A “well-known” BBC presenter has been taken off air after allegedly paying a teenager more than £35,000 in exchange for sexually explicit photographs, it has been reported.
The teenager was allegedly 17 years old when the payments first began and their family filed a complaint to the BBC on May 19, according to The Sun.
A 17 year old can bang anyone they want but a piccie of their titties is illegal.
We do end up with some weird laws.
Oh, it’s that way round is it? I presumed it was some successful blackmail. And well done that enterprising teenager.
Still done well, though. One suspects the kid’ll go far.
Wow, the Backperson Broadcasting Corporation will be getting a bit of a rep soon…
Perhaps they’ll fill the void left by Sa-vile?
It’s a 17yr old boy
For £35K wouldn’t you want more than a picture or two? Oh, blackmail, you say?
My guess is it’s a boy. There’s a quote from the mother in the Sun:
£35,000 will buy you a lot of cocaine though. My guess is that the perp was funding the kid’s wider lifestyle.
From the BBC mission statement:-
We have established a set of values for everyone working at the BBC. They represent the expectations we have for ourselves and each other, they guide our day-to-day decisions and the way we behave.
Over to you BBC, time to enforce your own values. Try not to take too many months over it.
Funny how different people can take entirely different things away from a story.
My immediate first impression was, some mug’s been had over. Having just read the coverage in the non-paywalled Sun, I’m not convinced otherwise. The well dried up but maybe there’s some compo in it from going public? Can’t see why there would be, but that wouldn’t prevent someone thinking like that. I’m certainly not convinced by Mum. You really didn’t notice your teenager having 35k go through his paws? The “He spent it on crack” is just too bloody obvious a way of pushing buttons.
It’s like the Handy Prince Andy saga. I’m far too aware of what mercenary little slags some remarkably young girls can be. And how many of them there are. Throw a stick out the door & you’d be fortunate not to hit one.
BiS
You may well be correct. Time and transparency will tell. However, considering the conduct of the bbc towards the likes of Sir Cliff and others whose politics, opinions or values were not in line with “the message” it is hardly surprising that so may of us are relishing the schadenfreude.
Until about 5 minutes ago, you could see a nice set of 17 year old tits in The Sun for 20p.
You can put youthful shamesex to the back of your mind but a tittie pic is online forever?
Time and transparency will tell.
I doubt it. People are very reluctant to believe things that contradict their world view. That includes the justice system.
Regarding the law and its inconsistencies… Since the legislation was passed it’s always struck me as completely barmy that a pair of 16-year-olds can legally fuck themselves stupid but are breaking the law if they decide to take a few snaps to commemorate the event.
Only a BBC presenter could afford to pay £35k for soft porn piccies. Probably an ex-footballer.
It strains credulity to believe that a decent looking (or else he wouldn’t be a bbc presenter) bloke would willingly fork out £35k just for a bunch of perfectly legal titty pics. That’s my rather jaded world view anyway.
It strains credulity to believe that a decent looking (or else he wouldn’t be a bbc presenter)
Uhm.
Presentable then?
Damn. You may have a point.
BonM4 @ 10.37, as Peter Crouch stated when asked what he would be if not a professional footballer:
“a virgin”.
I believe that when the age of consent was lowered to sixteen, sixteen year old girls started appearing in porn mags. The age for porn mag models was then raised to eighteen, which is why we have the anomaly. Teenaged me was in love with a girl called Sally Ball who appeared in, I think, Mayfair in the late 1970s.
DocBud:
“Only a BBC presenter could afford to pay £35k for soft porn piccies. Probably an ex-footballer.”
Dear God in heaven, please let it be.
@Sam Vara
Oh yes, absolutely. I’d start paying a licence again if it could be made so!
The 18 year rule was introduced to bring us in line with the USA and their pr0n laws.
Some models (Sam Fox ? Kate Moss ?) Did their first topless pics on their 16th birthday
@sam Vara
Yes, and an opinionated junk food shill….
@Stonyground,
Lowered? It was put up to 16 from 12 in the Victorian era.
As for prudish Yanks, they should remember when an American Rock & Roll ‘star’ showed up in the UK with his 13 year old wife.
It was put up to 16 from 12 in the Victorian era.
About the same time as the concept of “children” arrived then.
The football blokes I’d like to see driven off the telly are Mr Alan “Elbows” Shearer and Mr Ian “Wrong’un” Wright.
But they can’t reasonably be classed as presenters.
Ottokring – they were published on their sixteenth birthday so taken some days or weeks prior…
For those who can remember as far back as Tracy Lords, her exhibitionist career was well established when she was allegedly still 15 – if not earlier.
The Daily Mail, which regularly publishes photos of teenagers in bikinis, has a borderline hysterical article, in which the mother of this lad / girl describes the horror of her 17 year old “child” stripping to his/her skimpies for cash. From the tone you’d think the poor thing was 11, not someone old enough to have sex, join the army etc etc.
This is tedious. Now the identity is not known. Pretty soon there will be a reveal. Then a pathetic mea culpa, apology and claim of mental health problems needing therapy. Maybe a trip to sex rehab. All over lousy judgment and a couple of pics that it should not be illegal to possess. It may be an offence against decency, but so what?
Given that the presenter has been taken off air they can’t exactly hide the identity. Sooner or later the process of elimination will produce the name.
Rhoda
I agree in itself it’s likely to be a big “So What”. However it’s also about double standards and the BBC’s never-ending gleeful pursuit of their ideological enemies for equally trivial offences. I suspect the only reason they’re telegraphing the fact that the presenter is about to be thrown under the bus is to retain some vestige of morality for the next time they go after someone.
I’m not bothered about the name of the presenter because it’s a penny to a pound that I will never have heard of the bugger.
Rhoda K, “a couple of pics that it should not be illegal to possess”.
But it currently is illegal to possess them. Perhaps in the future, the likes of J Saville and Rolf Harris will have found to be victims of the un-enlightened mores of the time……..but not now.
Personally I wouldn’t give a flying f either, but as noted by others, Al Beeb are gleeful to crucify anyone they don’t like when the opportunity arises, so make them live by their own rules when it is one of their own. Imagine what we would have seen on our screens if Don Jr had been the most interesting man in the world instead of Hunter…….
Those of us on the right / conservatives have played by the rules and tried not to enter the lefts’ world of nastiness, but look where it has got us……
I was hoping it would be Gary Lineker.
The facts as stated:
The “presenter” and child had continuing online interactions. That must be straightforward to confirm.
The “presenter” sent a total of £35,000 to the “child”. That must be straightforward to confirm.
The “child” sent pictures to the “presenter”. That must be straightforward to confirm.
The mother went to the BBC and the Sun.
Where are the police in this?
The Mum ought to be grateful that her child’s crack habit was generously funded by some bloke off the telly. The alternative would most likely have been the teenager sucking a dozen cocks a day or having away with the Royal Doulton.
BBC has an entire article about why the name can’t be revealed which is amusing as they don’t seem to apply the same reasoning at other times. As for the process of elimination the it’s not me’s have started all ready
@Baron Jackfield, they’re also breaking the law if one or both of them has a post-coital, um, better say ciggie, rather than fag.
Some Western countries have AoC at 15 or even 14. Legalising pr0n from those age groups has got to be morally outlandish, even aside from the legal complications about content sent internationally via the interwebs when AoC may differ between sender, recipient and the owner of the website or app. A global-ish rule of 18 has its advantages even if it does feel a bit incoherent when it’s close to but slightly above the AoC in countries like the UK.
Anon
Don’t like the idea of international regulation of AoC. Or indeed lots of other things. As I’ve said before, since I grew up during the collapse of the empire, I tend towards an anti-imperial outlook.
After all, we support gender changing surgery, but look down on the female genital mutilation that others consider desirable.
As for porn access problems, I’d argue that a simple warning message should be customary, eg ‘The lowest age of the participants in these videos is 12.’
@boganboy
My point is that if you want AoC to be set on a country by country basis that aligns with national culture / mores, you probably do want to disconnect it from the age for what counts as kiddy pr0n. Even if that creates anomalies like Tim pointed out. AoC can be very low in countries with “Romeo and Juliet laws” that allow teens to get it on provided the age gap is small. Countries with higher AoC aren’t likely to look favourably on excuses like “I’m sorry officer, I know she looks very young in these pics, but I honestly thought she’s from a country where 13 year olds are legal”.
Another problem with these stupid laws is someone with old copies of the Sun under a carpet, and / or a copy of Walkabout on VHS can be described by the police as being in possession of child pr0n.
TJ
And indeed, you’ve hit on another problem. Police around the world are generally quite stupid. The huge miscarriages of justice that were Operation Ore and Yewtree in this country bear evidence of that.
IIRC someone (in Oz?) was successfully prosecuted for being in possession of an image of The Simpsons children with drawn-on genitalia, as that was deemed child porn.
Lucky I never got that Blind Faith album. Which I see can be easily found on all the best encyclopedia websites. Am I in possession if I look on the screen? Or if it’s in my vinyl collection?
These laws are just stupid.
And another thing, while I’m on a rant. Do these laws trouble actual pornographers? Do anti-money laundering laws bother actual money-launderers? Does airport security do anything except piss me and a few million others off?
‘someone (in Oz?) was successfully prosecuted for being in possession of an image of The Simpsons children with drawn-on genitalia’
BiW. You do make me wonder what would happen if my dear niece should send me a picture of young Robbie in the bath. He’s two and a bit years old!!
@rhoda
Airport security theatre exists mostly to reassure passengers that it’s safe to fly.
Back on topic, I liked this on Guido:
https://image.vuukle.com/21414c90-8f1a-445b-989f-74a955755b28-205013fd-d49f-4c88-9062-3cb860378163