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Friday, February 16, 2007

Scum-watch: "The Investigator" returns.

The Sun's "Investigator" is back doing his dirty work. After previously outting "paedophiles", he's today turned his attention to the current employment of Omar Khayam, who you might remember was last year returned to prison after he took part in the Danish cartoons protest wearing a faux "suicide bomber vest":

A MUSLIM fanatic who dressed as a suicide bomber at a rally threatening terror attacks has got a job on TRAINS.
Sick Omar Khayam cleans carriages unsupervised for rail giant First Group.

And he has even got keys to onboard electrical cupboards.

Holy god, really? Are we all going to die? Probably not. Here's some background from back then:

Asif Nadim, the chairman of Khayam's local mosque in Bedford, the Jamia Masjid Gulshani Baghdad, said Khayam was a "bit of an idiot" whose protest had offended everyone, including fellow Muslims. But he claimed the story had been blown up out of all proportion with the dredging up of the drugs offence committed when Khayam was 16 (The Observer article says 18). Khayam was caught when he threw a 2oz bag of crack cocaine from a car window to try to avoid detection. He got eight years in 2002 for possession of a class A drug with intent to supply and a fine for having a small amount of heroin, but his sentence was cut to five-and-a-half years on appeal.

The guy then got a ridiculously harsh sentence for something done when he was still a teenager. Prison doesn't seem to have beaten any sense into his head, judging by his attendance of the protest, but there's very little to suggest that Khayam is any way an "extremist", just a little wet between the ears and easily led. The Observer tracked down Khayam's father in Pakistan, who certainly wasn't convinced of his son's extremism:

Some reports suggest Khayam was drawn to radical Islam during his three-year jail spell, which ended with his release on licence last year. His brother, who describes Khayam as a 'moderate Muslim', denies the charge.
'He said that when there's a 23-hour lock-up, you have to make the most of the one hour you have free. He tried the gym at first, then he paid more frequent visits to the mosque.' His father interjected. 'From a religious point of view, he stayed the same. Prison had no influence on him.'
After being released last year Khayam started a bricklaying course and helped out with the family computer business in Bedford. Then came the Danish embassy protest and the suicide-bomber outfit.

The Daily Mirror did publish an article which claimed that he had became increasingly radicalised in prison, but it appears to be no longer available. His brother also rejected this:

In jail Omar got a job as a chef, Nazish says, and became popular for his fine South Asian cooking. 'Usually during Ramadan [the Muslim holy month of fasting] they just have a sandwich and an apple. When Omar arrived everything changed. He cooked chicken and meat biryanis, kormas, jalfrezis - everything you would find in a good restaurant. There were more converts to Islam in the prison than ever before. Then there was a ban on converting because they know most of the guys were doing it for the food.'

Anyway, back to the Scum:

Furious train drivers last night claimed the safety of staff and passengers is being put at risk.

One driver added: “It’s an astonishing security breach.

“We cannot believe this man is employed in a job giving him access to locked places on trains where bombs could be hidden and never be found.

“He has keys that could be passed on to others for the electrical cupboards in carriages. It is a risk too far.”

They're right to be concerned, but as ever, if these are actually drivers and not inventions of "The Investigator" then they ought to have taken their concerns to their superiors rather than splashing Khayam all over the national press again. He appears to have been trying to get on with his life, and seems to have picked the wrong job. As the First Group spokesman says:

“We are subject to UK employment law and carry out all necessary employment checks. The safety of customers and employees is our main priority.”

They would have known full well about Khayam's criminal record, and also more than likely about his idiotic and offensive protest. If he was a real threat, then they would have rejected his application, especially considering the heightened nature of the threat from extremists towards public transport. Khayam, like others confronted by the Sun, didn't do much towards his cause with his response:

“So what? I’ve not committed a crime. If there is a concern, that’s what the police are there for. That’s what security services are for.”

True, but if he'd explained that he was neither an extremist or any threat in a rational manner, he'd have at least not looked so quick to anger. Either way, one expects that Khayam will shortly be losing his job. I'm inclined to (almost) agree with the one sane voice on MyScum, who says:

with all the nonsense this paper publishes the link between the fanatic Madrid train track bombers and this guys radical views and job are far too serious to brush under the carpet, this man must be removed from this sensitive position and regardless of what discrimination this guy would decide to claim he would only have his past actions to blame for unnerving the public confidence in his position.

As usual, my objection is more to the Sun's journalism than the actual facts presented.

Labels: Omar Khayam, Scum-watch, Sun-watch, the Investigator

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2/16/2007 06:21:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

Monday, January 29, 2007

Scum-watch: They're still outting "paedophiles".

I'm slightly hesitant about making this post, as the very last thing I want to do is in any way defend either sex offenders or paedophiles. That aside, the Scum, edited by Rebekah Wade, the same woman who masterminded the highly counter-productive News of the Screw paedo-name and shame campaign is once again up to her old tricks.

Normally, this wouldn't be something to be concerned about, and the cases involved are to say the least, potentially worth exposing. The biggest concern as always is that vigilante action will be launched, not just against those have been outted, but against those whose identity may be mistaken in the heat of the moment. Nonetheless, I think the Sun is going too far in at least the second case I'm about to highlight. Others will likely vehemently disagree.

To begin with, the nom de plume of the outter is simply "the Investigator". It's quite true that I'm also anonymous, but the one thing I'm not doing is ruining people's lives for things that they have done years ago. This is exactly what the "Investigator" is doing.

The first article by the Investigator was in last Monday's Sun, with a follow-up the next day, and a leader comment, probably written by the ginger ninja herself.

A BUS driver who picks up kids from school is a convicted paedophile — whose bosses KNEW of his sordid past when he was hired.

David Skinner, 52, was jailed for 18 months for molesting little girls.

Yet he has been allowed to drive a route around Margate and Ramsgate in Kent during which queues of trusting schoolchildren clamber on his bus.

The pervert was yesterday suspended by transport giants Stagecoach following a Sun investigation. But he was working for the SAME company when he was caged for indecent assault and gross indecency.

Open and shut case then right? A convicted child molester shouldn't be working with children, full stop. However:

Balding Skinner — seen by The Sun chatting to kids — was jailed in 1992. It is understood he molested three children aged between six and nine while babysitting.

So we're going back 14 years. He was jailed for 18 months and served 9. He was given his job back, and has been doing school bus runs, but the Sun doesn't say for how long or how often he's being doing them.

And that's it. Well, apart from some hearsay evidence from a a driver source:

One driver called single Skinner “repulsive”. He added: “Some of the drivers who were around when he was convicted knew of his past and were disgusted when he was allowed back on school routes. But when it was raised they were told he would be allowed to stay.

“Drivers get to know kids from school runs and often also pick them up when they go out on the town late at night.

“They know which ones are under-age because they’ve seen them in their uniforms.

“Once, Skinner and another driver were discussing the youngsters all dressed up and he admitted it was tempting to see them like that.”

In all the time he's since been working for the various bus companies, there doesn't appear to have been anything to suggest that he shouldn't been working at all with children. It's obvious that most of those convicted of sexual offences in connection with children are immediately barred from working with them, and that advice is generally given to companies as to who should and shouldn't be doing work such as school runs, but either that wasn't given, was ignored or made clear that he didn't pose a threat, or at least in their evaluation.

The Sun suggests that the manager who cleared Skinner to work the school runs has since left the company, and Stagecoach responded to the Sun's expose by suspending Skinner.

The problem I have with this is more than over the suspension, which seems the right move, certainly from school runs at least, is that he's been doing his job quietly all those years, has seemingly moved on and reformed, and now after all this time he's had been named in a national newspaper as a paedophile for a crime committed over a decade ago. Some will argue that parents always deserve to know of any conviction of an adult working in any way with their child, and I agree that I don't think Skinner should have been doing school runs. It's just that this could have been done without subjecting him to vilification for a conviction in his past. Of course, this isn't how tabloid journalism works. There has to be a story, otherwise the time and money spent investigating is wasted. Yet it would have been far better to inform Stagecoach, make sure that Skinner no longer does school runs, and leave it at that. Instead he's had his life turned upside down. It's true that he may well have ruined the lives of those he abused, one of which the Sun quotes the following day as being terribly upset when she discovered that he was driving buses round. Does that however years later justify destroying his, not to mention potentially subjecting him to reprisals?

Today's expose is far more controversial than that of Skinner's.

A RAT-FACED paedophile is driving a school bus — after being cleared by council officials.
Convicted child molester Nicholas Emms, 35, drives pupils aged nine to 13 to and from school each day.

He is the second paedophile school bus driver to be exposed by The Sun in a week.

Again, if he's been convicted of similar offences to Skinner then he shouldn't be working with children. The plot here though is far thicker than that of his:

But the pervert, who indecently assaulted a girl under 14, claimed: “I’m not a danger. I’ve been cleared for school runs.”
Emms was sentenced to two years’ probation at Worcester Crown Court in 1989.

We're going even further back, and while under 14 is ambiguous , it may well be that the girl was 13. In 1989 Emms would have been either 17 or 18. Going back again to Wikipedia's quoting of the diagnosis of a paedophile:

The APA 's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4th edition, Text Revision gives the following as its "Diagnostic criteria for 302.2 Pedophilia":^[27]

Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children (generally age 13 years or younger).
The person has acted on these urges, or the sexual urges or fantasies cause marked distress or interpersonal difficulty.
The person is at least age 16 years and at least 5 years older than the child or children in Criterion A.

We also don't know the circumstances surrounding the indecent assault. They may have been boyfriend and girlfriend, it could have involved anything. It has to be said that Emms doesn't help his case with the following:

He said the conviction happened when he was a teenager, adding: “Everybody was having a laugh in those days.”

Emms is now 35, is married with a wife and has his own kids, has apparently not re-offended in any way, and has been cleared by the council to drive a bus on the school run.

Is exposing him in the public interest? Perhaps, but only just. It can be argued that the parents will now tell their children to be extra-careful around the bus driver, stay together in groups and don't stay on alone, but apart from that it seems that it would have been far better to let sleeping dogs lie. What has been achieved from "outting" him, apart from scaring parents, making children afraid of adults when there is no need to be anything other than cautious (it's also worth remembering that children are much more likely to be abused by someone known to them, usually within their friends and family) and again, bringing up the distant past of a man whose circumstances were hugely different then? He is also now open to potential vigilante justice.

The debate around child protection is going to be fraught. There's always a balance to be struck, and the Sun may well have done the right thing in naming Skinner. The reason though why we now have the sex offenders' register, organisations like MAPPA and the criminal records bureau is to take the potential for both injustice and justice out of the hands of those who don't know the full facts, and who might act in ways they might later regret. The only thing I can see that might have been gained from the Sun's expose today of Emms is that it might sell a few more copies and may make the "Investigator" feel happier with his work than he would of had he been subbing. The Sun may feel justified in its work, but the balance that it's striking is one that needs to be closely monitored.

I also don't have children. If I was a parent I might feel very different. Comments, name-calling on my naivety, etc, are more than welcome.

Labels: naming and shaming, paedophilia, Scum-watch, Sun-watch, the Investigator

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1/29/2007 06:38:00 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

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