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Man Barred From Being Alone With Daughter After Informing Police of Porn On PC
First time accepted submitter robably writes "A man who informed police when he found child abuse images on his computer has not been allowed to be alone with his daughter for four months. Nigel Robinson from Hull said he called police after trying to download music but instead finding pornographic images on his laptop last November. As a result social services said he 'should not have unsupervised access with his own or other children.'"
That is all.
And I'll say it again. Never, ever, under any circumstances, contact the police unless your life is in danger and they are your only hope. NEVER
You will only end up much worse off than you were before you called them.
Never talk to the Pigs. There is never, and has never been any interaction with the police that will ever benefit you in any way.
Just goes to show no good deed goes unpunished.
The guy isn't under arrest. The ban on being alone with his daughter seems overly harsh but I can appreciate why.
So he is not under arrest, he has not been found guitly of a crime...but the state can prevent him from being alone with his own daughter? Let us spend some time thinking about how many things are wrong here.
The guy does have child pornography on his laptop; it's not like a reasonably likely cause of that isn't himself.
So he reported his own child pornography to the police?
There is a chance, I couldn't guess on odds, that the guy had looked at child pornography and was concerned his details may have gotten to the police.
So to make sure they have his details, he ran straight to them?
I think it is pretty reasonable for the police to want to make sure that isn't the case and I can see why they are concerned about him being left alone with a child in the meanwhile.
So why even bother with courts and trials? If the police suspect someone is guilty, we should immediately start procedures to protect everyone else from that dangerous person! Presumption of innocence? System of laws? Why bother?
Palm trees and 8
``Honey, what's this on your computer?''
`What's what? Oh! That!'
``How did it get there honey?''
`Uh, I don't know. It must have gotten downloaded when I was downloading music or something.'
``We should call the police.''
`Uh, yeah, we should do that.'
Logical Conclusion:
Arrest everybody for being a pedophile. Just in case. You can always establish your innocence later.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
The ban on being alone with his daughter seems overly harsh but I can appreciate why.
You're not a parent obviously. Not being able to be alone with my daughter would be devastating to me and my family. Not only is it unwarranted, unjust, and probably unconstitutional, it is also massively disruptive to the day to day workings of the modern family. This isn't the freakin 60s, I have an active and important role in my child's life; I get her out of bed in the morning, take her to day care, take off work when she's sick... etc etc. There is a chance that he looked up child porn, but this 'precaution' is being implemented on essentially zero evidence and without any due process.
Also, 4 months? They're worried about him spending 5 minutes alone with his own child and it's been 4 months without any decision as to whether he's a violent sexual predator or a good, (overly-)responsible parent. So which is it? Is he so dangerous he can't be trusted with his own flesh and blood or is he so innocuous that there's no need to actually, you know... investigate him?
the social services worker made a judgement call that there was a non-trivial chance that the porn came from the man himself.
I'm glad an underpaid bureaucrat can destroy my life and my hurt my family based on a "non-trivial chance", that's... that's just awesome.
Non sequitor.
One of the problems in the US and UK (and to some extent, Australia and Canada) is that they have privatized prisons, which has lead to BILLIONS of dollars in lobbying made to increase sentencing and decrease judicial and police discretion about "minor crimes".
Your faith in (and I may be putting words in your mouth here) "privatize everything" is misplaced. People in power, by their nature, are corruptable and seek to increase their power.
I am just as frightened by it being financial and business hegemons OR government untouchables. The difference is that in our system of government, we can remove those in power, we can demand (and even vote for) transparency in their actions and we can lawfully pursue justice where they fail to do it.
In business, many of those recourses are lost. I'm all for small business, but in an anarcho-libertarian society (the obvious extreme example of your position), global multinationals would become de-facto islands of government, just as they began to do in the 1880s, before the US federal government asserted the people's desire to put controls in place to regulate gross misuse of marketplace domination and monopoly. Things improved for almost all people (except the handful at the top of the business) when those businesses were regulated so they could no longer take gross advantage of the workers, the economy and the environment.
So I just caution you that your particular tollway, also, may be paved by your best intentions, but I assert it doesn't necessary avoid taking us to a the same destination any less directly.
Sounds pretty dumb if no-one had actually noticed that a getaway had ever taken place.
May the Maths Be with you!
Never EVER trust the police. Any police.
And above all, never EVER, talk in absolutes.
The problem is that retaining a lawyer can be expensive whereas reporting a crime to a police officer is relatively free.
The article doesn't make it clear whether he went to his computer to perform some task and then found pr0n or if he was performing some task and was then inundated with pr0n. If he was trying download music from an sketchy source (e.g. bobsultrasuperlegalandfreemp3s.com) verses amazon.com or itunes, he was probably out to pirate music and those sites are usually filled with viruses. Did he deserve to get pwned? No, but that's besides the point.
It's disparaging that a man who hasn't even been charged is basically being treated like a criminal. I guess when it comes to kids, it's guilty until proven innocent to everyone's satisfaction.
We don't live in Shouldland.
Social Services isn't bound by 'innocent until proven guilty'. Their mandate is, 'Protect the child at all costs', even if those costs emotionally scar the child worse than any unfounded allegations. You & your other half get ticketted for a joint? Pull the kids til Social Services determines the parents aren't stark raving crack addicts running a meth lab in the basement and take part in a 12 Step program for awhile to keep them off drugs. Get seen spanking your kid? Pull the kids til the parents get cleared of child abuse charges and go to anger management counselling.
Kids get injured at foster care, or abused at foster care, or even molested at foster care? Too bad. No apology, no recourse, and Social Services is still waiting for the parents to clear themselves of the allegations. They're 'thinking of the children' so anything they do is a-ok.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
It does not matter if you are later cleared, acquitted, exonerated or whatever your local legal system calls it.
If you are cleared, there will always be those who think that you are some sort of pervert who "got off".
Also, if you are convicted just because there was porn on your computer, there will be (hopefully) be some people who will recognize the miscarraige of justice..
Once accused -- guilty or not -- your live is forever changed. I will likely cost you your retirement savings to pay to a lawyer to mitigate the damage.
Therefore, do not be your own accuser.
If you find anything incriminating on your computer, delete it irretrievably -- if you don't know how, find out.
Then ever afterwards, stfu.
Then the cops are doing the wrong job. The CORRECT job description for a cop is to ensure that society (and, by extension, the individuals within it) suffer least harm on aggregate. Clearly, it is impossible to follow a least-harm doctrine if a cop is only trying to maximize their "clean-up" rate by arresting the innocent and allowing the guilty to go free.
ANY police force, doesn't matter where, doesn't matter when, that follows a doctrine of "look good" rather than "DO good" is a police force society is better off without. The problem is never with authority or government, the problem is with ILLUSION of authority and ILLUSION of government. The failure to tell reality from illusion is why corruption exists at all.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)