Chris Langham found guilty

**jebus** · 03/08/2007, 5:22 PM

The Thick Of It star was found guilty yesterday of downloading illegal images and videos of children being tortured, raped and generally abused. He had said he was researching the videos for the upcoming series of Help (something creator Paul Whitehouse said he had no knowledge of), and also that he was looking at them to better understand the abuse inflicted on him when he was a kid (he was abused at the age of 8). He's being held and will most likely get 10 years when sentenced in the next few weeks. He was aquitted of having underage sex with a 14 year old girl however. Two questions arises for me from this:

1) Why was his word not taken that he was researching a role by watching these videos (I think he's lying so read on for my point before replying to that), when the Who member, Pete Townsend, was let off without charge when child pornography was found on his computer? I remember at the time of Townsend getting caught he said he was researching for a book he was writing, but had failed to tell his publisher's or (more importantly) the police he was doing so. It seemed the media and the law let Townsend off because of his superstar status, or at least it did at the time, I'm not sure if he was able to get anyone to verify his story as media coverage just wasn't there. So was Townsend let off because of his superstar status?

2) Myself and a friend who works in therapy have discussed whether people who have been abused themselves should be dealt with a lot less severely in cases like this? He reckons they should, I'm not so sure

**bellavistaman** · 03/08/2007, 6:04 PM

Very interseting case there jebus,to give my ten cents on point 2, i do think that they should slightly, but no excuses in the world can cover that filth they are doing.

IMO opinion townsend was let off because of his celeb status, very rarely you see celbs serving proper time, you seen the ****e with paris hilton.

**jebus** · 03/08/2007, 6:12 PM

Originally Posted by bellavistaman

Very interseting case there jebus,to give my ten cents on point 2, i do think that they should slightly, but no excuses in the world can cover that filth they are doing.

Its a tricky one as I don't think you can bring a law in for it, and taking these things on a case by case basis can sometimes open up a different avenue of problems. In cases like this I'd be inclined to agree that the judge should go light on him. Give him a few years in a low security prison with psychiatric help to get him through it, although then the stuff he was looking up was apparantly some of the worst forms of child porn that they have ever witnessed...it's a tough one because on one hand you feel that anyone who watches videos of children being tortured should be dealt with as harshly as possible, but on the other you think that he himself must have been horribly abused if he has to look at this sort of thing for kicks, or to help him get through what happened to him in the past. As you might be able to tell I actually don't know how I would deal with this if I were the judge

**onceahoop** · 03/08/2007, 9:12 PM

Originally Posted by jebus

Its a tricky one as I don't think you can bring a law in for it, and taking these things on a case by case basis can sometimes open up a different avenue of problems. In cases like this I'd be inclined to agree that the judge should go light on him. Give him a few years in a low security prison with psychiatric help to get him through it, although then the stuff he was looking up was apparantly some of the worst forms of child porn that they have ever witnessed...it's a tough one because on one hand you feel that anyone who watches videos of children being tortured should be dealt with as harshly as possible, but on the other you think that he himself must have been horribly abused if he has to look at this sort of thing for kicks, or to help him get through what happened to him in the past. As you might be able to tell I actually don't know how I would deal with this if I were the judge

I'm enclined to agree with you Jebus. Each case has to be viewed on it's own merits. There is no excuse really for this behaviour. Did he receive counselling for his own abuse. The amount of abusers who claim they were abused themselves is staggering. I do think if their claims of abuse can be verified that they should be asssited by the courts

**cheifo** · 03/08/2007, 9:40 PM

Most people who are victims of abuse would I am sure be insulted at the perception that they get the urge to rpt the abuse on someone else(I know you were not in anyway implying this BTW).Because it is such a disturbing subject we dont seem to be any closer to preventing/solving these situations.
What did seem strange in this case was how the alleged physical abuse(which he was cleared from) and the downloading charges coincided.Was it just coincidence?

**Aberdonian Stu** · 04/08/2007, 11:14 AM

Well I would guess the cops found the images after receiving the complaint about the alleged abuse, it would have made sense to get a warrant and search his hard drive.

I must stress that is only a guess and a totally uninformed one at that.

**Seagull** · 04/08/2007, 11:25 AM

I saw a woman who had suffered vile abuse as a child, including discovering later that pictures of the abuse were on the internet, interviewed on BBC that evening. She was disgusted that he'd brought up this thing about being abused himself at the last minute, saying it painted all victims of abuse as potential abusers- they're not. Also, he seemed to be at pains to say he's not a paedophile- he is.

**onceahoop** · 05/08/2007, 1:11 PM

Originally Posted by Seagull

I saw a woman who had suffered vile abuse as a child, including discovering later that pictures of the abuse were on the internet, interviewed on BBC that evening. She was disgusted that he'd brought up this thing about being abused himself at the last minute, saying it painted all victims of abuse as potential abusers- they're not. Also, he seemed to be at pains to say he's not a paedophile- he is.

The point I made in my previous post was that many accused paedophiles are making claims that they themselves were abused. It is difficult for the trial judge, in the absence of verification, to accept or not accept this claim. Remember it is only relatively recently that people have felt confident enough to come forward and take action against their abusers. I suspect that some of the people who make these claims are telling lies. I know quite a few people who have been abused (all bye close relatives). They have developed serious psychological and social problems and have difficulty in maintaining relationships. But I haven't any evidence that any of them have gone on to be child abusers themselves.

**drinkfeckarse** · 07/08/2007, 2:56 PM

While I don't want to make light of any abuse, I struggle to understand victims of abuse's logic when they come out with stuff like Langham did as if almost to excuse himself.

Whether you were abused or not you will still know right from wrong. At the end of the day there is no excuse for looking at stuff like that.

**Dodge** · 07/08/2007, 3:07 PM

Originally Posted by jebus

1) remember at the time of Townsend getting caught he said he was researching for a book he was writing, but had failed to tell his publisher's or (more importantly) the police he was doing so.

It was because Townshend hadn't downloaded any images (if he even accessed that site (singular) at all

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_To...Police_caution

**jebus** · 10/08/2007, 1:06 PM

Originally Posted by Dodge

It was because Townshend hadn't downloaded any images (if he even accessed that site (singular) at all

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_To...Police_caution

Fair enough, hadn't realised that he was put on the sex offender register either