was known as The Octopus as a result of this, he was generally not thought of as being a pervert or pedophile, nor anything of the sort.

It really could be, and I would strongly suggest should be, interpreted as nothing more than playful behaviour, if at times a little worrying for some young women.

Comparing him to the likes of pedophile priests or Jimmy Savile is like comparing a flea to a walrus.

I think Rolf has copped a very raw deal here.<<
.......

Firstly this was written on 2 July and I have repeatedly made it clear that my views were modified when Judge Sweeney released his sentencing remarks on 4 July, in which he outlined the details and penalties for each charge: http://www.news.com.au/world/rolf-harris-sentencing-a-transcript-of-justice-nigel-sweeneys-remarks/story-fndir2ev-1226978434869

None of us had any more than a very generalised idea about the whole affair before this document was released.

I have said that my comments since 4 July have been based on this document, which is the ONLY reliable source of information for any of us to go by.

But, by and large, YES I still hold the sentiments expressed in my opening post.

Let’s look at that one statement at a time…

>> I was very dismayed when I heard the news that Rolf Harris had been found guilty on all 12 charges and now faces a substantial jail term <<

I remain very dismayed. But I accept that he is guilty of offences against young girls. However, I do not accept that all the charges and convictions are fair and reasonable.

continued

It seems that the prosecuting authorities built the strongest possible case against him that they possibly could, out of offences which really are pretty minor in the greater scheme of things.

I think they absolutely stretched it to the limit in bringing 12 charges against him in relation to the four girls.

Upon analysis of the sentencing remarks, it seems to me that there really are only 6.

Count 2: the quite squeezing of ‘B’s left buttock; does not seem like something that should have been brought before the court. Harris was wrong to do it, but surely the bringing forth of this action as if it was a serious criminal act is taking things beyond a reasonable perspective.

Counts 5 & 6 arose from a single incident. There really should have only been one count registered here.

Same for Counts 7 & 8.

And for 10, 11 & 12.

Count 9, involving ‘C’ when she was 19, sounds very suspiciously like a non-offence, or at least something for which he should not have been found guilty, as there seems to NOT be a reasonable doubt that he undertook this action without the will participation of ‘C’.

So if one was to look at the whole thing in what I would argue would be a more balanced manner, then Counts 2, 6, 8, 11 & 12 should not have been brought in the first place. And he should not have been found guilty of Count 9.

And… there is surely a reasonable POSSIBILITY that Counts 5-6, 7-8 & 9 would just not have happened at all if ‘C’ had been truly repulsed by his actions early on and had not put herself in the position where he could repeatedly touch her, on several occasions, long-removed from each other.

Sorry, but that is my dispassionate analysis.

continued

>> Sorry, but this just doesn’t add up. <<

I continue to feel this way.

Further to the abovementioned points pertaining to the counts brought against Harris that just don’t add up for me; the penalties don’t add up either.

The most glaring one is for Count 2. Six months for a simple quick buttock grope! You’ve got to be kidding!

There seems to me to be a glaring contradiction in the imposition of jail terms for every charge, but for half of them to be served concurrently, and then for only half of the total sentence to be served in prison.

This effectively means that Harris is only being penalised for the equivalent of one quarter of the charges brought against him… or that each penalty is stated to be four times larger than it really is.

I believe that penalties imposed by a court of law should be served 100% as imposed, and that anything else amounts to duplicity or double standards or a dilution of the rule of law and the judicial system.

I think that the overall penalty given to Harris, which in reality amounts to nearly three years in jail, is fair enough, albeit at the severe end of the spectrum of fair and reasonable penalties for what he did.

I think the judge would see it in the same way, but had to impose penalties as he did, which are four times as severe on paper and nearly eight times as severe before declaring that half the sentences were to be served concurrently, or else he would have been hounded for leniency and there would have been an appeal against a lenient sentence for sure (BTW, I haven’t heard anything about a possible appeal in this regard beyond it being mooted back in early July).

It seems that there was unavoidable strategic ‘game-playing’ undertaken by the judge in order for him to get the sentence down to somewhere near what he thought was really appropriate, and make it stick, in the face of many who were baying for Harris’ blood.

continued

>> It seems that the worst of it was a bit of groping, which really amounts to somewhat risqué activity, and nothing worse than that. <<

Basically; yes. He never did anything that went beyond risky activity, around the very margins of pedophilia.

The worst of his offences was with Tonya Lee (Counts 10, 11 & 12). I think that 80% or more of his total sentence should have come as a result of that incident.

>> He apparently did it openly, and gained a reputation for it. Even though he was known as The Octopus as a result of this, he was generally not thought of as being a pervert or pedophile, nor anything of the sort. <<

This remains a very interesting point.

The paradigm back then was very different. The sort of child-touching antics that he got up to were not considered to be of any significant concern. If he gained a reputation for this, then that means that lots of people knew about it. ‘Lots of people’ means that there would have been at least a few who would have been concerned enough to take the matter forward to the authorities or confront Harris in a very loud and public manner, if they had thought it serious enough to warrant it.

He did it very openly. He did it in a manner that others could and did see it happening. He didn’t do it in a devious manner as per Savile and pedophilic priests, except perhaps regarding Tonya Lee.

The charges for those sorts of offences were much less in that era than they are today, which further strongly suggests that the paradigm was quite different back then.

The lack of any action against him back then CANNOT be explained away by his celebrity status and any consequent immunity he may be perceived to have had against reactions from parents or any adults that observed or came to know about his antics.

It can be explained by a shift in the boundaries of tolerance of that sort of activities.

continued

>> It really could be, and I would strongly suggest should be, interpreted as nothing more than playful behaviour, if at times a little worrying for some young women. <<

Yep. Far removed from deprivation of liberty, injurious assault, rape, serious molestation or anything seriously pedophilic.

He was wrong to do it. And he’s copped an arguably appropriate (but severe end of the spectrum of what is appropriate) penalty of nearly three years incarceration for it.

>> Comparing him to the likes of pedophile priests or Jimmy Savile is like comparing a flea to a walrus. <<

Absolutely.

>> I think Rolf has copped a very raw deal here. <<

Regarding the sentence that Judge Sweeney imposed, no.

Looking at the overall impact on his life, career, achievements, etc, yes absolutely.

So there you have it Paul.

When you look at Harris’ antics and put them into perspective with all manner of other stuff that comes under the banner of pedophilia / child molestation / child touching, and you look at all the other things that adults do that has a big impact and causes a loss of innocence for children, and you do this in a cool, calm, dispassionate, level-headed manner, then you would surely be very hard-pressed to condemn Harris to the extent that some on this thread have done.

Ok, bring on the total condemnation without addressing the debate, Poirot and Pericles!!