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This is clearly a horrible case. The parent's behaviour is horrible, but the judge/legal system?

Amazing stuff


Here is the news report


PAEDOPHILE IS FREED AFTER VICTIM'S PARENTS ACCEPT £18,000 PAY-OFF

THE parents of a four-year-old boy were branded “reprehensible” by a judge ­yesterday for taking an £18,000 pay-off to buy their silence from the teacher who sexually abused him.

Instead of calling in the police to tell them that paedophile Gerard Raffell, 42, had repeatedly assaulted their child between 2004 and 2005, they demanded the money to use as a deposit on their new home.

Raffell, who was a close family friend, paid off the parents, quit his job as a maths teacher and moved house.


His offences only came to light four years later when the youngster spoke to others about what had happened.

Judge Ian Alexander QC said Raffell had effectively already been fined and punished for his crime and spared him a jail term, placing him instead on a three-year community sex offenders’ treatment programme.

The judge said: “This is a very ­troublesome case. In 2004 and 2005 you behaved disgustingly. You were a close friend and you were a school teacher but you sexually interfered with a young child.”

Raffell “bought off” the child’s ­parents for £18,000 to stop them going to the police, the judge said.

“That is reprehensible behaviour on their part. But you complied with that position,” he continued.

“It’s made a quandary and I am quite satisfied you need treatment. I could not in all conscience be able to send you to prison for a period long enough to receive that treatment.”

Children’s campaigners condemned the parents for taking cash for silence. Claude Knights, director of children’s charity Kidscape, said: “£18,000 is a lot of money but you cannot put a price on that kind of incident.
   
“The whole reason we have a legal system is to prevent situations like this. The boy is clearly still traumatised if he was talking about it four years later. It is so disturbing that a family would enter into this kind of bargain, particularly as it leaves other children at risk.”

Norman Wells, director of Family and Youth Concern, said: “For the parents to cash in on a horrendous crime committed against their son in this way shows a complete failure to appreciate the enormity of the offence and an indifference to the threat the offender represented to other vulnerable children.”

Raffell pleaded guilty to four counts of causing or inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity at Northampton Crown Court.

Stuart Yeung, prosecuting, told the court Raffell was living in Daventry, Northants, and working as a teacher at the time of the offences.

Raffell, who moved to Edgbaston, Birmingham, was arrested in October last year and was found with 50 indecent images on his computer but he was not charged separately over these.

Hena Vissian, mitigating, said the former teacher had confessed as soon as he was confronted with his crime and was seeking help from a psychiatrist.

But Tory MP Philip Davies said: “To me it sounds perverse that the judge says he can’t give him a prison sentence long enough so doesn’t send him to prison at all. How does that actually make any sense?”

Northamptonshire Police said the parents “had no case to answer”, despite taking the cash.

Raffell was also placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years and was banned from working with children ever again.
 

Wow that's so disgusting.

£18,000 is a bowl but so would £100,000,000 be if my child had been victim of a paedophile imo. Pretty sure I wouldn't be happy unless he was in the ground.

the parents need to be put on the register

Maybe if they thought our joke of a legal system would actually get them some justice they would've gone to the police.

Slap on the wrist. Offender's register. Protection from the public. Blah blah blah..... What's the point?

Perhaps they thought an 18k fine was more punishment than he'd get if they spoke up?

The fine is irrelevent, they've let a sex offender off, who knows who else he is harming?  Surely even if he only gets a few months (which I'm pretty sure is never the case in these sort of cases) then at least he's been labelled for what he is.    

This is what going to the police is about "Raffell was also placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years and was banned from working with children ever again."  - protecting your children

or they could be sick fucks who are happy to leave someone who's been touching their kids free to do it to someone else's as long as they get a few grand

There's bound to be a lot more to it if you scratch the surface - hard to judge on the basis of one news report imo.

Would a few months inside help to protect children?

he won't be touching any for those few months and he won't be teaching again ever so that's a yes

of course.

He won't be teaching again anyway as he's been banned from doing that.

So you're argument for prison is basically "he won't touch anyone while he's inside" but after that it's fair game?

I doubt they were happy with it but maybe they thought 18k was better than being dragged through courts and having everything go public.

Perhaps they thought they could best protect their child by keeping him away from this person in a new house somewhere else. If they go to court the person gets locked up but they're stuck in the same house with the same memories and nobody to help them get away.

The justice system we have doesn't help victims so there would be no relocation to help them make a fresh start. Perhaps they thought this was best.

This ends up being similar to the Madeleine McCann thing. Everybody throws accusations left right and centre but nobody really knows the facts. Just be careful calling the parents scumbags because it's just possible that they're not and they did what they felt was best for their child.

Or maybe they went to Vegas for a fortnight.

Is this a level?  He's only banned because the authorities got involved.  The time in prison isn't the end of the problem, he'll then be monitored for, well probably for ever.

Why on earth would it be fair game afterwards?

a scary thought is that it's also quite possible that the teacher thought he was doing what was best for the child

Well you answered if he was inside he wouldn't be touching kids, implication if he wasn't he would be. I imagine he's subject to the same scrutiny whether he goes to prison or not.

so no point in ever locking up nonces unless it's until they die because they'll be under the same scrutiny when they come out as if they hadn't gone in at all?

18k is helluva lot of money for some, while I don't agree with taking the money I can certainly understand some doing so

Definitely. But their primary goal should be the protection of their child and if they have done that then fair play to them.

It may sound harsh but if I had a child I would do everything I could to protect it even if it put others at risk. My child would my 100% first priority and everything else can gtfo.

It isn't their job to see this person behind bars and on the offenders register. That is the job of the justice system.

All these campaigners saying they are disgusting make me sick. If these parents had decided to go to court it wouldn't be them that were faced with a top notch scumbag lawyer posing all kinds of stressful questions it would've been the child.

Seriously if you had a child who had been through all that would you want to put them through even more by having to be questioned about it?

Obviously you'd want the offender behind bars but if the justice system can't lock up a guy who's actually pleaded guilty why would you make it the job of your child to see to it that justice is done?

That isn't what I'm saying at all.

He's been given a 3 year course with the intention of stopping him offending again. If that works (I have no idea on success rates) then that seems far better to me than him spending 6 months inside.

that's a tricky one to answer really. I don't think you can tell how you'd react but I'm pretty damn sure I wouldn't go and see the guy for a payoff

I read once that a high proportion of kids who are abused become abusers themselves. If that's true then it seems that the parents actions are indefensible on 3 counts:

1) They leave the original offender free to abuse again.
2) They leave their child with a higher chance of become an abuser and no extra help - which (3) also leaves children of the future a bit more likely to be abused.

ah. you came across as if you were saying 'sod it, let him off'

prison and a course please imo. he needs punishing as well as rehabilitating

But if your only possible way to relocate and get away from it all for a fresh start at a new school was to take 18k from the offender?

I'm not saying this is what happened btw I'm just throwing in a possibility.

1) They didn't leave him free. He went to court and pleaded guilty but got let off. It was the justice system that left him free to abuse again.

2) How do we know they haven't sought help? Maybe that's what they're using some of the 18k for, private help?

3) Not their problem unless it's their child who is the one doing the abusing. As I said in (2) we don't know that they haven't sought help.

actually I've decided. I'd take the 18k then report him

Lol. That was my first thought :)

TBH if it was my kid that he abused, he wouldn't have had enough time to reach for his wallet !

Not knocking this Kev because I'm of the same opinion but is this in the kid's best interests?

It might make you feel better but is it going to help the child's rehab if his dad's locked away for 20 years for murder or 2 years for GBH or whatever?

To quote the article:

"His offences only came to light four years later when the youngster spoke to others about what had happened."

So it seems that they let him go free and if they did seek help for their child it was only after 4 years.

Sometimes I think the judges get backhanders from the papers to give lenient sentences to sex offenders. It makes for good copy.

From a wide angle that looks at all decent newspaper reading people and their paedophillic counterparts, game theory says you've got to bash a few in the head to balance your range.

no need to balance your range if your keeping your hush money demands the same each time. just always make it 18k

Erm, as Bongo pointed out, they did 'leave him free'.  He paid the £18K, moved to Birmingham where he was free to do as he chose.  Of course you want to protect your own family, but there's also a social responsibility to help protect others too.  Otherwise why would any bother being a witness in a case where the victim wasn't a member of their family.  I'm sure we'd all do our damnedest to make sure a child-abuser is successfully prosecuted and hopefully removed from situations where they can abuse other children.  The justice system only came into play years later when details of what happened became apparent to non-family members.

There's an outcry (quite rightly) with this case by most, but the institutionalised child-abuse within the catholic church has gone one for decades and yet has largely been left to the church itself to manage.  It's a disgrace that the church has protected and even facilitated child-abusers, and in most cases they seem to be operating outside the law (of the countries where the crimes have been taking place).

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Difficult to quantify Matt, however my thinking on this is that I would like to think that any of my boys would be able to live their lives knowing their father stood up for them rather than let down.

What we don't know is what type of relationship this lad now has with his parents, for all we know it may be a ruined relationship as he felt let down by them.

FWIW, I would have absolutely no second thoughts of taking the same course of action as Kev if ever any my sons or grandchildren were subject to anything like this.

I also believe that the parents in this case should also have been prosecuted for attempting to pervert (no pun intended) the course of justice.

Geo

What Geo said.

Yep.

+1

or take the £18k and then pay someone to take him out, I suspect you would even get change out of the £18k.

EvilPie's posts in this thread are truly amazing and I cannot believe anyone could possibly hold these views.

He must be levelling.

Not levelling mate no.

I was merely putting across possibilities in order to facilitate discussion. Thread is pretty crap if everybody just says "I think the parents are w****rs for taking the money."

I'm sure they had their reasons, none of us know what those reasons were. If you just want a "let's rip in to some people who someone's read about in the paper" thread I can join in that too.

If you want to know what I would honestly do in their situation then I can assure it would not involve taking 18k to keep schtum. It would involve some very large, very nasty acquaintances of mine and wouldn't end nicely for the paedophile who'd caused harm to one of my loved ones.

I generally don't like to post on these types of thread as I often make inappropriate jokes and dont really want to cause offence however whilst I dont agree with what the parents did I can understand why somebody might take the money.

1) We don't know what the guy has actually done
2) He was a family friend, this could have influenced the decision
3) £18,000 may not be a lot of money to many on here but to them this could have made a huge difference.
4) He quit his job.  If punished by the law what would they have actually done to a first time offender?

We've had stories in the past where religious types have 'forgiven' offenders, this could also be a factor however i doubt it in this case. 

Personally I dont think i could do it, but that doesnt mean I cant comprehend why somebody would take the money.

This is  a far more believeable reaction.

I would guesstimate 75% of parents would go to police, 25% would exact retribution and about 0.1% would do what these parents did.

Sov, you aren't a parent are you?

Sov is the daddy. Does that count?

Seriously though, everyone on this thread with possible exception Claw is talking out of their arse. Why does the man need babies to join in?

ban Tighty for trolling imo

its basically prostituting your kid ,sick if you ask me .

I'm not a parent, however my basic point is who are we to say what they've done is sick etc with only basic facts.

I don't agree with it but aren't so ignorant to say I can't understand them taking a pay off.

As mentioned the court case could be hard on the kid and all the other unknown factors etc. 

If it was more money would that make a difference?

If he'd paid £1m would everybody have the same reaction?

More of the same from the catholic church:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8573829.stm

As corny as it might sound, becoming a parent does change things in this area.

I'm about as pinko liberal softie as you could possibly find.

Before Jake was born, I would support very liberal punishment for paedophiles, claiming it was illness not crimes and they should be rehabilitated and treated not punished.

Then I was playing some stupid game with Jake when he about 6 months old, and the thought suddenly struck me, if a bloke even laid a slightest finger on him, I would take care of him.

The thought really stunned me but proved to me most parents would go to virtually any length to protect their children

But, that's why I think parents on the whole would view the actions of these parents with total and absolute disgust.

this is a massive grey area though, and probably not helped by the word paedophile being widely used nowadays to describe child abusers.  Not all paedophiles are child abusers, and not all child abusers are paedophiles.

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