The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

Link: Paedophile who lived in Australia for 56 years sent to UK | UK news | The Guardian.

Although this man lived his entire adult life abroad, and committed all his crimes in Australia, this story is a nice illustration of the state of contemporary Britain. Admittedly, in Moscow the only television news I see is the relentlessly trivial Sky News. I suppose I can hope that it was covered better by other broadcasters. Judging by the online media, I suspect not.

This man has served a long prison sentence for his terrible crimes. Given their nature, I am sure that he did not have an easy time of it. Nor should he have. But now his punishment is over and he is a free man. I know that to be true, because the retired Scotland Yard specialist in paedophiles wheeled out by Sky News said that was the problem. "He has the same rights now as you and me," he exclaimed, in the incredulous tone a medieval peasant (sorry Deogolwulf) might have used at the prospect of suffering a witch to live.

The tabloids are having a field day with this "fiend" and "monster," inviting their readers (when their lips have stopped moving) to call the newsdesk if they see him or know where he is living – so that their journalists can doorstep him again. Comically, they are also condemning Australia for doing with their foreign prisoners what tabloid journalists usually demand we should do with ours. Hypocrisy, pace the folk wisdom of the French, has always been the true "English vice."

Citizens of a decent, caring nation, such as Britain endlessly declares itself to be, would help this ex-offender build a new life. I am not naive. Those with small children will of course take care to warn them against him. Prudent parents will of course look askance if they see him nearby. He is scarcely in a position to complain if they do. However, his best chance to avoid recidivism would to make a new life. He needs work, companions and everyday occupations to distract him from his sick sexual urges.

What chance of that now? He has been demonised on national TV, reviled in the press and "outed" with pictures and other details in the blogosphere. I have no personal sympathy, but it makes no practical sense to condemn him to a solitary, miserable life. Anyone who reaches out to him now will be suspected of the same witchcraft. I must expect a hostile response myself, merely for pointing out the modern witchfinders in full cry.

When I was briefly a defence lawyer in my youth, I had a rather simple criminal client (a redundant description since only the stupid ones are usually caught). This lamentable specimen had served a sentence for a crime he did not commit. Before being falsely accused he had been respectable enough, though he was never going to get an OBE. His response to injustice was to commit the crime for which he had been punished – over and over again. I hope this paedophile does not apply a similar warped logic. He could scarcely be in more trouble now whatever he does. In fact, he might be better off in the controlled circumstances of a prison than under the restrictions Britain now applies (while all the time "campaigners" bay for more blood).

This is not a question of being "soft." This is an entirely practical matter. Our emotional desire to be seen to be "caring" is probably putting children at more risk. Whatever happened to calm, common sense?

Truly caring people – rather than hypocrites and frauds – would conditionally wish this "monster" well. As long as he did not return to his old ways, they would at least tolerate him. Yet somehow in "inclusive", "diverse" and "sensitive" Britain, I don’t see that happening. Our vile ersatz "kindness by force" through taxes, laws and social workers is far removed from the real thing. Indeed it seems to have crushed the real thing, or displaced it.

As my readers know, I am not a religious man. At a time like this, I could wish that more of us were. The only people likely to help in this situation are those guided by a "higher power." And I don’t mean Gordon Brown.