Ludwig,

One Liner: Everything.

<< If, Ludwig. >>

YESSS Pericles…IF!

<< But the jury, and the judge, assessed that she was not a willing participant, and therefore she was a victim. >>

Did they? Or did they just ASSUME that this was the case?

Neither you nor I nor anyone else in this discussion is privy to the detail of court proceedings in this regard. All we know is that the jury treated ‘C’ as the victim, and the only thing the judge said in this regard is:

< In her Victim Impact Statement, which I am sure is true…>

….which tells us NOTHING about the veracity of ‘C’s case. The judge has said nothing about why this girl’s evidence should be taken as being 100% true.

Compare this to the great detail that Judge Masipa went to yesterday in order to assess the veracity of witnesses and evidence in the Oscar Pistorius trial.

So there does indeed remain a very big IF.

IMHO, there has to be a reasonable doubt about the testimony…. and hence about the magnitude of guilt of the defendant.

<< Which makes this suggestion of yours both redundant and extremely offensive. >>

No. Certainly not redundant. And if you are extremely offended by my mere mention of things like this, then I would suggest that you do not have an open mind to a rational debate on this subject, or to the consideration of all the possibilities here.

Can’t you see that you are doing your side of this debate no good at all by branding my very suggestions that things might possibly have been quite different to how they have been portrayed in court, extremely offensive… and hence utterly unacceptable?

For goodness sake Pericles, you’ve surely got to have a more open mind than that!

Respect the decision of the jury, judge and whole legal process. But don’t treat it as gospel. In fact, questioning and critically examining it is actually a fundamental part of the whole process.

You are still manufacturing controversy where there is none, Ludwig.

>>Did they? Or did they just ASSUME that this was the case? Neither you nor I nor anyone else in this discussion is privy to the detail of court proceedings in this regard<<

It was not an assumption that they made, Ludwig. It was a judgment.

And as you yourself just reminded us, the judge and jury spent seven weeks hearing, first hand, the evidence that condemned Harris. You sit in your banana lounger in Queensland, and imagine scenarios of "if" this and "if" the other, all of which are the purest speculation, and all in the most dubious cause of excusing the inexcusable.

And you do so love taking snippets out of context, don't you.

>>...if you are extremely offended by my mere mention of things like this, then I would suggest that you do not have an open mind to a rational debate on this subject<<

Your statement was offensive to the victims, Ludwig. Not me, the victims.

And one has to wonder why you want to turn the victims into the bad guys in this sordid case. What is it that you feel the need to justify? That we should all be allowed to grope young girls, without paying a penalty for it?

You are very much on the wrong side in this argument, I'm afraid. What will it take to get you to take your bat and ball and go home? Because it is not about the judicial system, or the freedom to question the court's decision. It is about your moral compass, which, regrettably, is pointing entirely the wrong way.

<< It was not an assumption that they made, Ludwig. It was a judgment. >>

Excuse me Pericles, you are making an assumption there. We simply don’t know to what extent ‘C’s complaint was critically examined.

I find it very interesting that the judge had nothing more to say about this extremely important point other than:

< In her Victim Impact Statement, which I am sure is true…>

I would have thought that there would have been an absolute necessity for him to have gone into some level of detail as to why he considered this to be so.

I find his word: ‘I am sure’ to be very unconvincing, in just the same way as lots of people say ‘I am sure this is true’ when what they really mean is that they think this is true but they aren’t absolutely sure. If they were absolutely sure, they would simply say; ‘this is true’.

This is just the sort of thing that SHOULD be scrutinised. And doubly so, given the extremely emotive nature of this whole case.

<< And one has to wonder why you want to turn the victims into the bad guys in this sordid case >>

One has wonder why you are keeping on about this when I have clearly told you that Harris is to blame….

Even if ‘C’s complaint was fabricated, or exaggerated, Harris is still to blame for doing what he did. That is: even if ‘C’ went along with his touchings, he was still wrong to do it.

However, if ‘C’s complaint is not true at face value then, it should amount to at least mitigating circumstances and at most, a dismissal of Counts 3 to 9.

continued

This is NOT about me or my moral compass; it is about a cool sensible debate of this subject and how it fits into the overall perspective of pedophilic offences and indeed all offences concerning children.

Just one statement concerning the moral compass thing – how morally sound is it to just resoundly condemn someone and be happy to see their career and reputation destroyed, who has done nothing more than undertake a few inappropriate gentle touches of young girls? That’s not morally sound, surely.

I could have a great deal more to say about the moral compass. But I wonder Pericles if you want to go there, given your demonstration of a highly corrupted moral compass regarding your reappearance on this thread for the specific reason of denigrating me rather than addressing the subject at hand. I think we will find that your moral compass is considerably more unbalanced than mine, if we were to get right into exploring it.

I sometimes wonder whether you remember what you have written here, Ludwig.

>>One has wonder why you are keeping on about this when I have clearly told you that Harris is to blame…<<

Let me remind you of what you told us:

>>So how did he take her pants down and put his head right in her crotch if she wasn’t willing to let him do it? It does not compute.<<

It doesn't sound to me that you are at all convinced that Harris is to blame.

And frankly, your assertion that the judge's "I am sure" actually means "I am not sure" is quite pathetic. You even got it wrong:

>>I find it very interesting that the judge had nothing more to say about this extremely important point other than: <In her Victim Impact Statement, which I am sure is true…><<

He made that observation about "B", not "C".

Concerning "C":

>>We simply don’t know to what extent ‘C’s complaint was critically examined.<<

But we do know. The judge tells us so.

"I am sure, in the light of the jury’s verdicts, that ‘C’ gave truthful evidence as to what occurred, and that it was the indecent assaults that you carried out on that holiday that emboldened you to commit offences against her in this country thereafter".

That says, "I am convinced, exactly as the jury was convinced". End of story.

You are wrong about this, too:

>>This is NOT about me or my moral compass; it is about a cool sensible debate of this subject<<

The only debate left on this thread is your moral compass. Everything else has been done to death and beyond, yet still we wonder how you can continue to defend the indefensible.