back to article Child porn victims seek multimillion-dollar payouts

In December 2008, Virginia-based deputy sheriff Arthur Weston Staples III received a visit at home from police investigating claims he had traded child pornography images online. The former Vietnam vet, who had no previous offenses, was eventually sentenced to more than 17 years in prison after investigators found 400 to 600 …

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  1. thecakeis(not)alie

    Difficult legislative bits.

    Sad stories for the young ladies involved. Right versus wrong in many different layers here all tangled with emotion, the common good, individual rights and the need to attempt to prevent it all from happening in the future.

    I empathise with many of those involved in this. I am of many different minds on these issues...I don't know that I have a black-and-white answer to any of it. What I do know for certain is that I am very deeply glad that I am not personally asked to sort this mess out. My condolences to anyone who is.

  2. Lord Zedd
    Thumb Down

    What did she do for him to earn $3.6m?

    What did he do to her thats worth more than 3x what he will earn in his lifetime? "Lusting" at her on his computer screen is not worth that much in any form of rationale, even if he is worthless garbage.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What did she do for him to earn $3.6m?

      From your comment I'll assume you meant what did he do to her. He perpetuated a vicious cirlce of supply and demand and if you'd read all the article you would have noted that as the law stands each person who does so is liable for the full amount of damages and if one of them thinks they are being unfairly treated they are more than free to sue any or all of the others.

      The images of the abuse suffered may well have been made for the abusers own personal pleasure and more than likely would have been made without the existence of Staples. However sexual inclinations are largely impossible to control and the desire to have more of what you fancy is, for some, overwhelming. It's easy to see that the original abuser may have shared his images with others so as to get access to more material depicting his own sexual proclivities. Others by accepting to view these images and potentially share their own are equally culpable for the original abuse.

  3. JaitcH
    WTF?

    If the courts were to limit lawyer fees severely, their interest would fade quickly

    Likely the driving force behind these civil actions is the bloody lawyer.

    If the now woman needs a fresh round of councilling every time someone gets convicted, what of the many views that go undetected? All of a sudden she is fine?

    Besides, the chances of collecting cent one from one of these actions is extremely low as a sentence of 17 years most likely meant there would be no assets in any event to meet the judgement.

    How long is she going to go on saying people will recognise her? If she was 8 when assaulted and is 20 now, her ageing should have sufficiently altered her appearance by the time she hits 30.

    American law is one of extremes, no doubt the reason law is called an ass. Madoff, of Ponzi fame, was awarded 150 years, which sounds impressive but is meaningless as he will die long before his release date. If he had been given 20 years, there is no US Federal time off, it would be long enough to achieve the same end yet mentally bug Madoff who would no doubt hope to make it.

    These people ordered to pay the wishful sum of $3,000,000+ won't feel any pain. Had the order been made to pay 10% of any income, pre-tax, it would become a festering wound on the perp's lifestyle, after his release. As it is, the award is a joke that he likely can't even get his mind around. The piece stated he was a veteran of the American War in VietNam. Assuming if he was last guy out in 1975 and aged 20, he would be 55, at least, at this time. Add 17 years takes him to 71 on release with an income potential of $0, except for pension/welfare. These payments are partially protected from judgements assuming he walks out of jail and doesn't get murdered.

    As I said, she'll be whistling Dixie waiting for her money.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So, let me get this straight...

    If you find one of these pictures and send it to your enemy. A quick call to the police and instant financial ruin. Of course you destroy all evidence on your part (no return address of course!).

  5. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    huh. odd

    Am not sure what to make of this. Naturally, symapthising with the victims leads one to agree that, the victim deserves compensation from the perpetrator of the abuse for the mental anguish suffered, therapy costs, etc.

    ...but.... suing each peadophile who possesses images of their abuse and distributors of the pictures doesn't sit well with me, is a bit reminiscent of a copyright holder aggressively asserting their claim to downloaded materials. Deplorable as it is to say it, no "new abuse is occurring"

    Argh. Even writing that makes me uncomfortable. Perhaps one for Radio 4's Moral Maze.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Can't agree with you..

      ...no "new abuse is occurring" stance. Unquestionably some further damage is done with every photo/set of photos that are distributed.

      For some time afterwards (and possibly for life if the victim has distinctive facial features) each copy distributed will allow someone -quite possibly a paedophile- to recognise the victim in the street. As a victim. Dunno about you, but I'd feel a little uncomfortable about it in the victim's place.

      How to quantify that into a sensible judgement is a tricky one though. The current setup seems to have a ring of RIAA "eleventy million dollar song" about it and there is a *huge* difference between viewing an image and producing it in the first place. The producers are the ones society should be concentrating on.

      If the victims can score a comfortable living out of a fucked-up legal system, then more power to them, I suppose. They deserve something. This whole thing does seem to be legal theatre, though, and I don't expect anyone but the lawyers to win in the end.

      1. The Fuzzy Wotnot
        Pint

        Slow death

        It sounds from the victims point of view, they make it so horrendously bad to possess these images, that they will eventually die a natural death and disappear, unlikely given the shelf life of data on the internet.

        If even coming into contact with this material will for intents and purposes end your life as you know it, then you may well avoid and find other material, what of those victims?

        In the end the only real winners though are the legal team and the fat-cat lawyers taking their cut from this whole very sad and sorry affair.

    2. Pablo
      Pirate

      Re: huh. odd

      Funny you should mention copyright enforcement. Because if I recall correctly, that was actually part of the argument for passing this law (or one like it). Basically: If the RIAA can sue you for $300,000 over a copyrighted song, why can't a child pornography victim sue for at least that much?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A picture postcard from sue-happy-stan.

    This sort of quagmire is a nice illustration why I've argued before to prosecute actual production and arguably large scale and/or commercial distribution, but to leave mere possession be. Not because of any moral stance but because pictures are just pictures and in and of themselves ought not to be deemed illegal. The extreme porn law does apparently out of moral superiority fueled spite, which IMO isn't a very solid basis for fair and impartial lawmaking.

    The "let them sue each other" doctrine strikes me as oh so very american and not something that sits well with fairness in lawmaking either, for it brings down the hammer on whoever happens to be sued just now and then turns its back with a "let them sort themselves out". How's that for fair administering of justice? It's pure spite, is what it is.

    The fact that various judges apply the idea wildly unevenly is just that more insult to injury, and a good indication that the law is in fact a fantastically bad idea. This idea of "damages" wouldn't even fly for the "anti-piracy" crowd with their habitually overinflated claims, though one could easily imagine they'd like it to. If this idea of compensation is to be vaguely even-handed then set up some fund that seeks the total amount by finding as many suable cogs as possible and suing each for a share of the total.

    And just to pour some oil on the fire: One could argue that pedophily is a "hard wired" innate property and not curable, just like we've finally figured out that homophily is not a curable disease. That is not to defend or justify child abuse in any way or form. In fact I'm not arguing to stop prosecuting for harm done, and never will. But I will say that it doesn't do to simply jail people for their urges, no matter how depraved we (currently) view them to be. This has historically been hard for the moral guardians to grasp, even when all that was at stake was "depraved unnatural acts" between consenting adults.

    Here, people have some responsibility to protect children, even if not their own, and sexually abusing children instead is a serious breach. But mere jailing or trying to "treat" people for that is too simplistic. We'll have to find different ways to ensure those liable to do so don't stray into child abuse. Perhaps through some buddy system or other. But something more sophisticated than we have we do need.

    And that in turn requires that our lawmaking doesn't stop at smug satisfaction for having "done something against the badness", effectively shuffling the problem under the carpet through censorship and simple but spectacularly long jail terms and juicy public suefests, but instead necessitates that we understand the problem and professionally mitigate it into harmlessness... somehow.

    This is uncomfortable because it exposes how our societies aren't up to the enlightened standards we'd like to imagine we'd be. But that is the rub: Dealing with this kind of nasty icky problem civilly is hard. How civilised are we, really?

    1. David Dawson
      Flame

      a picture of a child being abused

      I think it is right that it is illegal to possess, without a damn good reason, pictures.of a child being abused. With legal penalties for it. Unlike normal porn, and as mentioned, possession of this type of image does cause abuse to occur, due to the grouping of the people involved.

      It is not simply a picture. It is an imcitement.

      As for paedophilia being hard wired, that may be. I propose castration. I have two bricks here and would be willing to perform this service for the common good.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Sounds like you're talking with your nads, too.

        Your assertion that possession causes more abuse to occur is tenacious at best. Since you claimed it, you have to show how and why exactly this is special. Do pictures of violence cause violence? Do pictures of war cause war? Do pictures of abuse, any abuse, cause more abuse? Do pictures of sex, any sex, cause more sex? Do pictures of children cause children?

        If not, why not? Why are pictures of sexual child abuse special in that sense?

        By that logic, without explanation, any picture of anything illegal at all must be banned. And why stop there? Drawings and cartoons are pictures too. No more! And what about descriptions in text only? No more! What else can we ban?

        You don't want to go that far? Then it's up to you to show by what logic. Show where to draw the line, and show that it is not an arbitrary moral panic-fueled one, but draws on observed social behaviour and sound logic. Show that you know better, please.

        And you do have to, because the implication gets even worse: Are we simply a monkey-see-monkey-do species, are we not responsible for our deeds somehow? If we cannot be held responsible because it's the pictures that makes us do it, guv, then what is the sense left in punishment? All you can do then is take the pictures away. And lookit, then all abuse will magically stop too! Don't believe it? So what is wrong with that then? Why doesn't it work?

        Because that is the complaint: The rules are arbitrary and fueled by moral panic. The rules will cause a lot of "convicted perpetrators" and consequently more ruined lives, but will do little to stem abuse done to children. What we need is rules that actually help stop the actual abuse and solve or at least mitigate the problem of people _abusing children_. So we have to know what works and why.

        Simply lashing out for something relatively minor like mere possession with castration doesn't help at all there. As to castration, do you think it morally justifyable to have the government castrate anyone, regardless of the reason? If not, why do you make an exception for exactly this? Can you put it into words or are you just talking through your outrage?

        Because that is what makes this a hard problem: Justice cannot be about outrage fueled mob rule. So you will have to come up with a sane, logically sound, clear explanation. That is what makes this _hard_ to get right. And you aren't even trying.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Down

        ygjjg

        Even if a man is castrated he still has urges fool.

  7. John Savard

    Problem?

    Clearly, "Amy" deserves to be compensated for the harm her uncle inflicted on her.

    Joint and several liability may seem harsh, but it's preferable to making the innocent taxpayer foot the bill.

    I'll admit, though, that I would be in favor of tightening up the standard for this slightly. Instead of simple possession of the images, I would at least consider requiring evidence that the defendant paid someone for the image, thus helping to encourage demand for them, before opening the defendant to this kind of full liability for all the harm, including the original sexual assaults. Some liability for the effects of her further humiliation, however, would remain appropriate.

    1. copsewood

      payment isn't the only inducement

      Some inducements are worse than payment for images in terms of probability of inducements encouraging further offences. From what has been reported about how paedo networks operate, much of what is distributed is probably bartered and not sold. Other likely inducements might include blackmail threats - if Bob is aware that Charles has committed crime X Bob might induce Charles to commit crime Y and threaten to shop Bob over over crime X if Charles doesn't commit crime Y.

      So assuming some approach to criminals bearing financial liability to victims is appropriate, lack of evidence of financial inducement isn't evidence of absence of inducement to commit these horrific offences. As far as civil procedural and legal complexities are concerned, it seems fairer for the victims if new law gives the criminal courts power to collect a restitution amount from any paedophile offender as part of their criminal sentence based upon the assets they possess at this time and the severity of the offence, directly to fund a charity tasked with managing compensation funds and relevant services for all victims.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I must be missing something

    Where did deputy sheriff Staples find $3.68 million to pay to the victim?

    I can't see any point in awarding damages which can never be paid.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You know what...

    ...I don't care. Sue the fuckers into oblivion.

  10. Dán

    Not going to lie...

    ...I really struggle to side with anyone but the victim here. It's supply and demand, similar to how handling stolen goods is a serious offence even though you didn't steal them yourself. Yes, images on a computer aren't tangible in the same sense, but the people who view them ARE the reason that they're distributed.

    And after having read the impact statement, I feel moreso. Maybe finding images like this myself has had a dramatic influence on my view, I don't know, but what I do know is that every person who views those images for pleasure KNOWS that they're enjoying the abuse of an innocent child, regardless of how close to the production loop they were.

    1. Graham Marsden

      @"Supply and Demand"

      You claim that "the people who view them ARE the reason that they're distributed" but you miss the point that the original "demand" is from the person who *creates* the image, I think you'd find that most child pornographers don't do it for any financial gain, but to fulfill their own desires and they may then publish the images freely simply for kudos from other people with similar desires.

      Of course, subsequently, others can collect those images and put them in paid websites, but that's separate from the original creation.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Not going to lie...

      "Maybe finding images like this myself has had a dramatic influence on my view, I don't know, but what I do know is that every person who views those images for pleasure KNOWS that they're enjoying the abuse of an innocent child"

      So what is the crime? possessing and viewing the picture or taking pleasure from viewing the picture? Because at the moment it is the former and you are already guilty of it under the law.

  11. Sir Runcible Spoon

    Sir

    That is a pretty confusing set of rules. I kind of ended up with the impression that possession of the images constitutes some form of sick pay per view if you get caught.

    Still, if it highlights the problems it bring a resolution one step closer, but taming the internet isn't going to happen any time soon.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Whilst I feel sorry for "Amy"

    I cant help wondering how the restiutution payments will be split?

    "Accounting for lost wages, counseling and lawyer fees, they settled on a price of $3.37m."

    I'll bet we can all put the order of those pie slices from highest to lowest!

    Not only was Amy badly abused by a person she should have been able to trust it looks like the cycle is continuing

  13. RJ

    Leave it to the politicos!?

    They will cave in because they dont want to be soft on kiddie porn

    Best leave it to the courts where it can get a fair assessment.

  14. Cameron Colley

    What absolute shite.

    I don't believe for one second that the abuse would not have taken place if there weren't people there to look at the images on the internet. That's not to say that the availability of the images doesn't cause harm to the victims, just that the abuse would have taken place anyhow.

    So, perhaps, make the distributors of these images pay restitution for the hurt caused, in the same way that those who slander and suchlike pay (though perhaps they ought to pay more).

    I also notice that the abusers have not been mentioned here -- how were they made to pay compensation, are they being forced to do anything they can to raise money to support the victim and, if not, why not? Heck, if they were healthy at the time of conviction I dare say that their heart, lungs, liver and kidneys would get a fair price if they were unable or unwilling to get the money any other way.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How It Works

    "...Virtually all of the child porn offenders ordered to pay restitution had no contact with the victims and played no role in the production of the images, which were shot and originally published by someone else many years earlier. Despite their limited roles in in the victims' considerable pain and suffering – most of which, it would seem, was caused by the original abusers – the perps are required to shoulder equal responsibility. Critics have argued it's a slippery slope..."

    Ever since advocates decided 2+2=5 in the blame game the 'slippery slope' has become positively treacherous. The first casualty, as always, was any sense of proportionality or fairness: after all, paedomonsters don't deserve any pretence of justice, so why bother? In the USA the courts' approach to issues such as these can be best described as 'medieval'. This has been going on (and geting worse) for the best part of the last decade.

    The wicked argument that 'every time a child abuse image is viewed the victim is abused again' makes no sense whatsoever to a rational, common-sense mind. Are child casualties in America's wars murdered time-after-time every time photos of them are republished and viewed again by the general public? Should we bring in some hasty, ill-thought out legislation to criminalise whole new swathes of the population for looking at such images?

    Such fallacies are not only perpetuated but enshrined in law to the detriment of justice everywhere - witness the way the UK police service continues to use the charge of 'making' an indecent image of children against everyone it charges with possession of CP images - this is a huge lie, deliberately designed by the police to suggest to an uninformed public that the defendant was somehow directly involved in the abuse and photography of children.

    Sentencing in regard to sex offenders (specifically child sex offenders) in the USA has long been out of hand - no, strike that; it's been downright spiteful, wilfully punitive and thoroughly inhuman. Paedomonsters (accused or proven) are basically socially excluded long after their ridiculously over-inflated prison sentences are served. There is no such thing as rehabilitation - not in any meaningful sense of the word, anyway. There are many indoctrinaire schemes designed to 're-educate' child-attracted adults, but sadly these are more often used as sanctuaries than as therapies by men (and it is mostly men) who find life on the outside too unworkable, too unforgiving and inflexible post-incarceration.

    It is not uncommon to hear many convicted sex offenders request that they remain in State custody rather than face release back into an openly hostile society - these are men who have lost family, career and home. There is no coming back, no second chance. The Paedogeddon is quite unique in this respect. A man can rape,can murder or defraud on a massive scale and can expect incarceration and eventual freedom, possibly even a real chance of reintegration back into 'normal' society once he's paid his dues, but should he look at a single photo of a half-naked kid online (and get 'caught'' for it) he might just has well have signed a waiver on his human rights: all bets are off as far as the justice system is concerned. This is the crimen exceptum. Normal rules no longer apply. Time for the mob to decide his fate.

    Victim culture, encouraged by advocates and police for their own self-serving reasons, has naturally produced a court system more like a gameshow than a process of evidence-based justice. 'Petty grievances can profit' is the dominant mantra from the child protection industry; what once might have been a minor, barely remembered transgression is now magnified to the proportions of a major trauma - worse, one that can be described as 'rape' and carry a prison sentence numbered in the tens of years.

    Make no mistake. What America does first, Britain eventually mimics. We've already imported most of their 'victim culture' mentality into our legal system (helped by supine government and determined lobbyists - especially amongst the police service), but there is much more work to be done. The last ten years of NuLabour saw whole new demographics criminalised in the name of the great moral panic, the flames of righteous indignation and moral outrage fanned gleefully by zealots and bullies willing to ride roughshod over any vague notions of 'fair process' or quaint, out-moded presumptions of innocence.

    Thanks to armies of child salvationists on a mission, the Paedomonster is become some kind of opaque, barely-glimpsed, out-of-focus bogeyman of our time. To invoke them is to justify a plague on all our houses as, quietly and with little public fanfare, personal freedoms for all are slowly curbed, intruded upon and ultimately taken away. Laws are created, rewritten and expanded, while sentencing policy becomes muddled, confused, disproportionate and ultimately unjust, until in the end, in some twisted, farcical facsimile of 'justice', courts begin handing out sentences numbered in the thousands of years - as happened to Thomas Reedy In the USA (who was never actually charged with physically or sexually molesting any child, ever) in the famous Landslide case - a case which precipitated the UK's own hellish Inquisition/moral panic/Paedogeddon: Operation Ore and led to the systematic arrest or threat of arrest of over 7000 individuals here in the UK and directly led to the creation of the UK's very own 'Ministry of Love' - CEOP. This year CEOP begin trialling government-sanctioned lie detector interviews.).

    By now, of course, the clock is already striking thirteen.

    1. Graham Marsden
      Thumb Up

      Well said!

      I agree entirely with what you say, too much "law" in cases like this comes as the result of political grandstanding (especially in the USA where legal officials stand for election, so have to go for judgements which are media and public friendly) or greedy lawyers who have now gone from chasing ambulances to chasing the victims of abuse and exploiting them in another way.

      The argument that looking at an image means "'the victim is abused again" and that, as such, the viewer is participating in the abuse makes as much sense as saying that watching video of the planes crash into the Twin Towers means you're guilty of participating in those attacks!

      Also, as you say, in the USA, released offenders are effectively at the mercy of the mob because with their "Megan's Law" their names and addresses are published for all to find out to "protect" others. Unfortunately the upshot of this is that some estimates reckon that over a third of all released "sex offenders" in the USA have absconded, changed their names and moved without informing the authorities, whereas in the UK the Police know where over 97% of convicted offenders live.

      It would be nice to have a sense of proportion brought into this debate, but whilst the Courts and the Media and the Politicians pander to the "evil paedos must be made to suffer and suffer again and again" no matter whether they actually abused a child or just looked at a (second hand/ third hand/ nth hand) image, that seems most unlikely.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Flame

      Society is the same as it ever was

      Pedos are the new witches is all.

  16. CADmonkey
    Thumb Up

    Good luck, 'Amy'

    I hope you get every penny.

    Oh, and Virginia-based deputy sheriff Arthur Weston Staples III? Can't wait to read about your appeal against the damages, you treacherous piece of crap!

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Unfiar

    Why does the Mandatory Restitution for Sexual Exploitation of Children Act, focus only on Sexual Exploitation? What about those kids that were physically beaten to the extent that they were traumatised?

    What about kids who are humiliated through doing silly stuff that then appears on YouTube. I'm not even going to compare sexual exploitation with YouTube-type embarrassment, but subsequent trauma is still trauma.

    Think of the famous photo of Phan Thị Kim Phúc, the Vietnam girl who was naplmed by the Americans. Don't you think that she is traumatised every time she sees the photos, yet the photographer Trang Bang, received the Pulitzer Prize.

    1. Sleepalot
      Unhappy

      Governments are the greatest threat to children

      "Think of the famous photo of Phan Thị Kim Phúc, the Vietnam girl who was naplmed by the Americans. Don't you think that she is traumatised every time she sees the photos, yet the photographer Trang Bang, received the Pulitzer Prize."

      Iirc,... she works in the UN, lobbying governments against the use of such weapons, using those images of herself - and therein lies the danger of suppressing such images: in the Viet Nam war, the civilian death toll was in the order of 2.5 - 4 million, the majority of whom were probably children.

      I don't want to take anything away from "Amy" or the thousands of other victims of sexual abuse, but in protecting the few, we must not forsake the many.

      1. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

        Re: Governments are the greatest threat to children

        Thanks all. I'm closing the thread now as this seems as good a point as any on which to leave this discussion for the time being.

  18. Paul_Murphy

    Certainly a tricky one.

    After all criminal activity should be punished, but it seems as though that particular law has been rushed.

    I would have thought that a number of area could be addressed:

    The person(s) responsible for making the images/films in the first place - they should have the prison sentences and huge fines.

    The publishers or ISP(s) hosting the files, especially if they do not remove them from circulation after notification, fines based on accesses to those files. In the case of printed material then based on the numbers printed.

    The viewers or holders of the material - a fixed fine I would have thought, unless there is reason to suspect that their possession was unknowing or involuntary.

    For a silly example:

    It seems rather silly that if you were to purchase a newspaper with a dodgy image you could get prosecuted for millions despite the fact that you hadn't even opened the paper, or known that it was there.

    ttfn

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    a difficult one this.

    You want to punish the monsters who do this but at the same time it seems like profitering

    I will leave this one with the judges I think.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Just a thought

      but how about splitting these type of offenses into two parts.

      Offence 1 - a strict liability offence per image that had a financial penalty that was then paid out as damages.

      Offence 2 - something for the lawyers to fight over that would end up with time in jail\secure mental hospital

  20. Richard IV

    Confused

    If the damage to Amy has been calculated at $3.37m and that acts as a threshold, how come Staples has been ordered to pay $3.68m?

    It seems to me that the principle of those trading in these images having to pay financial restitution to those who were abused in the production of them is fair, but the practice of paying to individuals based on possession of images of a person the courts know about is fraught with difficulties. How do the payments get divvied up when multiple known victims are involved? Would this be based on quantity or depravity? It leaves me with a nasty feeling that it somehow further devalues the unknown victims.

  21. PerspexAvenger

    You know how I figured this was organised by the lawyers...?

    "Any defendant who was forced to pay more than another is free to sue the other for compensation."

    Bonanza!

  22. neb
    Flame

    so many anonymous cowards...

    and i can't be arsed with all the paedo-apologists here, i mean c'mon "child-attracted adults" FFS!

    stop being a cock, renew your NAMBLA membership and fuck off!

    now i'm a "rational, common-sense minded" person,

    but i know that adults fucking children is wrong,

    watching adults or other kids fuck kids is wrong,

    downloading movies and pictures of anyone fucking kids and thrapping yourself is wrong

    hell, running a business that supports any the above, is wrong

    and when paedogoon finally gets out of prison and can't get a job because of his conviction linked to fucking kids, boo fucking hoo

    should have thought of that before you cracked one off over a said item of porn or fucked a child

    i'm sorry to use the phrase again, but child abuse/pornography is basically fucking a child, be you there physically or just watching whilst your wife has gone to bingo and the kids are tucked up safe in bed!

    support it and you can just fuck off you big bell end paedolover

    ps: i have two kids and although i consider myself liberal(ish) in the commit the crime, serve the time theory, there are some crimes that cannot be forgiven and fucking children is one of them.

    mods, apologies for sweary bollocks, but sometimes its justified even though its neither big nor clever

    1. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: so many anonymous cowards...

      Alright. Let's take it down a notch now.

      1. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

        Re: Re: so many anonymous cowards...

        In fact I think it's time to close this thread soon.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: In fact I think it's time to close this thread soon.

          Oh god, please do.

          Don't know what I'm more scared by. The people who want to drag a peadiatrician out of their office by the bollocks, or the ones siding with the kiddy fiddlers.

          I've not seen this much ire since the last time Microsoft tried to sue a Linux vendor.

          1. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

            Re: Re: In fact I think it's time to close this thread soon.

            Mmm. The term 'kiddy fiddler' doesn't really add much to the debate either.

            Closing after next bunch.

    2. Shakje

      Look, I get your point and all

      but what if that person is the way they are because they were abused as a child? And what if, after living a life essentially determined by their abuser, they get proper help, understand that what they did was awful and wrong, and become a model citizen? Should they not be allowed a job? It's not a black and white issue, and while I deplore the crimes that they commit that doesn't mean that there's not an underlying reason for what they do that means that there's absolutely nothing that they can do about their urges. It's not the swearing that isn't big or clever, deciding that it is a black and white issue and then railing against anyone who disagrees with you and calling them names is the bit that makes you look childish. You sound like the sort of person who thinks vigilantism is a good thing and that torture is the best way to get information from someone. Just fucking grow up.

      1. neb
        WTF?

        re: Look, I get your point and all

        "and while I deplore the crimes that they commit that doesn't mean that there's not an underlying reason for what they do that means that there's absolutely nothing that they can do about their urges"

        but there is something they can do can't they, an alcoholic can say"no more booze for me", a drug addict "no more cake", and i assume a paedophile can control their urges and say "i'll not rape a child today nor will i look at kiddy porn on the old pc"

        as i said i like to think of myself as a liberal; why on the old political compass i got a -5.25 left/right and -2.41 lib/auth so apparantly i'm close to ghandi =)

        but there are some crimes that i believe cannot be forgiven nor forgotten.

        it is a black and white issue to me, its also a personal issue and as a former abusee i can rail against the whole damn world for all the good it will do me, i cast out my demons of stupidity long ago, though i've yet to submit claims for millions of dollars

        i didn't repeat any abuse i suffered 'cos i don't fancy kids, just don't do it for me, not even the pretty ones,

        but if they did do it then i would choose to be celibate; as anyone can, and get some help for my urges

        i wasn't so much swearing at other posters, just pointing out that paedophillia is; at the end of the day, fucking children

        i also don't think vigilantism is good(though it usually makes for a good film) and torture isn't always the best way to get information from someone

        anymore assumptions you wish to make, please do

        love and hugs

        neb

        ps: i like twiglets too

        1. Graham Marsden
          Boffin

          @neb

          'an alcoholic can say"no more booze for me", a drug addict "no more cake", and i assume a paedophile can control their urges and say "i'll not rape a child today nor will i look at kiddy porn on the old pc"'

          What a wonderfully simplistic world it is that you live in! With a wish or a wave of a magic wand, suddenly everything is put to rights and we all live happily ever after. Unfortunately if you'd actually bother to *think* about matters and do a bit of research, you might find that it's not that easy.

          Sure, anyone can say "no more", but that doesn't make the desire go away. Saying that "it's wrong" as if that is a solution in-and-of itself just shows that you have little or no idea of what addiction (physical or mental) actually entails.

          What is needed is proper counselling/. support/ rehabilitation structure in place to reinforce that "no more", but who wants eg a drug clinic (let alone a rehabilitation centre for paedophiles) in their "back yard", especially someone who thinks that some crimes "cannot be forgiven nor forgotten" and who thereby forever damns anyone who *wants* to try to do something about their addiction!

        2. Veldan
          Stop

          no, really, you're not...

          "ps: i have two kids and although i consider myself liberal(ish) in the commit the crime, serve the time theory, there are some crimes that cannot be forgiven and fucking children is one of them."

          Take your baseless claims and keep them to yourself.

          EVERY crime can be forgiven, every crime has its time and price. Once a man has served his time in prison, he has paid for his crime and should not be prosecuted beyond that.

          If you were really a liberal, you'd understand that.

          The same applies not just to sex with children but rape. The abusers (scum that they are) then go to jail for a time that society thinks is appropriate to the damage they caused, they pay for their crime. They are forgiven (at least as far as society is concerned).

          If it is an unforgivable crime why don't we just cut the fat from this and kill them? or put them in jail for life? let's take an eye for an eye and abuse them? after all, it's all justified as it was an unforgivable crime, therefore we can be equally unforgivable in punishment.

          OR

          We can get some perspective, take a step back, rationally punish these people, look for alternatives for prevention or what causes abusers to feel the way they do.

          Perhaps eve bring in some "grey" into the legal mess and realise looking at an image and abusing a child, to do have the same impact on the victim and punish accordingly. Going beyond that, even look into how the age of the abused (in child abuse cases) can have a significant effect on the "abuse" (using quotations because even concentual sex gets labelled abuse, not meaning to belittle genuine rape and abuse) as a 30yr old sleeping with a 15yr old as opposed to an 8yr old not only has different impact on the victim, but also in nature of the crime.

          See, it is very full of grey and suggesting otherwise is not very liberal of you.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Black and white

      "but i know that adults fucking children is wrong,

      watching adults or other kids fuck kids is wrong,

      downloading movies and pictures of anyone fucking kids and thrapping yourself is wrong"

      You named 3 things there that you say are black and white wrong, and they may all be. However, is there no distinction between abusing a child and someone looking at a picture of child? If my kids were abused and the person who did it received no worse a punishment than the person who who viewed a picture but never laid a finger on my kids I would not feel that justice was done would you?

  23. Wize

    She suffers everytime these images are found...

    Would it not be best to isolate yourself from the news of images being found and try and move forward in life, rather than continuing to dwell on the past?

    Set up a foundation to help others in such circumstances and get the money fed direct to it. Get someone to give it a name unknown to yourself so you don't get reminded by it. And get them to lay waste to all the sick bastards out there.

    Then try and have a happy life.

    I don't know how she thinks she will get recognised from the pictures. She will look different from 11 to 21 years old and unless she has a predominant feature (like a facial scar) she would be unrecognisable with just a different hair style.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Big Brother

      Nope

      The victims are not allowed to move on. If there are victims who've moved on we don't hear from them because it doesn't sell papers or whip up enough hysteria to make crazy new laws.

      When a pedo is caught the victim(s) become victims forever because they will be constantly poked and analysed by social workers and psychiatrists and constantly told how terribly they have been abused (even if they don't think so). The process punishes the victims just as much as the perpetrator.

  24. Jemma
    FAIL

    ...enuff said...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvsoVdvtZC4&feature=related

    Watch and learn, pay attention to the lyrics....

    I've said it before and I'll say it again - kids sexuality isnt miraculously switched on the day they pass our legal age of consent, and we ignore that at our peril..

    As to this 'Amy' character ... lost wages... um no... the fact she is a talentless nobody (which going after such payments implies) does not automatically follow on from the fact she was abused and I know this from personal experience of being an 'abuse victim'.

    So stop with the easy targets of paedogeddon (thank you!) - and start going after people who do real harm... like BP executives for example... or the chinese/north korean governments maybe.. O I forgot, they can fight back...

    Its been proven that some people are getting done for kiddie fiddling that have nothing to do with it, because others have spiked their computers... there was even a court case on it... so why all this palaver?

    And as for supply and demand... its the same as with hard drugs... make it illegal and they will search it out... not to mention that you are putting kids sexuality in the crosshairs of people who might have aimed their unpleasantness somewhere else, because no-one else will return a childs growing sexuality *but* a criminal. And yes, children have a sexuality as much as an adult does (more of one in many cases, thanks to deranged parents and churches and religions and the like). The longer we dont accept this, the more there will be abuse..

    I know of at least one case where a teacher had her career destroyed when the girl she was seeing admitted to the court that she, a 15 year old girl, was the one who instigated the relationship by wearing the teacher down for months until the teacher gave in... and that they would be together after the trial... did the judge do the sensible thing and punish the 'child' for what she had done... of course not... paedogeddon was called down on the earth and the teacher went to prison... I love the law...not

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: ...enuff said...

      "And yes, children have a sexuality as much as an adult does (more of one in many cases, thanks to deranged parents and churches and religions and the like)."

      It's one thing for a 13 and 14 year old to be fumbling between the sheets, as horrifying as that is.

      Another for a 13 and a 40 year old, wouldn't you say?

      And yes, I'll call a 13 and 14 year old going at it horrifying, unless you know many 13 and 14 year olds that have a job good enough to raise a family with. That's the age group probably least likely to do something sensible like, oh, use contraception.

  25. Patrick R

    "...and played no role in the production of the images"

    I'm convinced every distribution of the images makes it worse as it makes people see their obsession a bit more like "mainstream", closer to normal than it should ever be. The more they consume, the more they get obsessed with it and the more likely some day, one of them will become his own hero, though it was never anyone's fault, or was it ?

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wrong abuse images

    @neb: "adults f**king children is wrong,"

    A child is defined as anyone under 18 years old, and it is legal for an 18 year old adult to have sex with a 16 year old child. The issue is not clear cut. The age of consent in Spain, for example, is 13. But we don't arrest all Spanish visitors because they may be breaking our laws.

    Pornographic images are also a difficult area, especially when kids can photograph themselves with a mobile phone, and send YOU the image without your consent.

    In America, nude photos of kids will get you a jail sentence, in Europe, nude photos of kids are a normal part of a family album.

    But rape a kid, and by all means throw away the key.

  27. The Other Steve

    On a practical note

    Where is a man serving a 17 year jail sentence going to get $3.68m ?

  28. ZenCoder

    Conflict of emotion and reason.

    Emotionally I want those who derived pleasure form picture of her abuse to be made to pay in every way possible. Rationally I know that there is great harm in abandoning all "semblance of reason, common sense and fairness" even when someone has committed or is accused of committing horrible crimes.

    I have great sympathy for this woman, but I agree with the judges who are rejecting these restitution claims.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    It does "seem" fair.

    On the face of it perhaps there is a range of offences perp'd?

    Some of these might be criminal and some civil.

    But it does seem reasonable to give consideration to any "marketing" that an image may go through whether or not the victim or image taker(s) knew about or had no ability to know about?

    So a range to consider seems to include:

    the victim as an sexually abused person

    the victim as a person in an image doing whatever

    the victim as a person whose image has been marketed or made commercially available or used by others for commercial gain.

    ?

  30. Pablo
    WTF?

    What a mess

    THE GOOD: I like that it's at least theoretically based on, and proportional to, harm suffered by the victim. Whether she actually gets three million or three dollars, it's done more to put things right than the 17-year prison sentence. And unlike criminal law, you will never see a 14-year-old girl on the wrong end of it for some pictures she took of herself. Criminal law is based on "it's wrong because I say so and you must be punished", whereas civil law is based on "it's wrong because you hurt someone... approximately *this* much, now make it right".

    THE BAD: Suing one guy who had one image for the whole amount of her suffering is frankly, insane. And the fact this this is on top of criminal liability doesn't sit quite right with me. If that figure of $3,680,000 is supposed to completely compensate Amy for her trauma, why should anyone have to go to jail for it too? (Not that I'm suggesting the original uncle at least doesn't belong there.)

    THE UGLY: James R. Marsh. I sort of assumed he was the pedophile at first.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Now that the former victim is an adult

    I think that she should not want to have to relive this every time a restitution check arrives with a memo field of: Restitution for violent child rape.

    But hey, you never know.

  32. heyrick Silver badge

    What I don't get...

    ...is why people that *possess* these images are being sued for oodles of cash. While I can sort-of understand the "mental suffering" that Amy may or may not be experiencing as a result of this, I don't believe that her degree of suffering changes depending on how many people have the images. Neither do I feel that once these images are tracked down and eradicated, her suffering will cease. For those messed-up people who do happen to have them, chase them using the usual methods for paedo types (and might I say "hear hear" to the poster who suggested two bricks), but for Amy, surely her complaint is directly with her Uncle, the person who set up and then distributed the images?

  33. heyrick Silver badge

    And another thought...

    ...of this $3.6m, how much goes in Amy's pocket and how much is "legal fees"?

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