Do you think Jacko was guilty.....

[Goose]

^ As said, we really don't know all the facts so it's impossible to judge. All we can do is deliver Daily Mail-esk assumptions, which I'd rather people not do.

[Admiral Huddy]

Originally Posted by Jonny69

I just think it's all a bit too far fetched. Voted no.

nothing is too far fetched

[iCraig]

I'd say no, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be gobsmacked if it turned out to be true after all. He was without a doubt an extremely troubled man with deep rooted issues. Whether those issues were paedophillia or not is extremely subjective. Remember, he could have been a paedophile without ever actually acting on his urges. I think he had an unhealthy interest in children and maybe that's as far as it went. He enjoyed their company but never crossed the line. Enjoyed watching Disney with them and being close to them and their antics, but nothing sexual or perverse? Weird but also technically harmless, if you know what I mean? That's the way I saw it anyway.

One thing I must respect though is that he was trialled and was aquitted. He went through the legal system and was found to be not guilty. Now, innocent until proven guilty is one thing, but what about innocent until trialled and proven non-guilty and then treated guilty still? Very unfair to label him a paedophile.

As for as the out of court settlements, again, it's sometimes an admission of guilt and looks like money to shut them up. Or at the same time it can be *knowing* he's innocent and *knowing* these people are out to bleed him dry. Why not do damage limitation and pay off the money grabbers with enough to pacify them, but nothing compared to the potential damages he could face if the jury were pursuaded that he was guilty.

[Belmit]

Originally Posted by iCraig

Weird but also technically harmless, if you know what I mean?

This is why I don't buy the 'would you let him look after your kids?' proposition, which I've heard from a number of people.

No, I wouldn't. Not because he might have done something illegal, but more that his actions would be inappropriate. There's a big distinction, and the 'line' isn't necessarily governed by what is or isn't legal.

[Kitten]

Originally Posted by Admiral Huddy

nothing is too far fetched

plenty of people have been accused of things that they aren't guilty of. Some on this forum in fact - however they have the luxury of it happening in private, and to not be labelled because of it.

[Lopez]

Originally Posted by Muban

Stuff

Muban has basically summed it up for me. Misguided, strange, eccentric? Yes.
Raving paedophile sexual predator? No.

Originally Posted by Pebs

Or they can take $20m dollars. I'd be thinking very very carefully, seriously. There's all kinds of justice, not just the legal kind.

MB and me both said we'd let MJ bum our non-existant kids for $20m and Aitch wasn't very impressed
Okay we didn't mean it exactly like that but you know what I'm on about

[A Place of Light]

Originally Posted by Admiral Huddy

Yep - no smoke without fire.

And any chemist will tell you, you can easily have smoke without fire.
Settling out of court could be used to backup either side of the argument.

Say he was guilty.
He'd obviously know he was guilty and therefore there's a higher chance he'd be convicted. It'd be good business sense to settle outside of court IMHO. If convicted then even his most loyal fans would be hard pressed not to accept his guilt. His career dies and the money drains away. Settle and his fans will all refute all accusations of his guilt and of course he's assured of avoiding jail.

Now say he's innocent.
He also knows that even the innocent can have a bad day in court. The innocent often are wrongly convicted and given this pressure you can understand the mentality of "just make it go away" that's been suggested. It's the reply of a child, and Jacko was certainly less than mature.

Few people actually know what happened, but my gut feeling is that he wasn't guilty.

[A Place of Light]

The other thing that needs to be taken into consideration, is the whole bed sharing issue. Here's a man who not only admitted on prime time TV that he often shares a bed with children, but is quite shocked that anyone else has a problem with this. Now if I were abusing children I wouldn't admit any part of the process at all, because if I admit to being in their beds it weakens my defence relating to abusing them.
"everything they've said is complete fabrication" is a much stronger position than "yeah of course I slept in their beds, but I didn't touch them".

[Kitten]

what's normal to you is normal to you. That's why so mAny victims of abuse don't even realise they've been abused until someone who knows it is points it out to them..and even then still often don't believe it.

Huddy, I don't mean to offend you now but I probably will with what I'm about to say. I've long believed that 'no smoke without fire' is an incredibly stupid belief to have - not in relation to this case but in general. Lets say you go out, cop off, take a girl home who then wishes she hadn't spent the night because she's married. So she tells the police that your consensual sex was rape. Everyone in your town believes you raped this girl because..well, you had sex with her right? So can you prove that it was consensual? It's unlikely - and because you can't prove otherwise in the eyes of many you're guilty. Still believe there's 'no smoke without fire?' Such a dangerous, uninformed thing to believe, I just hope you never have to face up to something like that, knowing people genuinely think that.

Unfortunately lots of spiteful people are clever enough now to create fire by just making smoke and letting it go. People create the fire now with their speculation and their opinion, whether it was there originally or not. That seems to be enough. Sorry for the clumsy example but I hope it gets my point across.

[petemc]

I think in this day and age the whole pedo thing is incredibly dangerous. Its very easy to have smoke without fire because you'll have an army of Daily Mail readers out for blood no matter what. A local photographer made the front page of the Echo recently. Big bold headline of "Lecturer arrested over child porn or something. Had his face on it. Ok so it maybe true that he was arrested over it but innocent or guilty his life is now over. Maybe theres a logical explination for it. We won't know for a long time I think. Either way people are still going to believe theres no smoke without fire even if the police say he's innocent.

Another example, real world type. The other week I had to get some photos of Liverpool One from Albert Dock. Perfectly normal. There's a water feature in Liverpool 1, a line of small fountains that people play in. Being an incredibly hot day some people let their kids run around half naked. Now I was using a really wide angle lens to get the buildings in from close up. You can hardly see people in the shot. However from the crazy parent perspective they see their half naked kid and a photographer near by. *ka-boooom* and my life is over.