Hmmmm

Well, I guess I didn't get very far with this, did I? Suffice to say last year was pretty crap one way and another.

I read another Blog today, by Lonewolf51, in which he said that the law is an ass. Or possibly that it was an a*se, which I think is what he meant. (Go read it, there's certainly food for thought there!)

He's not completely wrong; in fact in the case he talks about, he's completely right. But sometimes the law gets it right, and sometimes the law gets it right but can't do much about it.

The guy that abused the trust we placed in him as a family friend, Anthony Kirwan (also known as Tony) - the guy who snuck into my 12 year old daughter's room when we were all asleep and took photos of her naked and asleep and then made some of them into wallpaper for his computer and possibly shared them with the other perverts and paedophiles on the internet that he regularly talked to in chatrooms and via IM - well, he got sent to prison OK. He got sent to prison for having numerous disgusting images and videos of child pornography on his computer, the absolute least of which apparently was the photos he took of our daughter. The videos they described in court - dear god, if one of those had been of my daughter I don't think he would have lived to appear in court. The judge said they were among some of the worst he had ever had to sit through. Anyway, he got sentenced to two and a half years for ALL of his offences. Needless to say the defence played up what a sad childhood he'd had yadda yadda yadda and the prosecution - HAH! the prosecution nearly dropped the ball altogether. Makes you wonder what we pay the taxes for, if they can nearly screw up an open and shut case when the bloody defendent has actually pleaded guilty for lord's sake!

ANYHOW he got sent to prison, as I said, for two and a half years.

BUT

He is to serve only 15 months of that time.

He's part of the way through his sentence now. By my calculations he'll be out in November this year.

Where's the justice? I have to live with the images of those pictures in my mind the rest of my life (I had to go to the police station and identify every last one of them). My duaghter has to live with knowing that asshole was in her ROOM taking PICTURES. We ALL have to live with the fact that he stayed in our home, at our invitation. And EVEN THOUGH we didn't know, had no idea, not a clue, what he was like we still have to live with the guilt that even having him cross the threshold never mind letting him sleep here EVER, brings to all of us.

Yet he will be out and about amongst other people, other kids, in November.

The only good thing about it is that in this case, policing WORKED.

You know how he got caught?

He complained about his neighbours throwing stones at his house.

It turned out they threw stones at his house because he lured neighbourhood kids to his house, where he had toys and kids videos. Small kids stuff, older kids stuff. Bear in mind this was an unmarried, unattached guy in his 30s with no kids of his own (though scarily enough the police, when they did get a warrant and searched the house, found an application in process to ADOPT a child) who had Barbie dolls and stuff all there. AND a video camera set up in the bedroom and small kids underpants he had stolen from a washing line there too.

So anyway, the police came round to see what was going on, saw all this stuff and were highly suspicious. They seized his computer and sent it off for forensic examination, where they found all the above-mentioned pictures and videos stored. Apparently he'd tried to delete them but hadn't succeeded in getting rid of them completely. (Garry Glitter, anyone?)

So when charged, he denied all knowledge of how they'd got onto his computer. (I guess the bad computer fairy must have put them there.)

Which just goes to show that someone, somewhere, has a sense of humour I guess. Because the slimeball got caught, bang to rights, and eventually was persuaded by his lawyers to plead guilty because he didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting off with all the evidence there was against him. Including my statement.

BUT my point is, with all that, he still only got a two and a half year sentence. Of which he only has to serve 15 months. After that, he's out. He still has to keep away from all kids under the age of 18 years but honestly - how are they going to police that?

Anyway, that's why last year was a crappy year for us.

Now I've got that off my chest, I hope that my next post will be more positive.