TotallyOz Posted November 12, 2011 Posted November 12, 2011 The Sun tabloid pays damages to poster George for tarnishing his reputation. Take a look at the link below. Congrats George on your vindication. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/nov/11/sun-damages-false-child-sex-claim Quote
Guest fountainhall Posted November 12, 2011 Posted November 12, 2011 The publisher also paid a "significant" sum of damages to "vindicate" Gibbs's reputation. What sum of money can possibly "vindicate" someone falsely accused of the sexual molestation of children in such a public manner? No matter the apology, no matter the cash, the fact is that Mr. Gibbs will forever have a label across his back which hints "Child Molester" (nudge, nudge! wink, wink!), for there will always be some sceptics who will not believe the retraction, especially with Thailand being involved. We have seen it here in Thailand with an individual who was falsely charged, imprisoned and eventually released (sorry, I cannot find the facts of this particular case - but it was highlighted on GB's forum). We have also seen it last year in the case of the Russian conductor. In his case, many lurid allegations made worldwide headlines - heading a child porn ring, disseminating child porn over the internet, molesting minors being just some - and the most ghastly comments about anyone were made by some very senior government officials, all without any shred of evidence being produced and police statements continuously being proved false. As one of our colleagues posted around that time, if there is one thing worse than being a child molester, it is being falsely accused of being a child molester. I hope News Corporation was forced to pay for the dissemination of The Sun's retraction in a wide variety of media, and that it had to pay out many millions of pounds - if only to deter it from making such horrible false allegations again in future. Quote
PattayaMale Posted November 12, 2011 Posted November 12, 2011 How true, the damage can be terrible! This is one of the reasons I think it is not appropriate for ANY forum to allow posting of news reports about pedophiles or sex abuse charges BEFORE the final verdict, which may take years here in Thailand. A good friend of mine lived in Pattaya and was accused in a local newspaper of having sex with under legal age boy. His picture was in the paper and people began posting about him on forums. Very mean things said and posted about him. He was so depressed he stopped going out and was so embarrassed because he was NOT GUILTY he claimed. Even so he was being judged by our community that assumed he was guilty. Two years and a few months later the Thai court ruled that he was not guilty. There was no black listing or restrictions placed on him. Yet he felt he could not stay here because of how our community treated him. Really too bad. Quote
KhorTose Posted November 12, 2011 Posted November 12, 2011 As one of our colleagues posted around that time, if there is one thing worse than being a child molester, it is being falsely accused of being a child molester. We have two lines of thought on the issue of crime. One that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and the other is where there is smoke there is usually fire. When it comes to child molestation the second thought seems to prevail even among people who would give any other type of criminal a reasonable doubt before judging them. It is not only the damage done to the victim of false accusations that suffers when this happens, but children and society in general. Whenever, someone is accused falsely and has to go though hell to prove his innocence then one more person decides not to be a teacher, one more person decide not to be a coach, one more person decides not to be a scout master or volunteer to work with kids, etc. Not only that but when we require people to prove their innocence, remove the requiremejnt that they can face their accusers, and require no physical evidence to prove quilt then we are weakening the rule of law and the system of justice that should keep us all safe from false accusations. Don't get me wrong, this a serious and heinous crime that can and does destroy its victims, but we only make it worse on all of us when we engage in prejudging and weaken the standards of our justice system. Quote
Guest Posted November 12, 2011 Posted November 12, 2011 It is good to see these newspapers getting at least some punishment for making very damaging claims. Quote
