Here We Go Again…

Robert Harris is the latest ‘celebrity’ to throw his meagre weight behind the attempt to win favour for fugitive sexual predator and fellow ‘celebrity’, Roman Polanski:

Last Friday in Los Angeles, the so-called celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred – whose most recent clients include two of the alleged mistresses of Tiger Woods – called a press conference. A British actor, Charlotte Lewis, appeared alongside her, claiming to have been sexually assaulted in 1983 by Roman Polanski, who is fighting extradition to the United States after his 1977 conviction for unlawful sex with a minor.

It appears Mr Harris feels the timing of this announcement is a little unfortunate for his pal:

Carried live on cable TV, Lewis made a short and dramatic statement: "I am also a victim of Roman Polanski. Mr Polanski knew I was only 16 years old when he met me and forced himself upon me in his apartment in Paris. He took advantage of me, and I have lived with the effects of his behaviour ever since." Allred added that her client was "ready to testify under oath if and when that is necessary". The Los Angeles legal authorities subsequently confirmed to the Associated Press that they had interviewed Lewis the previous day.

Hmmm, things don’t look good for our plucky antihero in his mansion in Switzerland.

I know! Let’s paint this girl as a flake and a golddigger!

Yet there was, from the outset, something slightly peculiar about it. Lewis alleged that the assault ("the worst possible") took place in 1983, but apparently it was not so horrible that it put her off working with Polanski, since she appeared in his 1986 film, Pirates.

Hey, we are always being told by the Righteous that women who are abused by men can’t be expected to just get away from them. When did the rules change?

I know Polanski well, as we recently collaborated on a film of my novel, The Ghost.

Oh, really?

It seems you don’t know him as well as his victim, Samantha Geimer, got to know him. Against her will…

In fairness to the Mail on Sunday, they did at least do a little research in the cuttings library before going to press, and actually included a comment Lewis had made on the record about Polanski in 1986: "I found him very attractive. I'd love to have had a romantic relationship with him – and a physical one. You can't help falling in love with him. But he didn't want me that way." The paper tried to explain away the glaring discrepancy between her stories then and now by saying "at the time she was speaking she was still working for Polanski and, it could be argued, in thrall of him [sic]"

Well, that’s again something we are continually told by the Righteous we must bear in mind when women claim abuse.

…there is in the archives a third version of Lewis's relationship with Polanski. A profile, titled "Wild Child", clearly written with the actor's co-operation, appeared in the News of the World on 8 August 1999: "In a no-holds-barred interview Charlotte … confessed how she seduced kinky director Polanski when she was a nubile 17-year-old …" (The Mail on Sunday newspaper makes no mention of this earlier 2,800-word article, leaving it to the online-only version, which reports Lewis to have been "misquoted".)

And Mr Harris’s conclusions? It’s all the victim’s fault, is it?

Ah. No. He doesn’t want to be thrown in that briar patch:

It is hard to blame Lewis for the confusion she has spread. If her own account of her life as reported by the News of the World is correct, then she is more to be commiserated with than condemned.

Then it’s those bloody meddling lawyers and media is, it, who are cruelly persecuting your chum?

Yup:

But the behaviour of the media, and of some lawyers in America, is a different matter. The Polanski affair has now become utterly politicised.

Funny how that happens when someone flees justice, isn’t it?

The man in charge of the case, the Los Angeles district attorney Steve Cooley, is locked in a tight race for the Republican nomination to become California's attorney general: much of his prominence is down to his high-profile pursuit of Polanski.

Actually, finding and trying fugitives from justice is pretty much his job description.

It does not seem to matter that the officers of the court in 1977 recommended that the director should not serve a custodial sentence…

Well, Polanski blew that option out of the water by having it away on his toes to a non-extradition country, didn’t he?

A lynch mob is in town, bent on destroying Polanski, whatever the facts of his case or the opinions of his real victim, Samantha Geimer, who has long since publicly forgiven him and asked for him to be left alone.

The US isn’t one of those third-world hellholes that accepts blood money. It doesn’t matter what she wants, and quite rightly so. The offence is against the state, not her.

I know few readers will be as sympathetic to Polanski as I am; I understand the instinctive recoil from the crime he committed a third of a century ago. Even so, the scenes at Allred's media circus last Friday ought to make anyone with a vestigial sense of justice shudder at the thought of what will await him if ever he is returned to the United States.

Justice. Long denied.

It’s about time…

Horrifying Merchandising Concepts...

...on the subject of the hideous Olympic mascots:


*gulp*

So, Now It's Time..?

Mrs Grigg is now vowing to start a safety campaign in the previously quiet family road which she says has become a 'rat run' in recent times - saying that her sister's son has been hit twice by racing cars and had his leg broken.

In which case...

As they waited to cross the road, Lewis ran a few steps ahead of his mother.

Hmmm....

Now, no doubt if the estimations of the speed are accurate - some say as much as 60mph - the driver will hopefully be in big trouble. Or as big trouble as anyone gets in these days. As that's as it should be.

But if she was well aware of the dangers of the road, why not act accordingly?

Southend: Where The Donkeys Are allowed In Council Chambers…

..but not on the beach:

Five little donkeys will be offering youngsters in south Essex a taste of traditional seaside fun, but not on the seaside.

Jayne Johns wanted to offer donkey rides on Southend seafront, but was told by the council she wasn’t allowed.

But she has been given permission by Rochford District Council to start the rides in the car park and play area of Hockley Woods.

Barmy animal rights nutters again?

No, this is barmy council nutters:

John Lamb, Southend councillor responsible for tourism and regeneration, explained why the donkeys were not allowed on the beach.

He said: “The problem we have is we have Blue Flag and Coastal Award beaches, which restrict what we can and can’t do. ”

Apparantly, offering to clean up after the donkeys isn’t going to help:

“They might say they will pick up the donkey mess but they can’t pick up urine. We need to safeguard the water quality and keep the beaches clean to get the awards which attract visitors. ”

Which is odd, because as people point out in the comments, dogs are allowed on the beach Oct-Apr. Do they not pee on the sand?

Come to think of it, since this is Southend, do toddlers not pee on the sand as well?

“I love donkeys and remember having rides as a child but times have changed.”

Yes, indeed, times have changed. Now, we elect dumb, unwilling, stubborn animals to council seats instead of letting kiddies ride them…

Sometimes, It’s The ‘Daily Fail’ Comments…

…that are the best read.

On the story of the BA pilot in a road rage incident, ‘anna’ from Nottingham comments:

”Maybe he suffers from 'Fight or flight' Syndrome!”

/salute

From The ‘No S***, Sherlock’ Files…

Sodom and Gomorrah has some serious health problems, according to a new report.

Alcohol-related illnesses, rising adult obesity, high numbers of sexually transmitted infections and high death rates for all cancers are some of the worrying issues affecting the city.

The city's director of public health Tom Scanlon has pinpointed areas of concern alongside issues where improvements have been made in his annual report.

Sorry about the typo there, we are actually talking about Brighton…

Dr Scanlon warned that people needed to take a good look at their attitudes and behaviours and decide whether they were willing to make some changes to help improve their long-term health.

And if they aren’t, Dr?

We should just give you even more money to try to get the message across, I suppose?

Dr Scanlon said Brighton had a long history of risk-taking sexual activity but the public health message did not seem to be getting through.

He said: "This may be due to the particular characteristics of our population, which contains many groups at greater risk.

"The high prevalence of alcohol consumption in the city is also an important factor.

We could react and invest considerable public money in public health messages.

"There is an evidence base on how best to present these messages but our recent track record suggests that while these might be heard, they may not necessarily be listened to. "

So stop wasting the money, Dr Scanlon. These people have every access to the facts imaginable – we live in an information-free society, after all – and if they simply don’t want to heed them, they won’t.

After all, the NHS takes care of them and they don’t pay a penny for it, do they? There are no longer any consequences, so why should they listen?

"We need a long and hard think about the issue of sexual health, about the related health and social costs, about the links to behaviour and the important role played by alcohol consumption."

Well, off you go and think long and hard about it. But don’t expect the taxpayer to feather your nest while you do so, eh?

This Must Be Another Of Those ‘Benefits Of Multiculturalism’….

...that the progressives are always waxing lyrical about:

In parts of the developing world – particularly south-east Asia, the south Asian subcontinent and east Africa – acid attacks are common. The Taliban and fellow extremists have frequently resorted to throwing acid in women's faces for even small transgressions, such as daring to go out unveiled. But there are concerns that such attacks may also be on the increase in the UK.

How wonderful! How vibrant and enriched I feel!

Hospital admission figures for the past three years show a steady rise in the number of people being treated for acid attacks. According to the NHS information centre, 44 people were admitted to hospital in 2006-07 after they were "assaulted with a corrosive substance". The following year the figure jumped to 67 and last year there were 69 admissions.

Can we draw any inferences from the details of the perpetrators and victims?

Actually, no:

The figures only include hospital admissions where a patient had to spend one night or more in hospital and there is no ethnic breakdown.

Really..?

That’s a little odd, don’t you think, given the state’s obsessive need to keep stats on these sorts of things?

Acid Survivors Trust International, a charity which specialises in helping victims of acid attacks in places like Bangladesh and Pakistan, recently began work on a project documenting such attacks in Britain. It is the first serious attempt to map where acid assaults take place and what motivates their British perpetrators.

I wonder if they will provide the detail that is unaccountably missing from the NHS and police records?

Rick Trask, the charity's UK-based researcher, said it would be some time before they really knew whether acid attacks were an increasing problem but that enough evidence existed to warrant an initial investigation.

"It's hard to pin down exact numbers because they are held across different departments, such as NHS trusts and police," he said. "The question we need to ask is whether the few cases we know about are the tip of the iceberg."

It’s hard to think that there could be people attacked in this way who would be able to hide it, though, which is a small crumb of comfort…

However, Mr Trask doesn’t want to be seen to point fingers at any one culture:

Mr Trask was keen to highlight that acid attacks happen across a range of different countries, cultures and religions. "You get attacks in Buddhist Cambodia, among Christians in Uganda and across south Asia, which has many different religions," he said. "It's not specific to one culture or another. But what they almost always do have in common is some sort of gender-based violence and the desire to permanently disfigure their victims."

‘Not specific to one culture or another’, eh? I can see one culture left out of the list, however…

As Subrosa points out, in order to crack down on this sort of medieval savagery, it will be necessary to first ensure that the apologists and excusers are no longer in the driving seat.

I'm Guessing....

Otter:

Locals in a small Canadian town have been stumped by the appearance of a bizarre creature, which was dragged from a lake.

Clues are in the elongated body, glossy fur and the hairless muzzle.

Girls wanting to get their names in newspaper:

Ms Howells added: 'Sophie was asking what it was and then we looked behind us and it was about five metres away, following us.

'I didn't know what to do so we cut through the brambles and just started running.'

I don't think a black leopard would have had any problem catching you, sweetie. Not in those shoes, certainly...

Sauce For The Goose, Ladies...

...so quit whining:

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition said it would extend anonymity in rape cases from victims to include defendants.

It's about bloody time!

The move will turn the clock back to the 1970s when the Sexual Offences Act introduced anonymity for those accused of rape, something later repealed.

Fair enough. Nostalgia is in - see 'Life on Mars' & 'Ashes to Ashes' - and you can't claim it's never been tried before.

Predictably, the hive has been shaken by this and the angry workers are massing to see off the intruder:

Ruth Hall, of Women Against Rape, said the decision was an "insult" and a backlash against the rising number of rape reports.

She said: "More attention needs to be paid to the 94% of reported cases that do not end in conviction rather than the few that are false.

"If men accused of rape got special rights to anonymity, it would reinforce the misconception that lots of women who report rape are lying."

It would appear that Ruth has been reading from the same crib sheet as JohnB when it comes to this 'extremely rare' (ha!) situation:

"False rape allegations are extremely rare, but receive disproportionate publicity.

"Of course, being wrongly accused is a terrible ordeal but the same can be said of being wrongly accused of murder, theft, fraud or any other serious offence."

Not quite. You can't claim that theft, fraud and - in some cases - even murder carry the stigma of being a sex offender. Ask any old lag.

"We are against a special case where men accused of rape are singled out for special protection."

But you're for a special case where women victims of sexual assault (unlike any other assault, fraud, etc) are allowed to remain anonymous?

Hmm, didn't really think that through, did you, sweetie?

Rape law campaigner Jill Saward said she is "horrified" by the news and accused politicians of turning their backs on victims of sexual violence.

Ms Saward, who has spoken out on tackling rape since being attacked at her Ealing vicarage home in 1986, said she completely opposes anonymity for defendants.

She said the changes may discourage genuine victims from coming forward and "send a damaging message".

Ms Saward said: "In just a week or so, what we have heard from this coalition is that rape victims and victims of sexual violence do not matter."

No, dearie. Let me explain something to you.

Rape is a horrible, horrible crime. False accusation of rape is a horrible, horrible crime.

There. Wasn't so hard to understand, was it?

Never Mind All The Science Stuff...

...when will these be in the shops!?



From IO9.