John Self
29th Mar 2005, 15:55
So the least talented man in pop has been released on parole (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4390847.stm), after serving half his seven year sentence for four counts of indecent assault on under-age boys, and two counts of serious sexual offences against boys. He maintains his innocence, but lost his appeal, and seems to have significantly misjudged the public mood towards sex offenders with his thumbs-aloft gurning outside prison on his release, talking of "a brilliant three-and-a-half years." He's such a twat.
Having said that, I do think there's a distinction to be drawn between his crimes and those of the typically reviled paedophile. King's victims were 14 and 15 years of age, not toddlers, not pre-pubescent, and at that age probably resented being considered children at all. And we have all seen children in the street, boys or girls, who are probably 14 or 15 but look much older. 15 is the age Charlotte Church was when the Daily Star printed a picture of her in a cleavage-displaying dress at some premiere or other, noting that she looked "chest swell." And it is considerably older than the ages of Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice, when they were pictured on page 3 (sic) of the Daily Mail on the deck of a yacht in their bikinis, just inside the front page where the paper railed against the repellent sexual crimes against children committed by Ian Huntley. But children these 14 and 15 year olds most definitely are in the eyes of the law, and the law protects those under 16 as it takes the view that they cannot be considered sufficiently emotionally mature to properly consent to sexual acts with another person.
So insofar as these things can be considered to have a lower end, I think King's crimes were, if not at, then toward the lower end of the scale. He apparently did not force himself on his victims. Most of the boys were sufficiently untraumatised at the time to come back for more (as Jon Ronson pointed out in his excellent piece on King in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,609185,00.html), the boys were supposedly dazzled by celebrity. "But it was only Jonathan King," he said to one of them. And also: 'I talked to some of his friends from the pop industry, and one of them said, "Poor Jonathan. We were all doing that sort of thing back then."'), and significantly, they had to effectively be canvassed by the police via the media to come forward and make complaints. Also interesting to consider is the fact that, at the time, with the gay age of consent being 21, King's victims were 6 or 7 years below the age of consent. If the same thing happened now, they would be one or two years below. Would the outcome be the same?
And while we're here: what exactly is he famous for?
Having said that, I do think there's a distinction to be drawn between his crimes and those of the typically reviled paedophile. King's victims were 14 and 15 years of age, not toddlers, not pre-pubescent, and at that age probably resented being considered children at all. And we have all seen children in the street, boys or girls, who are probably 14 or 15 but look much older. 15 is the age Charlotte Church was when the Daily Star printed a picture of her in a cleavage-displaying dress at some premiere or other, noting that she looked "chest swell." And it is considerably older than the ages of Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice, when they were pictured on page 3 (sic) of the Daily Mail on the deck of a yacht in their bikinis, just inside the front page where the paper railed against the repellent sexual crimes against children committed by Ian Huntley. But children these 14 and 15 year olds most definitely are in the eyes of the law, and the law protects those under 16 as it takes the view that they cannot be considered sufficiently emotionally mature to properly consent to sexual acts with another person.
So insofar as these things can be considered to have a lower end, I think King's crimes were, if not at, then toward the lower end of the scale. He apparently did not force himself on his victims. Most of the boys were sufficiently untraumatised at the time to come back for more (as Jon Ronson pointed out in his excellent piece on King in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,609185,00.html), the boys were supposedly dazzled by celebrity. "But it was only Jonathan King," he said to one of them. And also: 'I talked to some of his friends from the pop industry, and one of them said, "Poor Jonathan. We were all doing that sort of thing back then."'), and significantly, they had to effectively be canvassed by the police via the media to come forward and make complaints. Also interesting to consider is the fact that, at the time, with the gay age of consent being 21, King's victims were 6 or 7 years below the age of consent. If the same thing happened now, they would be one or two years below. Would the outcome be the same?
And while we're here: what exactly is he famous for?