"If he’d been hauled up in say 1987, I wonder how he would have been treated"

It is likely that it was brought up by a number of injured parties but at the time as with later offences the wily, powerful Harris managed to hide in full public view. Think of Keith Wright, politician, former Qld State Labor Opposition leader, Baptist lay preacher and ex-teacher. His parliamentary colleagues apparently had no inkling of his child molesting. As a child victim or the child's parents, how would you like to have tried a complaint against him?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_politicians_convicted_of_crimes

Would Harris have received a similar penalty in Australia if only he had been caught years ago? Yes, definitely and probably harsher.

There are concerns of highly organised pedophile rings operating in Australia.

The legal system is fraught with problems. People can all too easily be found guilty, or be found to be more seriously guilty than they really are.

< Hundreds of people have been exonerated through DNA testing. >

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/24/dallas-mans-exoneration-makes-national-history/13040299/

So, if the legal system can get it this incredibly wrong, to the extent that hundreds of people have been wrongly convicted of very serious crimes, there is surely plenty of POSSIBILITY that in a case like that of Harris, with entirely circumstantial evidence from many years earlier, that things adjudged in a court of law could be quite substantially at odds with what really happened.

In light of Poirot’s outrageous assertions that my stance is actually very much harder than what I have repeatedly stated it to be, I refer readers of this thread back to two earlier posts of mine which outline the basis of my argument:

This one: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=6462#192713 and the one following it.

Ludwig is now referring readers (all 3 or 4 of them) back to his first 2 posts in this topic, as examples of where he now stands on the Harris issue.

This action by Ludwig conclusively proves he has not budged one inch.

This action by Ludwig proves that no matter what anyone says to him, he will absolutely, positively, no matter what, under any circumstances change his entrenched black and white opinion that Harris was probably or possibly hard done by and is likely the real victim in all of this.

Ludwig's latest crazy "excuse" for the pedophilia of Harris is that because innocent people have been found guilty of other crimes, then it must logically follow that there must be "plenty of possibility" that Harris's crimes are "quite substantially at odds with what really happened". Poirot, is Ludwig on cocaine? Seems like it. Ludwig's argument is about as illogical as it gets.

Ludwig keeps trying to "excuse" Harris's pedophilia. That shows a contempt towards all victims of all pedophilia. Ludwig is a disgraceful individual. No mature and insightful man would behave as Ludwig has behaved on this topic.

Ludwig has no intention of listening to people who don't agree with him, and no intention of changing his mind, no matter what. He's totally closed minded, and lives in a black and white world.

When your article said "Hundreds of people have been exonerated through DNA testing." It does not mean that they were first found guilty and then exonerated. You are trying to put a slant on this is not there. Thousands of people have been found not guilty after being charge with a crime. So what!
You said "So, if the legal system can get it this incredibly wrong, to the extent that hundreds of people have been wrongly convicted of very serious crimes" Where did you get that from? best I can see is 33 in the US, known for having an unjust legal system in the first place.
p/s Your mate in the article pleaded guilty, did he not? Strange!

Paul, "Your mate in the article pleaded guilty, did he not? Strange!"

Plea barganing, threatened with a very very long sentence and told it would be much shorter if he pleaded guilty, combined with knowing it was a black mans word against white girls word. I see why they do plea barganing but there is so much potential for it to be abused.

Somehow I don't think there was any chance of mistaken identity in the Harris case.

R0bert

onthebeach,
There are highly organised pedophile rings operating in Australia. Whenever we got close to a high profile public figure or a very wealthy one in a 'kiddie crime' investigation there was always some impediment to the successful court closure of the crime.
In 35 years as an active detective in the NSW police Force I cannot recall with one exception, any high profile pedophile going to prison.
I am not talking about child sex killers or kidnappers like Bradley etc but actual community based pedophiles.
Franca Arena (Tina Areana's mother) tried to expose it in the MSW parliament and finished up ridiculed and incarcerated in a mental unit.
Pedophilia was a very powerful weapon in the cold war games where it was used to manipulate outcomes for government programs today it is a extremely profitable cash flow business for the select few who run it.
I have probabily said too much now but I am sure there are others out there who have a conscious awareness about the subject.