Sex cases in the news

Thankyou for all the very interesting and thoughtful responses.I think my reason for commenting was provoked by the coverage by the media which seems to exploit every 'painful and lurid' detail ' by which I mean historically painful and lurid contemporary!
I agree the grooming of children that is happening now is where the resources should be focused .
Also I am very cynically concerned about the legal circus around all this . Who is getting rich out of it?

Thicket, thanks for your post. Your point is as relevant now, as it was back then. My closest friend was raped at 17, by a man we met at a Granada star party. We were there because I was seeing a man who worked at Granada. She never told anyone, and got on with it. Your points about shame, not being believed, and more importantly, our parents learning that she hadn't been staying at my house, and I hadn't been staying at hers. We were both staying with my then boyfriend. She was in the garden, having a cigarette, with a group when I saw her at 10.30pm. She went missing then, and arrived at my boyfriend's house at 7.30 am, with her rapist. She was bruised and cut all over, I know because she asked me to bath her. She was determined not to upset our families. She also felt she'd be blamed, for having accepted a 'ride round the block' in his fancy sports car. As we all knew, what was a girl to expect.

I was raped when I was 16 but told no-one, too ashamed and fearful of the fuss. I felt it was my own fault, that I was stupid and gullible, and, of course, dirty. When told 'scream if you like, nobody will hear you' I knew it was true.........so as countless women/girls have always done, rather than be murdered, put up with it and just hoped it would be over soon and have no hideous unwanted results. I was lucky in that respect. I carried on as though nothing had happened but of course have never forgotten it - these days it would be termed a traumatic event and I'd have had counselling. My point is - what difference would it have made? It would have destroyed my family who were uber respectable, and presumably his too.Food for thought!

I think the problem is we are loosing all sense of proportion where sexual offences are concerned. Grabbing a women's breasts, over her clothing in public is treated as as heinous offence as rape of a young child, with suggestions that if a man would grab a woman's breasts there is no knowing to what lengths he would go. It is like the argument that if a parent only taps a child on the wrist it is a sign that they could end up brutally beating them, or to taste alcohol means that you are on the path to alcoholism.

I am not defending any type of inappropriate sexual behaviour but I think we must have the sense to realise that a very large number of men groped, but the proportion of those who went on to force any kind of coercive sex on women was small.

Women did not complain to the police about inappropriate sexual behaviour in the past because they would not be believed but because they would be laughed out of the police station because whatever statute may say, the endemic groping that occurred then was not seen as a crime. I will reiterate here that I am NOT talking about coercive sexual assault. I doubt if any of the men who pinched or rubbed bums, or grabbed breasts, or kissed a girl without consent realised that this was a crime and frankly I do not know any woman who thought that either at the time.

In one job with an international company I was warned by the secretaries on my first day to avoid being alone with one of the managers and if he came into my office to get up from my desk and move around - and I was a fellow manager. It didn't occur to any of us that his behaviour was criminal. We just saw it as an irritating inconvenience and held him in contempt.

When I was 16, my parents allowed me into Manchester, to a club where JS was the DJ/Manager. I was allowed, because our neighbour,aged 19 and a responsible, and lovely young woman, was escorting me. On the bus, she told me to avoid JS as he liked young girls. She went on, that I'd probably be ok, because although 16, I was tall and could pass for older. She said anyone of 17 was too old for him.
Police and social work organisations tend to reflect the society they serve. Awareness of the damage of domestic abuse, but particularly, of the sexual abuse of children and adolescents is much greater now, than it was some generations ago. I agree with others, who have said that during the 60' and 70's, women making complaints of rape, or indecent assault were usually treated as 'the problem'. Making false allegations does happen, but its so rare, in comparison with the actual numbers of sexual assault. Guilty findings in rape trials are disappointingly low. No wonder women, or men, who have been sexually assaulted find it so hard to tell.
My experience of working with sex offenders, is they rarely admit their crimes, and if they do, they minimise, rationalise and blame everyone but themselves. I have never met a prolific sex offender who did not have friendships with others who shared his (or more rarely, her) tastes. By our friends shall we (often) be known. From what I read, Bill Roache has been a friend and business partner of Owen Oyston (convicted of rape) and Stuart Hall (convicted of multiple sex offences) for getting on for 30 years.

I agree with Mishap.

Forty years is too long ago to make a big fuss about a grope of a 15 year old who 'consented' at the time when there are so many much worse offences going on involving prepubescent children in the present.

when I was puzzled by your quote: 'You don't need a birth certificate to realise the age of a girl even if she looks older than her age'.

So how would someone have known whether a girl was fifteen (illegal and statutory rape) or sixteen ( legal)?

I don't care whether the times were different, if any of these men are found to have used their positions of power and influence to assault and humiliate girls or young women, to my mind there is no excuse and they are pathetic excuses for men.

There are a lot of worried celebs who have gone to Max Clifford (not that he can be much help when under investigation himself) because they know they offended back then, and relied on victims not being believed. They would have had an awareness of what the prevailing culture tolerated and went beyond that boundary. Some of these celebs have children who themselves have fallen foul of the same legislation and not got away with what their fathers did. The ripples have spread far and wide down the years.

Working with sex offenders for many years was an eye opener - not only celebs but many ordinary men have worries and regrets about what they did, and whether it's coming back to confront them now. Historical sexual offences take up a major part of specialist investigating police officers' work.

Like many things it is not what is formally a crime at any period but how society looked at it at the time.

In the 60s or 70s any woman going to a police station to complain that a man had groped her one a bus or train, for example, would have got very short shrift indeed. The police were also, then, very unwilling to intervene in domestic violence cases unless someone was killed or very exceptionally badly injured or tortured.

The groupie culture did accept underage sex and I have seen letters in the press from women admitting that in the 60s and 70s they chased and had sex with popstars and their entourages under age and had been very proud of themselves at the time. I am sure the men knew the girls were probably under age, but if a girl had turned round and gone to the police a prosecution was very unlikely to have happened as it would have been considered that she had been 'asking for it'. The same would have happened if she had been raped.

Of course there will always be someone or several people in any group who will behave against the norm, but that doesn't mean that the behaviour of the others wasn't viewed as acceptable by society as a whole.

The current legal system does differentiate between sexual assaults against children and against adults in terms of sentence guidelines and sex offender registration but all are offences now, as they were in the 60s and 70s. Multiple indecent assaults and sexual assaults over decades indicate a defendant may be more than a sex pest at his place of work, whether that be in TV and radio, or an office.

The groupie culture never permitted underage girls to engage in sex with adult pop stars and DJs. Groping the breasts of adult women, or putting a hand up their skirt, have been indecent assaults since many years before DLT allegedly did these things.

A child protection spokesman, Paul Roffey, who heard Max Clifford justifying the hedonistic behaviour of the 60s and 70s, by saying they didn't check birth certificates, said:

"You don't need a birth certificate to realise the age of a girl even if she looks older than her age. People invariably know they are breaking the law and they still know now."

Whilst I knew little about child protection issues when I was growing up and enjoying being a teenager in the 60s, I did have drilled into me that even if groupies throw themselves at pop stars and DJs, they are often children who should not be taken advantage of by adults. Pop stars like Peter Noone, of Herman's Hermits, went to great lengths to avoid groupies of any age, so some knew it wasn't on whilst others chose to exploit such opportunities.

I guess that anyone currently in the dock who proves to have been a sex pest who sexually harassed and indecently assaulted women will receive a more lenient sentence than one who specialised in this same kind of offending against underage girls.

Although I tend to think like Notgrandma and Thicket on this issue, I also think we need to differentiate between the really perverted offenses against very young children, or vulnerable young people in hospitals etc and those which took place in the TV and pop scenes.
I'm not sure that the current legal system does that.

Mishap I am with you, it was never acceptable behaviour, but in the 60s and 70s when it happened, presumably in the presence of other people, nobody would have considered a grope like that could be considered a crime.

At that time I doubt whether there were any men in the music industry who did not, at some time, touch, grope of proposition a woman inappropriately - or have any idea how young some of the girls throwing themselves at them were.

I would, however draw a line between overt behaviour such as that David LT has been accused of, and any offence that involved coercion

It was certainly a different culture in those days - I remember my elder sister running off to be with a singer; my father found out & got the police to remove her from his dressingroom!!!! She was a groupie & loved every minute of it too. I'm afraid getting attention from whatever idol was regarded as a feather in the cap for the girls.........why can't we all be more honest about this ? The men certainly took advantage of all the 'crumpet'.
There was also a conspiracy of silence - one simply didn't tell parents or anyone else of some pretty horrible experiences. Groping and fondling was par for the course in most work situations, and sexual innuendo endemic. We all just got on with it and avoided what we could.
What I am saying is that all this stuff was accepted by all parties; those were bad old days and best forgotten. How would our grandchildren feel to hear any of it? Horrified, so let sleeping dogs lie.

Ana agree with you 100% I don't think for one minute these charges would have been brought if it was only say 1 complainant but once the massive amount became knowledge with the Saville case people decided to speak up and be counted,maybe these men thought they where in positions where they where indispensible to the TV Companies and any alligations would be laughed at as hysteria from fans.I hope however old they are if they are found guilty that they go away for a long time.

I think up until recent times women were accused of having a fit of the vapours or suffering from PMT if they showed their male colleages up by protesting about unwanted groping. I think they kept quiet to keep their dignity.

The incident described today in the media over DLT was that he popped into studio and squeezed a DJ's breasts as she was broadcasting - he says it was just a practical joke (I understand that radio DJs are known to try and put their colleagues off their stroke); she regards it as a sexual assault.

Now clearly this was not acceptable at all, but maybe she should have given him a major earful in front of his colleagues as soon as she came off air and gone to his boss so he could be disciplined/reported or whatever. The idea that decades later this should be coming to court seems crazy.

I am not condoning his behaviour, but just think that this is all a bit late and we should be concentrating the resources of the court on some of the far more shocking things that went on - and indeed still go on - in order to protect women and girls in the media and in NHS settings.

I know that I had to deal with my fair share of would-be gropers when I was younger. I did not regard it as a big deal; I just dealt with it.

I would be interested to know what others think.

I suppose what I'm saying is that if Jimmy Savile's activities hadn't come to light, his victims and those of others in the media would probably never have thought they'd be believed.

I'm sure we're all disconcerted by the accusations notgrandma.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here - are you saying that this was the way things were done then, and the girls are somehow to blame?

And for whom is it 'lurid and painful'

DLT was arrested as part of Operation Yew Tree which was set up after the Jimmy Savile revelations when a lot of women (and some men) who are now in their 60s came forward. I don't know whether Bill Roache was part of the same investigation.

The trouble is those 15yr olds had probably left school and were at work earning money and spreading their wings just as I was, no one was looking out for them on the whole as they weren't seen as kids like they would be now.

That said if any of those accused are guilty of the crime I hope they go away for a long time.

I'm confused by it all, but will hope the innocent are acquitted and the guilty jailed.