Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Child Sex Abuse Justice: Premier League or Eton Mess?


Two very high profile cases  involving child sexual abuse have recently hit the headlines. One involved the Premier League footballer Adam Johnson, capped 12 times for England. The other involved Andrew Picard ( who used his mother’s name rather than his father’s surname), an Old Etonian from a wealthy , well connected family.

Adam Johnson was given a six year prison sentence for grooming  and sexually assaulting a 15 year old girl, a Sunderland fan besotted with him.

As the BBC reported Judge Jonathan Rose told him he had abused a position of trust and caused his victim “severe psychological harm”. He told Johnson, 28, he had engaged in sexual activity with her knowing she was under 16. Police  also found extreme pornography involving animals on Johnson’s laptop.

Andrew Picard, 18, was spared jail and given a 10 month sentence suspended for 18 months after the police found  over 1155 indecent  children images on his computer in his Eton College dormitory. Like Johnson some of the images involved animals. The judge described some of the videos – which included abuse of babies and toddlers – as “so appalling, frankly I can’t bring myself to talk about it.”

One of his videos showed a girl as young as three being raped, while others showed young children being forced to have sex with dogs. He also shared these videos and images on a chat room where he was unmasked by undercover police.  (more...)


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