Would you blame him?

[OIL]

I'm going to use a storyline from Eastenders for my topic here. Recently, Tony, an adult, has been sexually active with a 16 year old, Whitney (was 12 when it started), and the mum only just found out.

Tony, who had been in prison recently for beating up a boy who was hassling Whitney (the girl), but got a job at the local youth centre working with children, putting on plays and such. No past record of paedophilia had been found, and he was hired by the owner Lucas.

Now, after it has been leaked to everyone in the square that Tony, who had been in easy contact with many children, is a paedophile. They're now all blaming Lucas for letting Tony work with children, and blame him entirely.

So, imagine this happened in real life, where your child went, and you found out this man hired a peadophile who was working with your children, obviously the man didn't know he was one. Would you blame him? Even watching everyone blame him tonight in the show got me angry, and it was only a show.

In my opinion, if the man has done his checks and this sort of thing hadn't come up, then I wouldn't blame him. It isn't his fault, as it's impossible for him to find out that he is a paedophile if there is no record and his obsession with young children was kept secret for 4 years. He shouldn't be blamed as he couldn't have known that he would be a danger to children.

Your opinion?

 

[Azrael Cain]

I wouldn't necessarily blame the man, but I would be upset. If no record was found when the background check was ran, how could he have known? The reason he ran the check was to find out.

Hypothetically, people with records of Child Abuse or a registry in the pedophile database can and often do change their names and falsify backgrounds when applying for a job with children, mind you a job they are not supposed to or are allowed to have.

Assuming, however, that Tony is Tony, he needs to seek some sort of "help" for his "condition." As a pedophile, he is going to be ostracized and terrorized by the community he is in. People react violently towards even the idea of someone touching their kid, let alone the possibility of someone touching their kid in a sexual matter.

I understand that anger and bile -- I have a little brother and a younger cousin, and if someone who was older touched them inappropriately, I would want to do very violent things to that person. As a future educator, I am faced with this issue often: reports of teachers taking advantage of students, and claims of sexual harassment. It's one of the dangers of being a teacher; if a student claims it, your career is over.

In any case, Tony needs help. If the relationship started when Whitney was twelve, it's in no way consensual or healthy for her psyche and development. Someone can argue maturity, but that's bullshit, and a lot of it. Again, all the anger that may have been directed at the man who hired Tony would soon turn on to Tony.

 

[JackAttack]

No past record of paedophilia had been found, and he was hired by the owner Lucas.

If the man had no prior history of paedophilia, than there's simply nothing Lucas could have or should have done to prevent this. In many cases, people who become paedophiles were subjected to paedophilia themselves at a young age, and those problems resurface later on in their lives.

However, its quite a common thing for people to want to blame him. People have a habit of blaming the easiest and most helpless target as possible. They know that the paedophile is already going to prison, so they feel the need to blame someone else. Its rather silly though, Lucas had nothing to do with it.

Also, I'm pretty sure Lucas would blame himself on the inside. After all, he hired the guy, so It wouldn't surprise me if he in someway feels responsible for the whole fiasco.

 

[Tim]

If he's checked, and nothing's come up, he shouldn't take the blame at all. It's unfair that he should be blamed for something he had no idea about, and something he thought he made sure of. People thought he was the easiest target to blame and thus blamed him. But imagine how Lucas would feel. He would probably hate himself for hiring this guy, in a job that involves him being close to children, and risk hurting those children. He would probably blame himself for it as wlel, even though he knows it wasn't his fault. And no, I wouldn't have blamed him. He did all he could.