Dumb questions about British sex chat doctor
 

First, read this article about a British doctor canned for chat room activities.

Second [optional] observe a moment of silence as you think back to the real Ms. Beckinsale's performance in the Branagh/Thompson film of Much Ado About Nothing.

Then kick some questions around:

• Who determined that the 26 people this guy chatted with were, indeed, "genuine teenage girls" as the article states? We're to believe that we've got 27 alleged teenage girls in a chat room and only one of them is really a middle-aged male horndog?
• Leaving that aside, I understand that there are exhibitionists in the world, but how many of the aforementioned female teenagers are going to swap lurid pictures (presumably of themselves, but it doesn't really say) with people in a chat room? Maybe I'm just irredeemably innocent.
• Since when can you get wifi access on British trains? Why don't we have this in the US?

Just wondering.

"indecent language about sex and underwear"

ooh. He said knickers, didn't he. How naughty.

WiFi on trains is actually far less interesting that the idea that they have a special sex patrol contstable on the train looking for bored men in chatrooms.

This isn't a British thing. Here in KC, they're actually chatting up guys online, posing as teenage girls, agreeing to meet them, then going to the meeting site and busting them, charging them being naughty with little girls...even though there was no actual little girl involved. Apparently, if you *think* there was, then it can be assumed that if an actual little girl might have shown up instead of a cop, you *would have* done naughty things to her, so you're busted.

I understand the *why*, but I'm still a little puzzled about the crime that is committed when you plan to meet a cop pretending to be a teenybopper for sex.

I guess the guys *are* getting screwed, in a sense, huh?

I have a big problem with this episode.

The core of my complaint is the "crime" is thought or speech. The crime is intention. And the intention is quite a few steps removed from the action. A clear and present danger I understand. Imminent threat, I understand. But stories like this, and many others like it stretch the limits of "crime prevention" too far. This is straight out of 1984 or Minority Report.

It is *almost* understandable, the drive to strive to prevent all crime. But the effort is wrong. There aren't enough objective measures to quantify intention to keep this right-hearted wrong-headed effort from going badly wrong.

Thought is not a crime, *even* if these attempts to prosecute it as such continue. Speech is not a crime. Desire is not a crime. Maybe some quality time in the confessional is in order, but prosecuting people for thoughts and words as crimes is frightening and wrong.

Edited last sentence for greater clarity.

I'm a little confused with what he was officially arrested for. The article only mentions that he was "looking at a picture of a teenage girl," and that ultimately there was not enough evidence to charge him with "grooming," whatever that is.

I would guess he was probably initially arrested under suspicion of child pornography, or public indecency (if other passengers can easily see your porn, it's illegal. Vehicles in America have been similarly charged when their in-car DVD players are visible to other cars on the road at night.)

The Doctor was posing as a 13 year old girl, so I assume he was contacting girls of a similar age. I know 13 is technically a teenager, but I thought it was worth clarifying.

He discussed masturbation, sex & orgasms with the girls and one email included a photo of himself lying on a bed wearing only a thong (presumably he didn't admit it was a picture of himself?)

He was arrested for grooming children - a specific offence aimed at adults who meet or arrange to meet children to engage in sexual activity. The offence therefore happens before physical contact is made. There was not enough evidence to convict him of this, but he has been served with a Risk of Sexual Harm Order for the next 5 years.