uk.people.disability

On Mon, 10 Sep 2007 14:20:22 -0700, joe-public1@ wrote:

>We didn't see any evidence that the prosecution was wrong about what
>was in the newsgroups your computer had visited

You did indeed hear evidence that they were wrong about pornographic
images of children existing on those groups - you have mentioned it.
And the prosecution did not produce any evidence whatsoever to back up
their claims, nor did they challenge Mr, Bates's testimony. It should
therefore have been obvious that Mr. Bates was correct and the
prosecution was wrong on that point.

Surely it would be more reasonable of you to have demanded that the
prosecution show images of child pornography that they found - or at
the very least state why they made the allegation? (I think it was a
pure guess on their part based upon the emotive name).

In any case, any soul brave enough wanting to know the truth could
look at those groups right now (they still exist - I checked after you
mentioned the names) and find out for certain what they contain. I
find it ridiculous that the law is such that they could get sent to
prison for doing so.

It's really a moot point, because obviously I had no idea what I would
find when I looked - indeed that was the whole purpose of looking, so
it really doesn't matter what the groups actually contained, it
doesn't affect my motive at all.

> - what we heard was
>that Jim Bates had downloaded over 50 pictures of naked children from
>a newsgroup called that your computer had
>also gone to - and he did not see a problem with that

I do not see any problem with naked children per se. I have lived in
places where you were frequently surrounded by them, and I'm
completely indifferent. Sorry if you find a naked child to be
indecent. Perhaps you prefer to see them wearing hoodies?

> - he did not
>show us the pictures and we could not understand why he or you would
>have any legitimate desire to download naked pictures of other peoples
>children from the Internet.

Then you don't understand much. I took a brief look twice, (a couple
of days apart) *several years before the trial* because the groups had
been mentioned specifically in a media article at a time when such
things were not widely known about, and I was curious to see whether
the article was correct. I did not even give any thought to the fact
that doing so would be considered illegal - bear in mind the date,
long before prosecutions of such things made the news (if there had
even been any at that time). Mr Bates looked pre-trial as part of his
*job* as a defence expert to see whether the prosecution allegation
had any substance (which, as he found, it did not).

At least this exchange is giving me a darn good insight as to why I
was convicted on evidence that I consider grossly insufficient to
prove intent, even on balance of probability, for an image that I do
not consider to be at all indecent.

--
Cynic