This case, like that of Robert Hughs, was based on events that happened thirty or forty years ago in some circumstances and, while I'm not suggesting the guy is not guilty, this was also a time when incest was a common occurrence and, unlike pedophillia, incest was usually swept under the carpet.

I also have a problem with victims who for some reason wait thirty of forty years to come foreword. Now if the waitined until they were adults I might understand, but not
as long as they do as it opens the way for copy cats in my view.

Ludwig, may i suggest that digitally penetrating a young girl goes well beyond just groping her.

Dear Ludwig,

I have absolutely no problem with Rolf Harris being found guilty of molesting these young girls. It is a crime now and it was a crime then. All those who are questioning whether or not the indictment should have been brought in the first place are either misguided or in at least one case determinately misogynistic.

It is in the sentencing where the severity of his actions should be reflected. If they are commensurate with someone who had raped these girls instead of molesting them then I think there will be a case to made that Harris has been treated unfairly however I think this will be unlikely. We need to wait and see.

In any event I do think such a high profile case will serve as a deterrent to those who think they are above the law because of their wealth and fame. This can only be a good thing.

I an sure that these events will impact slightly on my enjoyment of his classics from the past but 'Two little Boys', 'Jake the Peg' and 'Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport'' will remain great memories from my childhood. It is sobering to think there are some kids whose memories of him will be very dark indeed.

Of course such behaviour can't be condoned but to make hypocritical & opportunistic use of something that happened in a person's life decades ago is questionable.
We never get to hear about ordinary offenders i.e. non-celebrity. Child molesterers usually get shunted around from community to community until they re-offend again & again.
Authorities are famous for failing those victimes but if it involves a celebrity it's another story.
I just can't subscribe to the selective traumas out there. When I copped crap from theft no-one cared even though it really impacted on me & my family. When people who have been married for many years suddenly turn around & claim trauma I find it jus a tad opportunistic.

individual,

"Oh come on Poirot,
You're only getting dirty because old Rolf wasn't one of your leftie touching boys brigade. His crime was being a heterosexual.
Btw, did you end up getting your stepfather locked up or wasn't he famous enough ?"

Well, well...that's about as cretinous as it gets on OLO.

I was merely attempting to demonstrate how it is for a young child/person who is suddenly confronted with an adult in authority doing something like that.

I've had my doubts about your "ethics" for a while on this forum, but dismissing my recount with such venomous partiality is highly enlightening.

So are you saying that if heterosexuals molest young girls - that's fine - because they're heterosexuals?

So an innocent ten year-old is molested by a an adult and the best you can say is what you posted?

We'd have to travel quite a long way on this forum to come upon that kind of grotesque morality.

Shows you up for the way your mind works nicely.

rechtub,
You're talking about the U.K where Rolf Harris has lived for most of his life so can you prove that incest was more common there from the 1960's to the 1990's when Harris is alleged to have offended against girls?
When I was a kid we were warned about "dirty old men" and "fairies" who might want to cuddle,touch us or "interfere" with us, we were told who the "pervs" were in the community and warned not to go near them.
The thing is though that some of the "pervs" were just harmless eccentrics, loners or simpletons who didn't deserve the epithet and as it happened it was my basketball coach who was the biggest "fairy" in town, he molested many young boys and is now in jail.
Nobody called Rolf a "Perv" when I was a kid, he was just seen as a daggy performer who all the oldies liked, he sat in the pantheon of squares and goody-goodies alongside Darryl Somers, The Seekers and Johnny Young.
The media outrage over Rolf is mostly faked or contrived by people who were not even born when he was on television or who are snobs who looked down on his hokey act from the beginning.

Where the offender is the moneymaker for an industry that contributes hugely to advertisers, a complainant 'whistleblower' would be very unlikely to risk it until others came forward.

Harris hasn't been sentenced. He has been found guilty after having the best defence his wealth could buy. That defence, the entrepreneurs who make money out of him and thousands of kiddie-fiddlers can be expected to wage a spin war against the victims and even to claim some deficiencies in the police investigation and the Court itself.

However the real question is why didn't the self-proclaimed fearless seekers of the truth and protectors of public interest, the media, sniff it out and report earlier? I suspect that the answer to that is in my opening paragraph - the well-off and powerful escape the attention of the media. Even where the rug is occasionally lifted, the powerful do not even have to life a finger, for there are many sycophant columnists and editors who immediately, proactively, spring to their defence.

Where a Court can finally obtain a conviction against the powerful who have grievously abused the trust placed in them by the public - a trust encouraged and burnished thorough the accolades and honours conferred on them by other by community leaders and pillars of society - it is appropriate and incumbent upon the Court to punish severely as an example to others.

Offenders choose to commit their crimes. Some choose to offend numerous times having found sly means to avoid accountability earlier. Lets not allow spin to convince us that the victims are actually the ones at fault.

We should be getting more curious at the uncomfortable relationship between those who should be protecting us and the powerful knobs, male and female, who do not believe that the laws should ever apply to them.

Freedom of speech is our only chance, but there are always those who want to limit it and censor.