Russel Brand seems to have an situation

[AuroraSaab]

It's not an excuse for his behaviour but you can see where his sense of entitlement came from and why Brand snr. consequently thinks his offspring is a victim. No responsibility taken whatsoever.

 

[Beebo]

Met police have confirmed that have had no approach from anyone with regards to Walliams.

 

[dutchguylivingintheuk]

It's not an excuse for his behaviour but you can see where his sense of entitlement came from and why Brand snr. consequently thinks his offspring is a victim. No responsibility taken whatsoever.

Completely stuck in me myself and I land, indeed disgusting.

 

[Psamathe]

Met police have confirmed that have had no approach from anyone with regards to Walliams.

It's something that concerns me a bit. Without defending anything he may or may not have done, my concern comes that I can't see how he can defend himself. He's been found guilty in the public perception without having had the opportunity to present any evidence, no scrutiny on the accusations and no real way for him to defend against the accusations. Bland statements through lawyers just encourage the public to find him guilty. Others in the media abandoning him just reinforce the widespread public "guilty" view eg Jonathan Ross running as fast as he can to cover his own arse just further confirm the "Walliams guilty" perception.

nb I can't defend him as I have no information to form a view but I do regard him as a twat, never found anything he did even amusing so only ever saw brief excerpts.

 

[briantrumpet]

It's something that concerns me a bit. Without defending anything he may or may not have done, my concern comes that I can't see how he can defend himself. He's been found guilty in the public perception without having had the opportunity to present any evidence, no scrutiny on the accusations and no real way for him to defend against the accusations. Bland statements through lawyers just encourage the public to find him guilty. Others in the media abandoning him just reinforce the widespread public "guilty" view eg Jonathan Ross running as fast as he can to cover his own arse just further confirm the "Walliams guilty" perception.

nb I can't defend him as I have no information to form a view but I do regard him as a twat, never found anything he did even amusing so only ever saw brief excerpts.

There's a whole pile of tricky questions. As Lucy Beaumont points out in the interview below, even if he didn't have sex with U16's, had he been a teacher, in a recognised position of trust, his targeting of girls of 16 & 17 would have been illegal. I can see exactly where Beaumont is coming from, as an ex-teacher: as a teacher, one's responsibility to pass on rumours or disclosures is absolute within a school setting, but there's nothing equivalent in TV, despite live theatre also being heavily regulated when children are involved (as it's recognised as being a risky environment for abuse).

The fact that Walliams was cajoling victims into signing NDAs doesn't make his actions illegal, but the fact that he was using them implies that he knew they would be highly damaging to his reputation.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiuOCjS62JI

 

[Psamathe]

There's a whole pile of tricky questions. As Lucy Beaumont points out in the interview below, even if he didn't have sex with U16's, had he been a teacher, in a recognised position of trust, his targeting of girls of 16 & 17 would have been illegal. I can see exactly where Beaumont is coming from, as an ex-teacher: as a teacher, one's responsibility to pass on rumours or disclosures is absolute within a school setting, but there's nothing equivalent in TV, despite live theatre also being heavily regulated when children are involved (as it's recognised as being a risky environment for abuse).

The fact that Walliams was cajoling victims into signing NDAs doesn't make his actions illegal, but the fact that he was using them implies that he knew they would be highly damaging to his reputation.

(Sorry, haven't watched the video).
I'm certainly not trying to defend Walliams, my comments come from a general fairness concerns. Brand spent a lot of his time on-air boasting about his behaviour and then had his time in court where evidence could be scrutinised, defence case argued, etc.

It gets difficult when "... had he been a teacher, in a recognised position of trust, his targeting ..." my (limited) understanding is he wasn't a teacher so "had he been " is presumably more a case for broader regulation that specific to Walliams.

To me there are aspects specific to Walliams (which my uneasiness about him having no real means for defence) but also broader aspects to laws and obligations. I worry about too much focus on specific sectors like arguing TV/media should be doing x, y or z as I suspect the same issues apply to virtually everywhere across our society eg in IT sector where you always have more powerful individuals and junior less experienced people who want their careers to progress, politics, sport, etc., etc. Just 'cos the issues have been raised when 2 cases from the same sector make headlines does not mean the issues are limited to that sector.

 

[Psamathe]

The fact that Walliams was cajoling victims into signing NDAs doesn't make his actions illegal, but the fact that he was using them implies that he knew they would be highly damaging to his reputation.

I agree. I think politicians need to be changing the laws about NDA, injunctions and super-injunctions. I'm no lawyer but I suspect it can't be too hard for legal specialists to come up with sensible constraints excluding them being applied to limits specific areas and blocking specific actions.

 

[briantrumpet]

(Sorry, haven't watched the video).
I'm certainly not trying to defend Walliams, my comments come from a general fairness concerns. Brand spent a lot of his time on-air boasting about his behaviour and then had his time in court where evidence could be scrutinised, defence case argued, etc.

It gets difficult when "... had he been a teacher, in a recognised position of trust, his targeting ..." my (limited) understanding is he wasn't a teacher so "had he been " is presumably more a case for broader regulation that specific to Walliams.

To me there are aspects specific to Walliams (which my uneasiness about him having no real means for defence) but also broader aspects to laws and obligations. I worry about too much focus on specific sectors like arguing TV/media should be doing x, y or z as I suspect the same issues apply to virtually everywhere across our society eg in IT sector where you always have more powerful individuals and junior less experienced people who want their careers to progress, politics, sport, etc., etc. Just 'cos the issues have been raised when 2 cases from the same sector make headlines does not mean the issues are limited to that sector.

Beaumont's observations (and one of the reasons she 'whistleblew') is that there's no real way of passing on concerns within the 'entertainment industry', unlike the very structured (mandated) one in education... in particular, no HR for the 'stars', no statutory industry body, etc. A lot of the educational safeguarding stuff is about spotting potential patterns of behaviour from isolated concerns, but it is also there to protect alleged abusers as well as those abused. Like all regulatory frameworks, it develops when things slip through, or abusive practices that had not been considered are exploited.

tl;dr The entertainment industry does seem to be somewhat of an outlier as far as accountability goes. The question of grooming of and sex with 16 & 17-y-o's is never going to be an easy one to square, as somewhere there has to be a regulatory point at which it changes from "ew!" to "that's illegal". It *is* illegal in the education sector, but not elsewhere, which blurs clarity.

 

[C R]

I agree. I think politicians need to be changing the laws about NDA, injunctions and super-injunctions. I'm no lawyer but I suspect it can't be too hard for legal specialists to come up with sensible constraints excluding them being applied to limits specific areas and blocking specific actions.

I think the use of abusive NDAs should be dealt with via professional sanctions to the firms involved in drafting them. Maybe sanctions on all the senior partners rather than the juniors involved in the drafting, pour encourager les autres.

 

[briantrumpet]

Written by now-journalist Marie le Conte a couple of years ago. It's obviously complicated in all sorts of ways.

 

[Psamathe]

Beaumont's observations (and one of the reasons she 'whistleblew') is that there's no real way of passing on concerns within the 'entertainment industry', unlike the very structured (mandated) one in education... in particular, no HR for the 'stars', no statutory industry body, etc. A lot of the educational safeguarding stuff is about spotting potential patterns of behaviour from isolated concerns, but it is also there to protect alleged abusers as well as those abused

I have no experience of the education sector but most companies I've worked for (even some 100+ employee ones) had no HR department (for anybody. One biomedical company I worked for there were a lot of comments/widespread knowledge of events when a junior lab technician started sleeping with a (married) company director (again 100+ employees), though the issue wasn't his being married.

I'm not suggesting there should not be controls, maybe a suspicion that society is only discussing those controls in relation to one sector following 2 headline cases and maybe it is a more widespread issue.

 

[matticus]

I wonder how long this will stay live: https://www.queen-eleanors.surrey.sch.uk/assets/Documents/Attachments/David-Walliams-Chilli-1.pdf

 

[briantrumpet]

I have no experience of the education sector but most companies I've worked for (even some 100+ employee ones) had no HR department (for anybody. One biomedical company I worked for there were a lot of comments/widespread knowledge of events when a junior lab technician started sleeping with a (married) company director (again 100+ employees), though the issue wasn't his being married.

I'm not suggesting there should not be controls, maybe a suspicion that society is only discussing those controls in relation to one sector following 2 headline cases and maybe it is a more widespread issue.

Regulation is never going to definitely solve the complicated area illustrated by the le Conte experience quoted above, but it's not unreasonable to ask the question of whether the likelihood of Savile/Brand (wholly illegal) and Walliams ('ew!' but not currently illegal as far as we know yet) can be reduced by looking at whether elements of educational safeguarding could helpfully be adopted more widely.

 

[briantrumpet]

This is worth a few minutes of your time, not least for the anagram of 'super injunction' as 'junior penis cunt'.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q_T-fvMBS4&feature=youtu.be

 

[Psamathe]

Regulation is never going to definitely solve the complicated area illustrated by the le Conte experience quoted above, but it's not unreasonable to ask the question of whether the likelihood of Savile/Brand (wholly illegal) and Walliams ('ew!' but not currently illegal as far as we know yet) can be reduced by looking at whether elements of educational safeguarding could helpfully be adopted more widely.

I wonder if it becomes a difficult balance in terms of how broad. Try and make something too broad and you also launch into endless consultations in effect kicking anything into the long grass and never change anything. But keep considerations too narrow and it's no more than a knee-jerk reaction to 2 headline issues.

Whilst regulation might not solve the issues maybe it helps send a message to society about what is and isn't acceptable. That's not going to stop anything but might reduce the number of cases.

To achieve any regulation or adherence to standards/procedures would likely require action by politicians eg in the TV/media sector to make it a requirement for licensing to join the appropriate standards body with independent mechanisms. But listening to Ms Nandy the other day (responding to these 2 cases) that isn't even a consideration.

I do feel somewhat out of my depth as never having had children and my only experience from having been a child I have no experience of the judgement and capabilities of youngsters these days. I strongly suspect it's very different from back when I was a teenager when we had a massive amount of independence and were making major decisions without parental or adult" input or control.

I really started posting on this subject regarding my concerns about how often those accused of inappropriate behaviour can suffer massive impacts with no opportunity to defend themselves or question the evidence.