Nobody on the SDMB is likely to have any information yet about what the police have discovered because they’ve only just begun to look themselves.
The latest news (BBC 14 Jan, 01:17 GMT) is that he’s been released on police bail and hasn’t been charged with any offence yet.
There’s a video link from the one I’ve posted repeating tonight’s 10 o’clock news account. It confirms that the charges could carry long jail terms, but don’t expect much by way of further development until Scotland Yard has had a chance to review the evidence they took from his house.
On December 19, Paul Reubens pleaded not guilty in a Los Angeles court to a misdemeanor charge of possession of material depicting an underage child engaged in sexual conduct.
Pee-wee Herman was not charged, but offered his full support.
Yeah, the “suspicion of” procedural terminology could confuse some. “You’re not really charged, but we do think you’re involved in something horrible… let’s talk about it some more at month’s end.”
As to some of the “suspicions”…
“possesing” is pretty self evident: they believe he may have some somewhere. And there is the small detail that with web browsers, merely looking at, for instance, a “thumbnail” image index, can make a copy of the image briefly inhabit your “temp” directory, wherein the bits stay on your disk even after the filename goes away. So, whatever’s the truth of his motives, if there’s any on him PT was quite wankin’ ignorant on TWO aspects (legal AND technical) of how things go.
“incitement to distribute” would be another way of saying you sought to see such images as someone else had, thus “inciting” them to “distribute” the images to you; paying for access would look like a definite incitement
“making”… that’s trickier. It may not necessarily mean producing it but include copying.
As to “indecent images” – I would need someone with knowledge fo the differences of US and UK legal lingo, as “indecent” and “obscene” have some specific meanings that may vary from place to place and in many – in many US States the charge is just “child pornography”, no euphemisms about it.
My “suspicion” is that one or more of the “suspicions” may be just part of the common tactic of throwing at everyone involved in any way every imaginable violation they may have incurred; in order to “sweat out” some of those involved, and to make sure some charges make it past preliminary hearing.
They can’t possibly have mountains of evidence yet, since they’ve only just searched his place and probably haven’t finished (and possibly haven’t even begun) searching his computer yet.
The police arrested him because, if nothing else, he’s publically admitted to visiting a child pornography site. I don’t think they could let a celebrity make a formal public statement like that and then not arrest him.
Now, I think most people who were guilty of some horrible, shameful crime wouldn’t go calling the police down upon their heads like that. They’d let the police come to them in their own sweet time, and meanwhile do their best to destroy the evidence. Since Townshend hasn’t done this I think he must truly believe that he’s done nothing wrong, although he may have violated the letter of the law. The only thing giving me pause is the thought that if Townshend were a secret kiddie porn fiend he might still be a decent enough man to feel shame about it and want to be caught. With luck, examination of his computer will settle things one way or the other. I’d hate to see this thing dragged out. If he’s innocent this scandal shouldn’t be allowed to ruin his life, and if he’s guilty then they should throw the book at him as quickly as is reasonable.
I hope what you say is true, Lamia, but there is another possibility, which is that he was into child porn, realised that he was probably on the list of people who the police were going to investigate sooner or later, and so decided to come forward before he had to, in order to give his excuses more credibility.
But it wasn’t a last-minute decision on his part to admit an interest in child pornography - he’s been publicly slamming it for years.
lout:
Since we’re supposed to be fighting ignorance, it’s probably worth pointing out that prosecutions of private citizens are not carried out by the government. In any case, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Pete Townsend or Joe Public, the police will have felt obligated to arrest him based upon what he’s already admitted to, which does not constitute “mountains of evidence”. What evidence there is will emerge from the investigation.
everton: if “prosecutions of private citizens are not carried out by the government,” who does prosecute private citizens? Who is set to prosecute Pete Townsend? Other private citizens?
I sort of doubt that Pete would have publically admitted to anything if he didn’t realize that he was in grave danger of being arrested. Therefore, I don’t buy the explanation that he was arrested based on those admissions, but only time will tell.
Fair enough. But it would be a pity if the spposed tendencies of two ex-ministers - for which Tony is not responsible - were used by the media as sticks to beat him with, rather than any of the seriously questionable positions he has taken or supported.
This story on the Independent’s site reminds us that Townsend was not arrested until the tabloid press broke the news that he was indeed the “famous musician” unearthed by Operation Avalanche.
The police did not consider him to be of any great risk to the public and were prioritising other lines of enquiry until his public statements. He contacted them first, they responded some time later.
We don’t live in a police state. The police are not the government, nor is the Crown Prosecution Service (who are not yet involved anyhow). The government employs lots of people, none of whom are members of the government.
Umm… bit of problem with the common language here, folks:
In the USA, and a large number of presidentialist-system republics, “government”= “the state”. This is what lout is referring to. It includes the police and the prosecutors (separate entities, within executive branch) AND the courts (judiciary branch separate and distinct from the investigative agencies).
In the UK, the Commonwealth and a large number of parliamentary-system republics, the “Government” means specifically the Cabinet and the Majority of Parliament. This is what everton is referring to.
everton, lout was not claiming Tony Blair was going after Townsend nor that the Police are members of Parliament. He’s saying the institutions of the state, in a generic sense, carry out prosecutions.
BTW, the charges he was taken into custody under are IIRC, the standard charges for this type of case, and will be changed or dropped depending on evidence.
JRDelirious, my feeling is that it’s very important to recognise that politicians play no part in the legal process (or, ideally, should not) and the use of generic rather than specific language can cloud this position. The CPS of the UK is not a government or political body.
My stance: I don’t care if you’re doing research or if you’re just curious and want a peek, if you register your credit card number with a kiddie porn website, YOU ARE PERPETUATING THE ABUSE.
Fuck you, Pete. For putting money in some twisted, psychopath’s pocket so he can go find more little kids to abuse.
Fuck you, too, for perpetuating the misguided notion that homosexuality and pedophilia go hand in hand.
JRDelirious is correct, however, in identifying the source of the confusion. The CPS is, for lack of a better word, a public and publicly-funded body. It is not a private organization. As pointed out, the US courts are (at least in theory) completely separate from the political process, but as a public body are considered a branch of the government. It’s a matter of definition.
“Incitement to distribute” could also mean that he had Peer-to-Peer programs (for example, KaZaA) installed that could be used to distribute the files. Perhaps if there are files they are in the “My Downloads” (or whatever) directory that the P2P program shares.
As you mentioned earlier, making could be just copying as a new file has been created. You can then extend this to browser cache, so just by browsing and viewing onlien you are actually creating.
I actually erad an interesting thing on a video games forum. There have been claims that some paedophiles use Sega Dreamcasts to browse for porn for precisely this reason. There is no cache so no local copies are made.
Do the cops actually have to find images of kiddie porn on his computers for a successful prosecution? Is the credit card evidence enough? The latter may show intent to break the law, but surely the intent is not a crime.
If the police do have to come up with the goods on the computer then it doesn’t take much of a prophet to predict they’ll be clean. He had ample warning to use one of the myriad programs out there which will eliminate anything incriminating.
On another tangent; are there degrees of wickedness in child porn. Is lusting after girls of 13 or 14 just as reprehensible as salivating over prepubescence? If he were guilty of the former, is he as repugnant to decent folk as if he were guilty of the latter?