extremely cruel

First prison sentence for extreme porn (Register, 29th September 2009)

"Nothing will be gained by sending you into custody, because you wouldn’t survive because you would be vulnerable. Support and assistance is needed."

Does the judge perchance admit that jail is a nasty place where strong men rape not-so-strong men? If so, this means that the first individual mentioned in the article has been sent to jail for six months for possessing images of a horse being sexually abused, so that he in turn may be abused. But whereas the horse may not even have noticed, he will, every time he reaches down for the soap, for six long months.

I thought the Hammurabi code (ca. 1790 BC) had put an end to such disproportional punishment.

Childcare help 'could be illegal'

Childcare help 'could be illegal' (BBC News, Sunday, 27 September 2009)

The warning comes after Ofsted told two policewomen to end an arrangement to care for each other's children.

This must be the first country in the world that doesn't even trust policewomen to care for children without abusing them.

According to the newspaper, the Thames Valley officer is believed to have been reported by a neighbour.

Thank you, New Labour, for having turned this country into a hysterical hell hole, dominated by fear, distrust and snitching. It may take a generation or more to undo the damage you maniacs have done to this society.

Teacher jailed for sex with pupil

Teacher jailed for sex with pupil (BBC News, Monday, 21 September 2009)

It is highly unethical for a teacher to continue teaching someone or to be in any way involved in their grading, after they have started a relationship. The teacher ought to have been disciplined for this, and possibly dismissed.

There is no mention however of paedophilia in the clinical sense being a factor here, nor that the relationship was very different from a normal romance between two young people, one somewhat younger than the other. The state then has no business interfering in one of the few things that make life worth living, and the long jail sentence cannot reasonably be seen as anything other than a perverse application of a crude law.

An impact statement from the girl's parents said the teacher went "out of her way" to befriend them and their "vulnerable" daughter.

Note that "impact statement" includes considerations about the parents. Often in such cases, parents choose to see themselves as victims. Their hurt pride means more to them than the best interests of their children.

"It is, of course, against the law to engage in sexual activity with a person under 16, even with her consent."

As a rule, statements of judges are full of self-righteous moralising bullshit, suggesting they have the private phone number of God™, whom they consult to distinguish right and wrong. In this case however, there is no mention of "wrong", but just of "against the law". This country has sunk so low that we don't even pretend any more that the law is a reflection of any kind of natural justice.

If the law is out of synch with reality, then reality will have to adapt to the law. This harsh sentencing will miraculously alter the genes of Britons, and from now on, no one will fall in love with anyone on the opposite side of the 16th birthday.

The judge added: "The relationship involved a fair degree of deception not only in respect of the school but also to the girl's parents."

How strange that lovers would try to keep such a relationship secret, when bringing it in the open would only get one of the two in jail for a long time.

The school was made aware of the affair through an anonymous e-mail tip-off, the court heard.

Nice to have such friends and colleagues. I wonder how they can bear the guilt for the rest of their lives.

The judge, who was told the girl and the teacher were genuinely in love, did not uphold the prosecution's request for a sexual offences prevention order as it would be "draconian and unnecessarily cruel" to the girl as well.

How kind of the judge to consider the girl's interests. No doubt she will be delighted that she can see her lover in jail for the next 15 months.

The original BBC News article also included the following (which has since been edited out, but it is still found in the Guardian article, which seems to have been derived from it):

Officers raided the teacher's maisonette in Greenwich, south-east London, and arrested the 26-year-old. They seized sex toys from the house.

What do these "sex toys" prove, other than that BBC News journalists are pathetic little weasels who are all too eager to harm people's privacy far beyond the call of duty?

See also:

Blurred boundaries for teachers (Guardian, Wednesday 23 September 2009)

Some of the comments are noteworthy. Whereas Guardian readers tend to be open-minded and critical of the nanny state, as soon as sex is involved even they turn into hysterical bigotted monsters, calling for even harsher penalties for "pervs".

What is it with Britons and sex?

Policewoman who worked as a prostitute is jailed

Policewoman who worked as a prostitute is jailed (Guardian, Thursday 10 September 2009)

Policemen who shot an innocent commuter in the head (seven times, with hollow-point bullets) never spent one minute in jail. The policeman who found pleasure in clubbing an innocent passerby to death at the G20 will most likely never receive a jail sentence either. But making love (with remuneration) apparently shakes the very foundations of this society and so warrants the harshest punishments.

The convicted woman might have served society well as a police officer who, for a change, was not clubbing innocent people to death or shooting them in the head (seven times, with hollow-point bullets), regardless of whether she was moonlighting as a private math tutor or as anything else. Instead, her life has been devastated and she has been turned into a burden on society, at least for the next 15 months, when we will all be paying room and board for her.

Update (2009-10-21)

I'm still puzzled why the establishment came down so hard on this woman. Was it perhaps because her very existence was an embarrassment to Jacqui Smith's claim that all prostitutes are helpless women who are forced into it by ruthless pimps?

For more ideology-driven 'fact' finding, and New Labour creating statistics to suit its purpose, in concert with a police force that is out of control, see:

Inquiry fails to find single trafficker who forced anybody into prostitution (Guardian, Tuesday 20 October 2009)

PM apology after Turing petition

PM apology after Turing petition (BBC News, Friday, 11 September 2009)

The intelligentsia in Turing's time were deploring eras when women didn't have the right to vote and were otherwise oppressed. But in the 1950s it was not fashionable to defend the rights of gays. Alan Turing was a genius and his contributions to code-breaking were vital to the war effort. But after the war he was simply a perv, and standing up for that sort of people was not salonfähig.

Today, complacent intellectuals condemn persecution of gays (or to be exact, persecution of one famous gay man) in the 1950s. How courageous to criticise law makers most of whom have been dead for decades! Will the same intellectuals stand up for the rights of consenting adults in the BDSM community who are persecuted by today's government for enjoying non-vanilla sexual activities and images thereof? Defending pervs? No way!