Townshend Cleared of Child Pornography Charges
Pete Townshend, co-founder of legendary rockers the Who, was cleared last week on charges that he posessed child pornography... but he was placed on the UK Sex Offenders Register for a period of five years...
Okay, I have tried to keep silent on this, but I decided that I needed to speak on it a little... I was going to talk about it after I heard he had been arrested back in January, but decided to bite my tongue and wait and see how it all went, first...
First off, I am relieved that the police cleared him of the charges. Townshend himself has agreed to be placed on the Sex Offenders Register for five years as a "caution" (and thus, have a DNA sample of himself put on record and all that lovely stuff). When I first heard of this, I was pretty outraged, but the fact that Townshend agreed to it made it a little easier to bear... maybe...
Those of you familiar with the music of the Who will remember the lead character from the album Tommy, a "deaf, dumb and blind boy," was sexually abused by an uncle ("Uncle Ernie") and physically abused by a cousin ("Cousin Kevin"). In fact, Townshend believes that he was abused physically and sexually while he was in the care of his mentally ill grandmother as a young child.
I had read somewhere early on in this all that when Mr. Townshend was doing his research for his autobiography, he had written a letter to the head of an organization that deals with child abuse, among other things, stating his intentions to access a website that dealt with child pornography... and then after his "arrest," the man who he had written the letter to said that it never existed and all this garbage...
So was this a "witch hunt?" Probably not. I would like to think that the police had what they thought was credible information regarding Mr. Townshend before they acted, and that they weren't "out to get" him, or anyone else for that matter. What it boils down to is that Mr. Townshend admitted only to using a credit card to access a site that contained images of chld pronography... and that he never downloaded nor posessed any of the images, despite what many media have portrayed...
Listening to: Strapping Young Lad - "SYL" (2003)
Pete Townshend, co-founder of legendary rockers the Who, was cleared last week on charges that he posessed child pornography... but he was placed on the UK Sex Offenders Register for a period of five years...
Okay, I have tried to keep silent on this, but I decided that I needed to speak on it a little... I was going to talk about it after I heard he had been arrested back in January, but decided to bite my tongue and wait and see how it all went, first...
First off, I am relieved that the police cleared him of the charges. Townshend himself has agreed to be placed on the Sex Offenders Register for five years as a "caution" (and thus, have a DNA sample of himself put on record and all that lovely stuff). When I first heard of this, I was pretty outraged, but the fact that Townshend agreed to it made it a little easier to bear... maybe...
Those of you familiar with the music of the Who will remember the lead character from the album Tommy, a "deaf, dumb and blind boy," was sexually abused by an uncle ("Uncle Ernie") and physically abused by a cousin ("Cousin Kevin"). In fact, Townshend believes that he was abused physically and sexually while he was in the care of his mentally ill grandmother as a young child.
I had read somewhere early on in this all that when Mr. Townshend was doing his research for his autobiography, he had written a letter to the head of an organization that deals with child abuse, among other things, stating his intentions to access a website that dealt with child pornography... and then after his "arrest," the man who he had written the letter to said that it never existed and all this garbage...
So was this a "witch hunt?" Probably not. I would like to think that the police had what they thought was credible information regarding Mr. Townshend before they acted, and that they weren't "out to get" him, or anyone else for that matter. What it boils down to is that Mr. Townshend admitted only to using a credit card to access a site that contained images of chld pronography... and that he never downloaded nor posessed any of the images, despite what many media have portrayed...
Listening to: Strapping Young Lad - "SYL" (2003)
posted by TONY at 5/15/2003 05:31:00 PM
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