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TOPIC: This is wrong, what next
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This is wrong, what next 6 Years, 11 Months ago
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I'm sorry but this is so wrong.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4393676...children-online.html
It's not done under controlled conditions and again by the loudest cans who are benefit drug taking low life.
MWT started this off now wait for it to end a very nasty way.
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Re:This is wrong, what next 6 Years, 11 Months ago
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Some good points in the posts above.
There is a debate to be had over whether this is entrapment when the police do it. The key test is whether an agent goes beyond what a regular member of the public would do in the same situation. Like I said, there's a debate to be had and there is case law about the issue, which I'll not go into now.
Different rules apply to journalistic entrapment and I'm not familiar with those. Before this decision, there was no case law (that I'm aware of) about private individuals entrapping people into committing a crime. Personally, I have nothing in principle against so-called vigilante action. There's a quote from Robert Peel, something like "The police are only those members of society paid to give full-time consideration to the duties and responsibilities incumbent upon all members of society." However, if one accepts that as valid, then the rules limiting police entrapment should apply to private individuals too, right?
I have two main contributions to this subject. Firstly, I question whether a prosecution for attempting to meet or molest a non-existent child pursues a legitimate aim. Interference in a European resident's liberty must pursue a legitimate aim to be lawful. The legitimate aims are listed in various Human Rights articles incorporated into member states' legal systems. The aim invoked here would be, I suppose, 'the protection of health and morals." However, it is not permitted for the aim to be pursued merely generally or in an abstract way. The aim must be pursued in the specific and actual circumstances of each individual case. Authority for that is contained in a Eurocourt ruling in The Sunday Times vs UK. In sexual sting cases, there is no child, therefore no crime victim, therefore no one's health and morals can be protected by a prosecution in the particular circumstances of the case. Ah ha, comes the counter argument, but the prosecution serves to protect the other children that the Vile Pervert would have gone on potentially to meet. That's easily smacked down by pointing out that those hypothetical future children are not part of the specific circumstances of the prosecution so it makes no difference.
My second point is that anyone - be he policeman, journalist or private citizen - who does this sort of sting operation is committing a crime of Arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence. That's s.14 of the SOA2003 and here is the text
(1)A person commits an offence if—
(a)he intentionally arranges or facilitates something that he intends to do, intends another person to do, or believes that another person will do, in any part of the world, and
(b)doing it will involve the commission of an offence under any of sections 9 to 13.
An example of the offence referred to in (b) might be the attempted version of s.9, sexual activity with a child. A counter argument might arise out of paragraph (2) of s.14. Here is the text, my emphasis added.
(2)A person does not commit an offence under this section if—
(a)he arranges or facilitates something that he believes another person will do, but that he does not intend to do or intend another person to do, and
(b)any offence within subsection (1)(b) would be an offence against a child for whose protection he acts.
Since there is no child, there would be no offence against the child and the part of the defence in bold is absent. Therefore the defence is not available to anyone claiming to act in the interest of child safety when there is no actual child involved.
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Re:This is wrong, what next 6 Years, 11 Months ago
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Randall wrote:
Some good points in the posts above.
There is a debate to be had over whether this is entrapment when the police do it. The key test is whether an agent goes beyond what a regular member of the public would do in the same situation. Like I said, there's a debate to be had and there is case law about the issue, which I'll not go into now.
Different rules apply to journalistic entrapment and I'm not familiar with those. Before this decision, there was no case law (that I'm aware of) about private individuals entrapping people into committing a crime. Personally, I have nothing in principle against so-called vigilante action. There's a quote from Robert Peel, something like "The police are only those members of society paid to give full-time consideration to the duties and responsibilities incumbent upon all members of society." However, if one accepts that as valid, then the rules limiting police entrapment should apply to private individuals too, right?
I have two main contributions to this subject. Firstly, I question whether a prosecution for attempting to meet or molest a non-existent child pursues a legitimate aim. Interference in a European resident's liberty must pursue a legitimate aim to be lawful. The legitimate aims are listed in various Human Rights articles incorporated into member states' legal systems. The aim invoked here would be, I suppose, 'the protection of health and morals." However, it is not permitted for the aim to be pursued merely generally or in an abstract way. The aim must be pursued in the specific and actual circumstances of each individual case. Authority for that is contained in a Eurocourt ruling in The Sunday Times vs UK. In sexual sting cases, there is no child, therefore no crime victim, therefore no one's health and morals can be protected by a prosecution in the particular circumstances of the case. Ah ha, comes the counter argument, but the prosecution serves to protect the other children that the Vile Pervert would have gone on potentially to meet. That's easily smacked down by pointing out that those hypothetical future children are not part of the specific circumstances of the prosecution so it makes no difference.
My second point is that anyone - be he policeman, journalist or private citizen - who does this sort of sting operation is committing a crime of Arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence. That's s.14 of the SOA2003 and here is the text
(1)A person commits an offence if—
(a)he intentionally arranges or facilitates something that he intends to do, intends another person to do, or believes that another person will do, in any part of the world, and
(b)doing it will involve the commission of an offence under any of sections 9 to 13.
An example of the offence referred to in (b) might be the attempted version of s.9, sexual activity with a child. A counter argument might arise out of paragraph (2) of s.14. Here is the text, my emphasis added.
(2)A person does not commit an offence under this section if—
(a)he arranges or facilitates something that he believes another person will do, but that he does not intend to do or intend another person to do, and
(b)any offence within subsection (1)(b) would be an offence against a child for whose protection he acts.
Since there is no child, there would be no offence against the child and the part of the defence in bold is absent. Therefore the defence is not available to anyone claiming to act in the interest of child safety when there is no actual child involved.
I was boggling at the idea of a crime against a non existent person too,Randall.
But then I realised that we do have situations like this in law,such as the potential burglar "going equipped".
We dont know what the "burglar's" actual intentions were, unless we can read minds, and maybe he would have thought better of it when it came to the crunch?
It doesn't even have to be a specific building about to be burgled for the prosecution to go ahead, so perhaps this situation is similar to the vigilante cases?
(unless the law has changed on this? I am thinking of a case in the late seventies)
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