xandreu wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 1:39 pm When questioning how he got away with 'hiding in plain sight', I think it's important to remember what a humungous shift in attitudes towards child predators the world has undergone in the last generation or two.

While we quite rightly view it as probably the most abhorrent of all crimes today, it wasn't always that way. While it was never legal to rape children, there was a very strong culture throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s of 'looking the other way' and simply not getting involved when rumours and suspicions of child molestation surfaced. It's easy to look at Saville as an isolated case and drop your jaw in despair at how he was able to get away with it, but the truth is that many, many people were 'getting away with it' in those days. And I would imagine that most of those have still gone unpunished to this day.

Ask any child who was suffering abuse during those decades and almost all of them will tell you that they either didn't feel that they could tell anyone for fear of not being believed, or they did tell someone, and still they still weren't believed. Or, as happened in many cases, were actually blamed as the perpetrator for 'leading the adult on'.

Clearly I'm not in any whatsoever defending Saville or anyone who could have blown the whistle but chose not to, but it is imperative, when questioning Saville's actions, to recognise that the world could not have been a more different place with regards to issues such as child exploitation at the time he was committing his barbaric crimes.

The only positive we can take from this whole saga is the very fact that we no longer live in that kind of culture anymore.

atst wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 8:58 am

Clutch Cargo wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 8:38 am People must have thought: 'it's inconceivable that a man who does all that charity work and good for the community could possibly do bad'. The great deception..

Yes and how often do we see this in charities, religion.

xandreu wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 1:39 pm When questioning how he got away with 'hiding in plain sight', I think it's important to remember what a humungous shift in attitudes towards child predators the world has undergone in the last generation or two.

While we quite rightly view it as probably the most abhorrent of all crimes today, it wasn't always that way. While it was never legal to rape children, there was a very strong culture throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s of 'looking the other way' and simply not getting involved when rumours and suspicions of child molestation surfaced. It's easy to look at Saville as an isolated case and drop your jaw in despair at how he was able to get away with it, but the truth is that many, many people were 'getting away with it' in those days. And I would imagine that most of those have still gone unpunished to this day.

Ask any child who was suffering abuse during those decades and almost all of them will tell you that they either didn't feel that they could tell anyone for fear of not being believed, or they did tell someone, and still they still weren't believed. Or, as happened in many cases, were actually blamed as the perpetrator for 'leading the adult on'.

Clearly I'm not in any whatsoever defending Saville or anyone who could have blown the whistle but chose not to, but it is imperative, when questioning Saville's actions, to recognise that the world could not have been a more different place with regards to issues such as child exploitation at the time he was committing his barbaric crimes.

The only positive we can take from this whole saga is the very fact that we no longer live in that kind of culture anymore.