coaches engaging in legal ***ual activity

[rolymiller]

Brin you and our lass are my only buddies in the whole world and even you tell me to shut the **** up. I think I shall go and eat worms....

[wendun]

Interesting that even our Home Secretary suggests that a blind eye was turned to Leicester sweatshops due to "cultural sensitivity." I listened to BBC reports over several days and not once was ethnicity mentioned. I have no personal experience of Leicester but have inspected premises in some northern towns. In each case access was difficult and only obtained after much effort and wrangling. The premises were in the rag trade, invariably located in old mills, the usual scenario was a couple of blokes at a large (locked) steel door. Inside were dozens of women (few seemed to understand English) in cramped conditions each at a table with a sewing machine. No action was ever taken on our reports. So far as I know these places are operating just the same and are a perfect environment for Covid-19.

[wendun]

KerrAvon, if you are not a lawyer you should be. A forensic demolition of John2. I read his comments and instantly saw what you see in your sentence beginning "The real issue..." That is precisely the point and aim of John2; a deliberate and repeated attempt to divert attention from the actual guilty parties. A common tactic but no less disgraceful for that.

[rolymiller]

KerrAvon, if you are not a lawyer you should be. .

I think his true vocation should be as a tory politician always puts over the tory view very well. I think he tends to leave too many holes in his arguments to be a lawyer and is too inconsistent, he would get torn apart in court by an even average barrister. I expect he is still learning his trade to be fair if he is a lawyer and nowt wrong with that. Keep working at it Kerr you will get there! Not quite ready for the first team yet though.

But yes I would vote for him as a Tory MP if I voted Tory and had a centre/right - Tory stand point (somewhere between Heseltine and Thatch).

[Grist_To_The_Mill]

I think his true vocation should be as a tory politician always puts over the tory view very well. I think he tends to leave too many holes in his arguments to be a lawyer and is too inconsistent, he would get torn apart in court by an even average barrister. I expect he is still learning his trade to be fair if he is a lawyer and nowt wrong with that. Keep working at it Kerr you will get there! Not quite ready for the first team yet though.

But yes I would vote for him as a Tory MP if I voted Tory and had a centre/right - Tory stand point (somewhere between Heseltine and Thatch).

He would be a good decorator with wallpaper being a specialism

[Stovicmiller]

All of which misses my point. These children were not even seen as victims back then in the way someone who gets murdered would be. This is something the townsfolk were collectively guilty of.

Even now, in 2020, we have people going to the trouble of asking why victims of these sorts of crimes "don't say no" which to some appears to be suggesting they are in some way responsible.

what a load of *******s, you obviously believe what comes out of Yr mouth. You say the townsfolk were collectively guilty of not seeing these girls as victims, maybe people you knock bout with saw it that way but not in the circles I frequent. Ofcourse the people of Rotherham were outraged any normal person would be. The court case you mentioned is not the same has finding out 1600 to 2000 girls have been ***ually assaulted.

[Shark27]

Sorry, but no, I'm not accepting this. You've misrepresented my position a few times recently, I'm not trying to blame the townsfolk for everything. Of course the perpetrators are responsible, and the authorities must shoulder a huge amount of blame for their failings in allowing it to go on at the scale it did, but its nonsense to suggest people didn't realise girls this young were having multiple ***ual partners, and its a matter of recorded fact that the people of Rotherham thought of these girls as being willful participants rather than victims.

On the issue of coercion, a 12 year old cannot consent to ***. If you want to make the legal argument here its surely case open and closed?

Interestingly, the story doesn't end there. The individuals in question did go to jail in 2017. Obviously the police must shoulder some significant blame for this not happening in 2001, but against a backdrop of public indifference.

Rather than take my words for it, lets get words from the actual victim:
https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/cse-t...c-abuse-448060

This is how a 12-year-old girl who was being ***ually abused says she was made to feel by her white working class community:
"She described how she was shunned by many in her community who called her worse things than a 'dirty, cheap slag'.


She said: "No-one understood. No-one wanted to understand.

"I felt lost, isolated, trapped, ashamed and completely worthless."

But everyone can stick their fingers in their ears and convince themselves they'd have been horrified "if only they had known"

It actually makes no difference now, there's little to be achieved in feeling guilty about it. Of course nobody realised the extent of it.

The entire reason I make this point at all is because right now, in 2020, people are still questioning why the victims of abuse don't "just say no". I've been reading Sammy Woodhouse's book and its quite horrifying to see how the groomers operated, and of course these girls didn't feel like victims at the time. Maybe if the people in their communities had perceived them as victims rather than sl*gs they might have seen things differently?

All I'm trying to do is politely point out the dangers of victim blaming so we don't make the same mistakes again. I'm not trying to make anyone feel guilty for what happened back then, or blame anyone other than the perpetrators for their actions, just to recognise that we do as a society have an important role in how we perceive the victims of these crimes.

If you want to see the extent of the victim blaming going on back then, there is a whole trove of articles:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-partners.html

After a 12-year old named 5 ***ual partners, this was the response of our local MP:
"Rotherham MP Denis MacShane said he was shocked by the case and called for a drive to instill a better sense of personal responsibility in both children and their parents."

Personal responsibility for children!?

We were victim blaming then, and people are still doing it.

Oh and another article for a seperate case illustrating the attitude of the towns folk to these girls.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ant-again.html

This girl got pregnant at 11 and then again at 14. Here's what the townsfolk had to say:
"One neighbour on a council estate in Rotherham said: 'She is giving out the message that it's OK to keep getting pregnant and the state will just keep paying for it.'"

Sorry, but anyone with their heads in the sand that these girls weren't being victim blamed by the white working class community has selective amnesia. Attitudes were very different.

Listen, if you want to blame the townsfolk of Rotherham for anything then the start would be the people who carried on voting the council in even after the attrocities were brought to light.

Here's my guess; people like Stovic, Grist, Howdy etc (me definately) didn't vote them back in. We didn't vote a council back in who turned a blind eye to child rape. Maybe some of the aforementioned will come on here and tell me they did but I will then say that they were wrong to do so.

What do you think Jonny boy? Who on this forum is going to come out of this poll looking like they didn't mind the council ignoring children getting raped?

[John2]

What do you think Jonny boy?

I think that's one of the weakest responses I've encountered in a long time. Inventing a meaningless poll that doesn't really show anything of relevance.

It's a common strategy when the argument has been lost, just ignore or sidetrack without addressing any of the actual points. Heaven forbid someone actually acknowledge any of issues raised.

[Shark27]

I think that's one of the weakest responses I've encountered in a long time. Inventing a meaningless poll that doesn't really show anything of relevance.

It's a common strategy when the argument has been lost, just ignore or sidetrack without addressing any of the actual points. Heaven forbid someone actually acknowledge any of issues raised.

I've acknowledged your issues. They are mainly your own experiences. Nothing concrete.

I note that you haven't answered the question about whether you knew if it was going on? Did you?

[John2]

I've acknowledged your issues. They are mainly your own experiences. Nothing concrete.

I note that you haven't answered the question about whether you knew if it was going on? Did you?

I knew girls were getting referred to as "p*ki sh*ggers".

I was trying to think back to any warning signs I was aware of at school. I remember one particular incident when I feel like in year 10 one of the girls had her older boyfriend come into the school grounds to collect her (Clifton Upper/ formerly Spurley Hey), its hard to remember in my head but I feel I was told he was about 26, and we were probably 14, it definitely seemed wrong to me, but also was just accepted. Looking back I'm surprised how brazen it was, but its also a long time ago.

I don't think anyone at all was aware of the scale. We can only be judged on our reaction to the things we did know about, which the evidence shows involved an awful lot of victim blaming.