Groping versus sexual predators.

[i-need-a-martini]

Let me preface this post by saying that I thnk anyone that has sex with a child is evil and I do not support anyone who is this way inclined. 

However, as I read the Rolf Harris trial it seems to me that the now grown women he was handy with are taking this to the extreme. He doesn't seem to have done anything beyond being very handy. The only sex he had was with a girl who was in her 2os at the time and there is no crime against that. Yet the news report women standing in the dock sobbing and being emotional or describing their lives wasted by depression, drug and alc addiction all because Harris groped them once. In one case something happened when one of the girls was 5 so not even at an age to fully appreciate that a touch could be sexual.

I don't get it where these women are coming from. How can they be so vulnerable and have fallen apart so readily at something like this?

I come from a big Italian family so I am used to 'handiness'. As kids we learnt to duck certain relatives but it never occurred to me then (and nor does it now) that it was anything other than annoyance.

(I should also point out that I haven't read every article in the Harris case so if there is more to it that I am not seeing, let me know).

[grapes_collector]

When I was 18 I was 'tickled' at waist level by my driving instructor. (From a well known driving school at the time in South Aust) I wonder if this would be classed as abuse by today's standards?

[azureline**]

probably

[i-need-a-martini]

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@grapes_collector wrote:

When I was 18 I was 'tickled' at waist level by my driving instructor. (From a well known driving school at the time in South Aust) I wonder if this would be classed as abuse by today's standards?

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Yes I suspect it would.

In much the same way that much was made of Harris's remarks to a 13 yo that she "looked good in a bikini' and "had a great body". This was brought up as evidence in his abuse case.

[azureline**]

 Rolf Harris has been accused of deliberately lying to the jury after the emergence of new evidence at his trial in London on charges of indecent assault.

The jury was played a video on Monday, which had surfaced since the trial began, of Harris taking part as a team captain in a celebrity show, Star Games, in Cambridge in 1978.

One of the complainants in the case alleges Harris assaulted her in the city in the 1970s at a celebrity event, but the defendant previously told the court he first visited Cambridge only about four years ago

[polksaladallie]

I listen to Barbara Miller's report (on the trial) each morning, and his reply to being accused of lying (as was his daughter) was that he just signs a contract and went in a bus and didn't always know which town he was in.   Hilarious.  He was a far cry from a celebrity who had whirlwind tours a la Elvis, Beatles etc.

[the_great_she_elephant]

I guess it isoften  hard to fathom victim's behaviour unless you have been in a similr situation.

I was sexually abused by a dirty old man on a train when I was 12 - just a year younger than Rolf Harris's accuser. I was travelling to Londonon my own   to spend a holiday with my grandparents and he followed me into the toilet. He didn't actually rape me, but he pulled my   pants down and started feeling me and petting me and saying I was 'a dear little girl' and 'a sweet little girl.' and it went on for quite some time.

I had no idea how to handle it. I was a jumbled mess of horror and confusion. I was sure this wasn't supposed to happen, but he was a grown-up, and grown-ups just didn't do terrible things. Never, ever underestimate the naivete of a 12 year old girl. I  was so confused I couldn't sort out whether what he was doing was bad or whether  I was just misreading the situation.I even thought of pulling the communication cord, but I was afraid I'd get into trouble.

Afterwards he took me to the buffet car and bought me an icecream. He asked me where I was going and I told him to stay with my grandparents. He didn't ask what their name was or where they lived, but he said: "'Oh, I know your granny, I'll probably come and visit you while you're there," And I believed him!  I spent the whole week at my grandparents' house in a state of abject terror in case he showed up on the doorstep. . He got off the train before we reached London and the most terrifying thing is, if he had asked me to go with him,  pretending my grandmother's permission as an excuse, I would probably have done so.

I never told my grandparents about it and it was years before I told my mother. I think it probably has impacted on my adult life, but not to the extent of leaving me traumatised. Remember however, I never had to see this man again and after a few months I sorted it all out, realised he had been lying and that he was a monster.. If he really had known my grandmother, though,; if he really had turned up on the doorstep and carried on the "relationship" God knows what it would have done to me. So, yes, I can absolutely understand why that poor girl in the Rolf Harris case said nothing, and why she went on to have an "affair" with her abuser.

[azureline**]

As a small child (under 10) I had a cousin (I have since learned he was an abuser of other cousins) who asked me to play mummies and daddies with him.

As an overly protected child, I asked my mother if I was allowed to.

I never saw that cousin in our home again but the subject was never discussed and I have no idea what my mother did with the info..

[cherry*135]

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@azureline** wrote:

 Rolf Harris has been accused of deliberately lying to the jury after the emergence of new evidence at his trial in London on charges of indecent assault.

The jury was played a video on Monday, which had surfaced since the trial began, of Harris taking part as a team captain in a celebrity show, Star Games, in Cambridge in 1978.

One of the complainants in the case alleges Harris assaulted her in the city in the 1970s at a celebrity event, but the defendant previously told the court he first visited Cambridge only about four years ago

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The complainant said the incidience occured in 1975.  Wouldn't one remember if they were, for example, 6, 7 or 8 when the incident occured?

[azureline**]

Maybe...... I have memories from age 2.

[freakiness]

I think it would be very difficult to pin point the exact time.