Great Britain is currently in the throes of hysteria over pedophiles, as they seem to see them under every bed. This is a subject I have written about before.
An incredibly clever and sick individual has tried to use this to his advantage. A man obsessed with a coworker tried to frame her husband for child pr0n. He did this by repeatedly breaking into the victim’s house while the family was asleep, copying the family computer on a portable hard drive, and then going back to his own home to prepare and insert the doctored evidence.
What doctored evidence is that? It seems that he also broke in to the family’s house while they were away so he could take photos of the place. He probably Photoshopped some pics of kids being abused into the images of the home.
Months later he broke in again to steal the family’s hard drive from their computer, which he mailed to the police. Lucky thing suspicion fell upon the perp, and that he wasn’t half so clever in covering his own tracks. When the police investigated the criminal, they easily found all the evidence needed for the scheme to be revealed.
There are many elements of this story that I find shocking in the extreme.
Please note how the accused husband suffered greatly simply through the accusation. Considering the witch hunt culture in Great Britain today concerning pedophiles, I doubt he will ever be able to resume a completely normal life. Although the names of the victims have been withheld, I will bet real money that the local news agencies reported the name of the husband when he was arrested after the police received the doctored hard drive.
Although I can’t speak about the law in Great Britain, the criminal repeatedly performed crimes that would be considered to be extremely serious here in the United States. If charged in an American court there would be fraud, possession of child pr0n, felony theft, burglary, and multiple counts of breaking and entering. Even giving a false report to the police is considered a felony over here, with a very serious punishment. Considering his misdeeds I would say that he’d be looking at a few decades behind bars at least.
And yet, even after all that, the perp received a sentence of a mere four and a half years! Doesn’t seem like enough to me.
Lastly, speaking as a professional, I was appalled at the state of home security the victim maintained. What, this guy would just waltz into the house whenever he felt like it? Seems so. What were their locks made out of, silly string and wishful thinking?
They need to get a dog in the worst way.
(Hat tip to Glenn. If he wasn’t around, we all would be less informed.)
UPDATE
It occurred to me after posting the essay above that the criminal in this case sounded an awful lot like a Dr. Evil-type of supervillain. He has an elaborate scheme to destroy someone’s life, he goes about it with skill and fearless daring, only to be found out through gross incompetence.
When will they ever learn that complicated death traps are never the way to go?
It’s All For The Children so that makes it OK.
That the children will one day grow up to be adults in a society which automatically considers them suspicious and denies them a normal life is irrelevant.
They must have paper mache walls.
If I were a guy and someone did that to me I will tell you one thing – the worst part of that guys 4.5 year sentence would be the day he got out and the beatdown commenced.
There have been several cases of homeowners being prosecuted for defending their homes so maybe there is a sentiment to let the police do it. I know that someone would break into my house 1/2 time if I was home. I have three dogs and a 9 mm automatic in the bedside table. We don’t even lock our doors.
This is certainly an intricate plot. We had an obsessive peeping tom here in California about 20 years ago. He would watch couples having sex, then break in and rape the woman and kill the man or both of them. He did that for years and has never been caught.
I’ve been wondering how long it would be before someone got caught for a attempting such a plot. Anyone on whom child porn has been planted will have a bit of a hard time trying to show that it wasn’t them who put it there. This does, of course, also offer a good way for corrupt officials to fit people up.
Anyone on whom child porn has been planted will have a bit of a hard time trying to show that it wasn’t them who put it there.
Permit your ISP to release your surfing history.
Why was he given only 4.5 years?
I was just at a lecture given by an academic specialist in Justice/Corrections (from Ohio), on tendencies and perspectives in – yes- corrections’ policy.
He showed us a chart where US leads in amount of incarcerations with a huge spike for the last decade; second as bad is Cuba, and Europe & UK are somewhere at the bottom. So that was interpreted as huge victory for the Justice and Law Enforcement in Europe and UK, vs. barbarian “cruel punishment” us. Reporting -that is what’s important for them; the amount of actual crime, or injustice, or endangering peace of society -it’s all side considerations. Important thing is to show a low population in jails.
Except my ISP doesn’t have my surfing history. What, are you still on AOL or something?