[meta] [british] an attempt to cover the PEDOGEDDON.
13 2012-11-22 by jecniencikn
There's recently been a lot of drama in the UK about pedophiles.
The core of all of it is sad - vulnerable people were sexually abused, many times. Some of them reported the abuse. They were ignored, and the abuse continued. The abuse spanned many years.
The drama comes from the way the abuse allegations were revealed. This is complicated, so bare with me.
1) Jimmy Saville OBE (now dead).
Jimmy Saville was a popular radio DJ and TV personality. "Jim'll Fix It" was a much loved tv show. He did a lot of work for charity. When he died the BBC had a set of commemorative programmes about him.
There had been long running rumours in the industry that Saville had been an unpleasant man, and perhaps abusive, but no-one had done anything about it. A BBC tv programme (their flagship news programme, "NewsNight") had investigated, and came to the conclusion that he was a child abuser. That programme was not shown; BBC bosses cancelled it.
Some time later another programme on the competing ITV network did their own investigation into Saville. They decided he was a serial abuser.
Here's where a lot of drama explodes - why the hell didn't anyone say anything? Why were the victims ignored? How much did the BBC know? (BBC have a yearly charity drive called "Children in Need"; they banned Saville from any involvement because they didn't like the allegations.) etc etc.
The BBC then do a programme (using their flagship documentary "Panorama") about what went wrong at "Newsnight".
More victims come forward.
More stories are heard.
It turns out that this man was evil and he abused very many people over very many years. He may be one of the UK's most prolific sex offenders.
Bizarrely this radio and tv personality was invited into a high security psychiatric hospital, as a volunteer "help". (To make the jargon clear: this is a place for very disturbed people involved in serious criminal behaviour. The Yorkshire Ripper is at Broodmoor.) Saville used this opportunity to abuse very vulnerable women detained at Broadmoor.
So far it's all pretty shitty for the BBC - many people lost their jobs.
2) North Wales Children's Homes
And then there's some separate allegations about abuse in Children's home in Wales. These were serious allegations and nothing much was done and there was an investigation at the time, but justice wasn't done. The BBC did a programme. Remember that they're under considerable scrutiny because of piss-poor journalism.
A victim says he was abused by (at the time) a senior tory politician, but does not give the name. The BBC allow that comment to be broadcast.
Turns out that when the victim was originally interviewed by police, many years ago, they showed him a photograph of someone that the victim identified as the abuser. The police put a name to that photo. But they put the wrong name to that abuser.
Twitter is abuzz - who is this politician? A name is found.
The Prime Minister appears on a breakfast TV show, and the presenter hands over a list of alleged pedophiles. Accidentally this list is shown on camera.
Very great harm is done to this man, who is not a pedophile, because the most important news programme on the BBC fucked up again.
That innocent man is now going after people who tweeted or re-tweeted his name. Regular people are being asked to pay £5 to a children's charity. Celebs will be asked to pay much more. The BBC has already had to pay £187,000 and that sum was kept low because of the way the BBC is funded. ITV (the breakfast programme people) will have to pay considerably more.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19946626
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20026910
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20395647
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20309294
This is a partial attempt to cover the events. There aren't many links to drama, because there's just so much. And I might have got a few details wrong.
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