Pete Townsend Banned from the U.S?
Mr. Townshend was arrested in January 2003 as part of Operation Ore, the largest investigation into child pornography in the UK. He admitted using his credit card to access child abuse images but claimed they were for "research" for a book in 1999. (Emphasis added by the Guardian Newspaper - see link below). Mr. Townshend was one of 1,600 people arrested in the UK from details given to an American child porn website.
He avoided a charge but was cautioned by the British police and his name placed on the Sexual Offender Register for five years. No evidence of downloaded child pornography was found on his home computers. He did admit that he accessed the child porn site.
The British National Children's Home (NCH) charity said it was not satisfied with Mr. Townshend's defense. John Carr, its internet safety advisor, said: "We hope that anybody else out there who might be looking at using the internet to get child pornography for the purposes of research is now properly warned."
"It is not an acceptable defense and it only helps keep the child porn industry going."
And a spokesman for Phoenix survivors, a group that represents victims of child abuse, said it was appalled at the "leniency" of the punishment.
He said: "He (Mr. Townshend) still insists that curiosity is a fair excuse for the sexual exploitation of children."
When asked, a spokesman from Florida's Tampa Bay Police Department's Child Abuse Unit told this writer that "research" is one of the most commonly used excuses by perpetrators of child pornography site visitation.
You be the judge.
Why bring this up? Because the U.S. allows Mr. Townshend entry into the United States against published INS regulations.
The US Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) specifies numerous grounds on which a consular officer can find an applicant ineligible for a visa and inadmissible to the United States. Applicants excludable on criminal and related grounds are the following: "Aliens convicted of, and those who admit having committed a crime involving moral turpitude (or an attempt or conspiracy to commit such a crime)." Many have fallen foul of these regulations.
Take, for example, Lilly Allen, the British singer, who was refused a visa after she assaulted a photographer some time ago in London. A Welch acquaintance of the writer was arrested in New York on a DUI in 2000. His next trip back to the US resulted on his being turned back at the Immigration desk in New York.
Pete Townshend on the other hand comes and goes from the U.S. with impunity. Why is he allowed to do this when his admitted offense - for which he was arrested and cautioned - resulted on his being placed on a Sex Offender list? In the U.S. we punish child sex crimes with draconian ferocity and rightly so.
Mr. Townshend is no exception. Why should being a celebrity give him a free pass?
The WHO, featuring Pete Townshend, are playing nationwide in October.
###
Evin Daly is a writer and the publisher of the ButlerReport (www.butlerreport.com). He is also a child advocate in the 15th Judicial Circuit in Palm Beach, Florida, where as a Guardian ad Litem he represents abused children's interests in court. edaly@goldcoastmedia.net
Published by ButlerReport
- Child Abuse - Will You Report It?Child Abuse is an international problem. It is sad how many people know of a child that is being or has been abused, and they say and or do nothing about it. I do not understand what would cause a person to keep this...
- The Effects of the "No Spanking Law" on Child Abuse in Sweden The history, prevention, demographics, evolution, and risk factors of physical child abuse in sweden since the passage of the 1979 "anti-spanking" law.
Does Time Change Over Thirty Years of Child Abuse?Three decades has shown few changes in the handling of child abuse. Here are the lives of two young women separated only by time yet share similar horrors. Included is the toll-...- Child Abuse and Maltreatment: Inverted Priorities and Warped ValuesA fundamentally distorted and perverse value system, which values power and privilege over basic human rights, increases the abuse of women and children. Political and economic dysfunction increase the severity of fam...
- An Overview of State Child Abuse and Neglect RegistriesAlmost everyone knows that each state maintains a sex offender registry, but few people know that each state also maintains a child abuse and neglect registry. Unlike sex offender registries, people are placed on chil...
- Child Abuse in the Aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
- National Child Abuse Prevention Month
- Emotional Child Abuse and Neglect
- Child Abuse in Criminal Law
- Child Abuse: The Best Prevention is to Begin Family Planning at an Earlier Age
- A Child's Cry - A Personal Story of Child Abuse
- Child Abuse and the Behaviors Associated with Domestic Violence
5 Comments
Post a CommentThe facts about Townshend are exactly that - facts - so I'll recount them to you as these are a matter of record.
1.He was caught accessing child pornography using his credit card in Jan 2003
2.He admitted to viewing child pornography online
3.He told police he was doing research. According to the FBI this is the most common excuse used by child porn pervs when caught,
4.There was a gap between his arrest and the police checking his computers for child porn. No porn was found on his computers.
5.He received a caution from the court in the UK. In the UK this is a serious action.
6.He was put on the Violent and Sexual Offender Register for five years from which he was due to be dropped last year.
7.In June 2006 Townshend came under fire for a piece of erotic fiction he wrote involving underage teens (see link following).
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-391865/Childrens-charities-attack-Townshend-erotic-teenage-fiction.html
The sequence of events certainl
http://www.petetownshendisinnocent.com/
Try checking out the truth.
I live in London and read and syudied all the contenet involving this case as I am also a Who fan.
Townshend admitted to viewing a website for research and was only on it for 3 minutes.It is widely known that he was abused as a child.His entire household computers and his family computers were confiscated and the Police found no eveidence.A child pornographer,like an alcoholic, hides images in every place imaginable.Nothing was found..so hes innocent.He and some other artists tried to get Credit card companies to refrain from accepting charges from these sites but was ignored.He is not a criminal as the INS and other very strict immigration authorities cleared him to enter.
Please get your facts right as US immigration is spectacular and very efficient and he has personnaly and professionally been through Hell and back.Im sure you have made mistakes and regretted them...and i do agree with the yellow journalism..where were you guys when we were attacked and abused as a nation..The wh
Ever think people are not worried about Townshend because he isn't a threat? Any logical person should come to this conclusion. Do you think the people that pay to see The Who are so myopic that they don't care about keeping children safe? Fans accept Townshend's version of events, as did the London police. He received a caution and accepted responsibility for his stupid mistake. Now, leave the guy alone. I'm not sure about your philanthropic efforts, but I doubt you've given more money and time to the less fortunate than Townshend. If he isn't viewed as a risk in other parts of the world, why should we American's view him as a risk. The bigger risk we should be concerned with is yellow journalism (like you seem to specialize in).
Right you are, Evin. Townsend may be innocent but that should not give him free access, either. Being on the offender list should keep him out of the states. This is just another example of leniency for the privileged. I'm a Who fan, but the better safe than sorry approach works best in this case...