Not only that Danny, I noticed last week in the news that a young man 25 was jailed for 2.5 years for downloading child porn.

Apparently his wedding was called off and he wept in tears at court.

Thing is, these were not contact offences and the sentence was on a moral principle of wrong doing linked with viewing sickening images and the presumption of a possibility to offend.

Take Aine’s case, where the victim is plain and the offence real. What happen’s to Liam Adams. No court, no wedding called off, no cancelled family – in fact the exact opposite.

Gerry Adams must have known fine well that the situation was a sin, it was an actual and active wrong doing, a good Catholic himself apparently, he should know that the actual offence merits custodial sentencing in whatever jurisdiction.

What do we get out of this comparison, Liam Adams an alleged contact offender running around free, it would seem to carry on and have kids and families unabated, while on the flip side a sick voyeur of child abuse (with no actual contact offences) gets 2.5 years inside.

This is a problem with criminal law in general. Child porn downloading is provable. There is an evidence trail on the hard drive. While I don’t know the specifics of the case you are discussing, not all child porn is “sickening abuse” really either. At the extreme “tame” end the definition includes pictures that were legally published in national tabloids such as the Sun and the Star 15 years ago (i.e. topless 16 and 17 year olds) or the modern day equivalent produced by “sexting” on mobile phones. Child porn panic has also veered into the bizarre with the like of the Simpsons cartoon case in Australia. Also the well known Wikipedia Scorpions album cover case, which probably led to hundreds of thousands if not millions of people breaking the child pornography laws out of sheer curiosity, who are probably no more likely to commit contact offences than would be a random trawl of the electoral register.

However possession of the images is relatively easy to demonstrate, so the police can chalk up an easy conviction. I’d like to think that the police would give a slap on the wrist to someone merely with a Wikipedia page in their browser cache but in the current frenzy frankly I’d be worried.

On the other hand Liam Adam’s case is not so easy to prove, and even now there is the possibility that he is innocent. If we abandon this legal principal entirely, then there is the possibility that any one of us here could post a political opinion that rubs someone up the wrong way such that they track down our identity and accuse us of a child sex offense to our neighbours or coworkers. Do you think that anyone has the right to do that to YOU and that you should be put on the sex offender’s register for a mere allegation? What if you’re a teacher?

The law’s an ass.

It has to be really though doesn’t it? Some crimes are more difficult to prove than others. Easy to prove possession of cannabis, hard to prove a rape, which is a crime that could hinge on the mental states of the two people involved and might even be ambiguous if we had CCTV footage of the entire event.

As a grown man…Gerry Adams believed his 14 year old niece that her father had sexually raped her.

it doesn’t matter what year it was….it was wrong and illegal!

There was hardly an issue of the Sunday World and other papers in the years following which did not tell ever more absurd stories about what went on in the home involving MI5, the Royal family and Unionist politicians.

So nobody for a moment in those days did not know child molesting was a crime; a crime often seen as worse than murder. Those in jail would have known even more precisely the hierarchy of offenders in prison and who was at the bottom.

The Irish News is full of this stuff on his youth working days, but haven’t got time to read it all yet..

If that is correct, Adams has fallen down further into the hole because it now proves that he was aware of his brother’s activities in Dundalk.

Knowing what he did, he knew he was a youth project worker, with access to childre. I’m afraid Adams’s statement raises more questions.

“Are you claiming that he could not have known this before 1988 when it was common knowledge for 100 years before that?”

No, of course not. I was talking in terms of likelihood, not the absolute.

My point about Cleveland was not directly concerned with the details of its story but that the event itself represented the end of a very long taboo in society. After Cleveland, stories about child sexual abuse filled the newspapers.

Child sexual abuse has happened since time immemorial. Women and girls who made allegations were burnt at the stake as witches. My point is that in most families, if a child before 1988 made an allegation of child sexual abuse, it was unlikely to be believed by an average person.

This typical reaction was underpinned, in part, by Sigmund Freud’s (now disproved) seduction theory. The professions (including mine (legal)) took their lead from Freud’s theory for many years. There was an underlying prejudice that children were more likely to be telling lies. For many years, it was a rule of evidence that a child’s statement had to be corroborated. But I digress here.

I said I would not have blamed an ordinary person for not believing a child making an allegation back at that time and I stand by that. With a similar allegation in 2009, it would be quite different.

I agree with the last paragraph of your comment. The smart thing would have been to have reserved comment on the matter until after a trial.

This statement is utter nonsense. In addition, the Cleveland scandal cases involved medical misdiagnoses of child sex abuse, and didn’t do anything except make people aware that some doctors relied on very dubious techniques to diagnose abuse resulting it great injustices to a large number of parents who had their children taken into care by the state.

All Gerry Adams needed to know is that paedophiles have a pathological compulsion to have sex with prepubescent children, and that they should not be allowed unsupervised access to children. Are you claiming that he could not have known this before 1988 when it was common knowledge for 100 years before that? Are you seriously claiming that Gerry Adams could not have had the simple commonsense (no Nannystate training required) to know that paedophiles should not have access to kids? He didn’t need to read any subtle signs of abuse, remember, since he was told about it. What is it exactly that you think he couldn’t have known?

However, it’s true that in his desire to position himself on the side of the victim (20 years too late), he made a statement that he should not have made (“I believed her.”). He should not have made this statement because it prejudiced his brother chance of a fair trial and could well deny his neice the justice he now claims that she is entitled to. He should also not have made this statement for political reasons, i.e. because he then leaves himself open to accusations that he allowed someone he considered to be a child molester to roam free.

I would not blame Gerry Adams for being ignorant about the problem of child sexual abuse in 1987. In fact, if he had not believed his niece at that time, it would have been consistent with so many other similar cases.

He has said that he did believe his niece. In that case, the news from Cleveland and the outing of abuse cases which subsequently hit the press in large numbers at the time would have resonated very strongly in his mind.

Some commenters have expressed doubts about whether Adams did actually believe his niece. The irony is that politically, his position would probably be better had he not believed her. There would have been nothing shameful about possessing a state of ignorance and denial about the problem of child sexual abuse a generation ago.

I know plenty about Adams as a politician and very little about him as a family man. Adams the politician is calculating and ruthless but he has operated in a background where certain kinds of lawlessness can be excused as part of a war in pursuit of a united Ireland. Had it not been for that background and the fact that this was his brother, Adams might not have dropped his guard.

It looks as though the damage limitation exercise has begun with revalations about the abuse within Adams’s own family. That at least tells us that Adams has acquired insight about how child abuse can be passed on from generation to generation.

However, this is now making Adams look worse. It looks like a smokescreen to deflect from the central allegation that he promoted his brother’s political career knowing he was an abuser.

Adam’s political colleagues have not yet spoken but they will know that their leader has finally become damaged goods. If Adams does not step down very quickly, some of his colleagues within his party will become impatient and eventually criticise him publicly.

From his own point of view and that of his party, he would be better advised to go now before this scandal becomes an uncontrollable monster.

I agree Alias…I think gerry’s excuse is appalling. A grown man knows that a rape of a child by the childs father is wrong…whether it is 1988, 1998, 2008 or the year 0008.
Gerry Adams failed his neice and his family. As the oldest member of the family…and with him stating he believed his niece that his brother had raped her….then as the oldest member of the ‘clan’…he should have done something to protect the child and make sure that his brother did not abuse and rape other children.
Gerry Adams failed as a brother…as an uncle and as the president of sinn fein.
He can not resign from being a brother or uncle…but he must resign from being the president of sinn fein.

I think Gerry’s excuse that circa 1988 was akin to the dark ages when society didn’t know anything about child sexual abuse or how to deal with it might find favour with SF’s younger voters but those of us over 40 will only shake our heads at such a brazen attempt at self-exoneration.

Certainly the abuser should have been dealt with by the police and judical institutions of the juristiction.

NI does police force of the time does not come out very well of this case.

Gerry Adams has and will have many questions to answer on this.

The revelations on his father particularly at this time could be seen as mudding the waters.

Something out of left field here but is an abuser particularly one that has not been abused themselves a “victim” of having abusive urges or desires.

Its not as if a human being would set out to be an abuser as an ambition or a goal in life.

Stretching peoples imaginations/beliefs here but is an abuser a “victim” of what we are told are uncontrolable urges or desires.

I have no desire to empathise with abusers but I am curious to know what other peoples views on abusers are bar the obvious revulsion and condemnation.

Gerry adams should resign because his actions in everything he has done…is now in question. Gerry Adams states that he knew his niece had gone to the authorities about the abuse….yet everyone remained ‘silent’. But…let us not forget the RUC knew Gerry Adam’s brother had raped his daughter. WE can and must ask the question…did gerry adams make deals and lead the ‘peace’ negotiations under pressure by the RUC and the hand of the queens gov’t to keep the sordid family secrets…secret.
Was Gerry Adams recruited by the RUC…let’s look at some facts-
1. During negotiations in the peace process when Gerry A and Martin McGuiness went to speak with the IRA…their car was bugged,
2. Sinn Fein offices were bugged,
3. Gerry put Denis Donaldson as the SF representative in the US. Donaldson was a spy for the british AND Donaldson’s approach was to attack verbally and reputation of Americans were dared to question Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness’s approach
4. Gerry Adams back in 97 stated the orange order marches were like the KKK marching down Harlem…then this year said the orange order marches had a right and place to march in a united Ireland.
There are many things to question about Gerry Adams and whether he was recruited by the RUC to keep the family secret a secret. He should resign now!

Apparently his wedding was called off and he wept in tears at court.

Thing is, these were not contact offences and the sentence was on a moral principle of wrong doing linked with viewing sickening images and the presumption of a possibility to offend.

Take Aine’s case, where the victim is plain and the offence real. What happen’s to Liam Adams. No court, no wedding called off, no cancelled family – in fact the exact opposite.

Gerry Adams must have known fine well that the situation was a sin, it was an actual and active wrong doing, a good Catholic himself apparently, he should know that the actual offence merits custodial sentencing in whatever jurisdiction.

What do we get out of this comparison, Liam Adams an alleged contact offender running around free, it would seem to carry on and have kids and families unabated, while on the flip side a sick voyeur of child abuse (with no actual contact offences) gets 2.5 years inside.

The law’s an ass.

Family statement: ‘We live with the consequences’

In the late 1990s we discovered that our father had been sexually, emotionally and physically abusing members of our family. This abuse happened over many years. This discovery and the abuse which preceded it have had a devastating impact on our entire family. We are still struggling to come to terms with what happened.

Anyone effected by these issues should contact the Samaritans or any appropriate agency. We would ask the media to give us some privacy, particularly over this Christmas period.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/dec/20/gerry-adams-reveals-abuse-father

Gerry Adams implied that Sinn Féin’s policy changed sometime after his niece told him of the abuse

“All I can tell you is that we now know much more about child abuse and how to deal with it than we did as I was developing my knowledge about it all.

“I was one of the people within Sinn Féin who actually moved, even at times when we were not dealing with the RUC, to ensure that anyone coming in with a complaint about abuse, they’ll be automatically reported to the social services in the knowledge that they would report it to the RUC. And also in terms of the Guards, that they would automatically report it to the Guards.”

What’s of interest in this case is that Gerry Adams admits to intervening directly in west Belfast when his brother was working with children, but not in Dundalk where the same thing was happening.

He also claims to have intervened when he “learnt that [Liam] was a member of Sinn Féin..”

When it seems more likely that, if he intervened, it was when Liam Adams attempted to become an elected public representative for Sinn Féin – and even that is within the 15 year gap that Gerry Adams introduces into that particular conversation.

Whilst intervening in a constituency in which he holds significant influence might have been more conducive to restricting any subsequent rumours.

What it suggests is a pattern of a cover-up where, as long as Liam isn’t in Gerry’s patch and isn’t too visible as a member of Sinn Féin, he will be tolerated.

But, of course,

“..we now know much more about child abuse and how to deal with it than we did as I was developing my knowledge about it all.”