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November 14, 2003
Hodge bodge
No, it won't do. Margaret Hodge's apology to paedophile abuse victim Demetrious Panton, whom she labelled 'an extremely disturbed person', is not sufficient. The Prime Minister says he won't sack her because he judges people by the job they currently do, and he thinks she's doing an excellent job as Minister for Children. What an extraordinary capacity he has to make the unacceptable okay in his own mind. It was as Minister for Children that Ms Hodge issued her appalling smear (and tried to bully the BBC into silence). How can she possibly be doing a good job as Minister for Children when, faced with evidence of paedophile abuse, this is how she treats the victim? How can she possibly be suitable to be a minister at all since, by such behaviour, she has shown once again that she refuses to take responsibility for her own appalling failure in the past to protect the children in her council's care, and is just as arrogant and dismissive as she was then? How can anyone have any respect for her at all? How, indeed, can anyone have any respect for a Prime Minister who goes in for this kind of craven, problem-ducking sophistry? Posted by melanie at November 14, 2003
Comments
I'm rather baffled by this. Surely the whole moral basis of the charge against child abusers is indeed that their victims are 'deeply disturbed': as I heard one child victim campaigner put it, child abuse is 'psychic murder'. If Mr. Panton thinks being discribed as disturbed is libelous why should we consider the crime commited against him as any more serious than, say, suffering a broken leg? I have no axe to grind with people who seek redress for for horrific acts done to them, nor do I carry any torch for peadophiles, but perhaps someone can explain to me why an axiom of the current thinking on child abuse should be a matter for the libel courts. Posted by: Harry Powell at November 15, 2003 07:26 PM |
