Star of Help jailed over child porn

Maidstone, Kent

September 15, 2007 - 12:37PM

Actor Chris Langham was jailed for 10 months today after being found guilty of downloading child pornography from the Internet.

The award-winning comedian and star of the BBC's "The Thick of It" was convicted of 15 child pornography offences last month.

At his family home in Kent, the 58-year-old father-of-five watched Internet videos of young girls being sexually abused and tortured.

One of the films showed a British girl aged eight, tied up and blindfolded, being abused by her father, police said. She has since been traced and removed from harm.

Passing sentence, Judge Philip Statman said: "Without people who are willing to pay for images over the Internet, those who film these despicable acts and viciously exploit these children would have a much-restricted market place.

"You always had a choice, which is more than those children had. With a push of the button all of those images could have easily been deleted."

Wearing a grey suit and looking frail and drawn, Langham waved and blew kisses to his friends and family as he was led from the dock. He will serve five months in jail.

Outside Maidstone Crown Court, Detective Superintendent David Shipley, of Kent Police, said the downloaded videoes and stills showed "despicable" child abuse.

"The judge recognised that people like Mr Langham are fuelling the abuse of children around the world," he said.

During the trial, the jury was instructed to find Langham not guilty of indecently assaulting a teenager.

The woman, now in her 20s, came forward after a police raid on Langham's home. She told the court she had lost her virginity to Langham when she was 14.

Giving evidence, Langham said he downloaded the images and videos when researching a character for a BBC comedy.

He said he had developed a paedophile character called Pedro with the catchphrase "I'm only a minor offender".

He also told the court that he had been abused himself as a child and wanted to "look into the eyes" of adult abusers on the Internet.

He said he had been "arrogant" for looking at child porn on his computer and said he realised there was no excuse.

Describing himself as "depressingly normal" for a man of his age, he told the court he regularly looked at adult porn on the Internet.

He was arrested in November 2005 during Operation Ore, a huge police investigation into British users of American child pornography websites.

Detectives found child pornography on two computers and a spare hard drive.

REUTERS

What do you think ?

Don't know this bloke at all so no opinion either way on his credibility. On the basis of the evidence in the article, would you give him the benefit of the doubt or not ? These people are often skilled liars. Could a man with 5 kids go undetected for so long ? "Detectives found child pornography on two computers and a spare hard drive" seems damning.

Should watching the child abuse be a punishable offense ? I think it should, for the reason given in the article - demand fuels supply - even though I am uneasy about censorship in general.

Also, can this judgement have any deterrent effect ?

Two computers & a spare hard drive, but he's just watching it for research purposes? Give me a break. Research purposes would be looking at it once & becoming so sickened you never go near the sites again. How many of us, obviously with no interest in child pornography, could watch scenes like that & go back for more?

Abused children are more likely to become abusers. Fact. His past is tragic, but it's not a defence. This guy needs help, and let's hope viewing was all he was doing.

I wonder how many Internet viewers are just interested in what all the fuss is about, rather than being attracted to children themselves. How many people watch the Muslim beheading videos just out of curiosity? The media promote this sick stuff by talking about it so much.

There is probably a group like that as well, but then you don't need 2 computers and a spare hard drive. Doesn't sound very convincing, doesn't it?

There is probably a group like that as well, but then you don't need 2 computers and a spare hard drive. Doesn't sound very convincing, doesn't it?

No, it doesn' t ... and if he thinks so, he's in deep denial ?

It is indeed true that those who have been abused will continue to abuse others, but is there a case that he is trying to work through his own issues ? I see that as possible, though the court has deemed his motivation to be otherwise.

All up, I think the court is right. Should he be punished, though, or sent to a psychiatrist ?

The media promote this sick stuff by talking about it so much.

Would you prefer it was kept hidden ?

The media promote this sick stuff by talking about it so much.

Would you prefer it was kept hidden ?

Doesn't that depend on HOW the media is talking about this subject? 'They' often just love sensation, which is IMHO in cases such as child porno and abuse highly inappropriate.

The media promote this sick stuff by talking about it so much.

Would you prefer it was kept hidden ?

Doesn't that depend on HOW the media is talking about this subject? 'They' often just love sensation, which is IMHO in cases such as child porno and abuse highly inappropriate.

Of course, but at the same time, how else would the general public gain awareness of these issues ? I have to say this kind of thing is way beyond anything I might have imagined could happen ... everyday people need their eyes opened, surely ?

A Highly intelligent and well read person like Langham would know full well that he was committing a criminal act by watching and keeping such images on his computer, but like so many others before him, he was so arrogant as to believe he wouldn't get caught.

The 'research' excuse has been used over and over again by convicted paedophiles, and carries no credence whatsoever.

5 months in jail is far too short for an animal like Langham.

3 pictures spread over 2 computers and a spare drive would give the description the article gave.

Larger volumes normally has the journalist ("he had 15 000 pictures") very carefully writing it out in hard numbers.

The charge was making 15 indecent images of a child, the legalese meaning there were at least 15 images, and during the trial some were identified as video clips up to 6 minutes in length. This is a very odd case in almost every respect, including charges against him made by a young woman, of which he was cleared by the jury.

Link the previous stories links give more background on this.

Regards

PS Ultimately I'm really not sure about it, is he a paedophile? I'm not convinced, but the possession of the images is a crime of itself and for that he was found guilty.

PPS Eek, the edit function is time limited, I think it's about 20 minutes.

He is guilty and actually deserves more time in jail. 10 months and he will probably serve 5? Not good enough.

Also sad is the fact that he is a fine comic actor who will never work again. I just hope he will not turn into another Gary Glitter!

Itty Bitty, just hit the report button on your post and ask the Mods to delete it.

Eek, I really admire you for telling us about your abuse as a child. I experienced non-sexual bullying a couple of times that still grates on me on occasions after 50 years. I couldn't begin to imagine living with something like what happened to you.

Back to the OP, I think that your genuine pedophile is beyond treatment, any diversion from the popular conception of sexual normality is considered normal by those that practice it and is subsequently untreatable.

I read a while back about Pete Townshend being caught with a link to child porn on his website. Do some of these high profile guys get bored with adult women? Is it innocence of the mind they seek after decades of groupies and highly experienced wives? To be in full control of a sexual experience?

Paul Gadd aka Gary Glitter springs to mind here.

Maybe Langham, as a successful entertainer, falls into this category. The story I read was that he had a massive collection of adult porn; was the kiddie porn there as an addendum to the rest? It seems strange to me that a dedicated pedophile would collect images of a couple of middle aged lesbians getting it on.

Well, whatever the reasons he's paying for it now and his wife and kids are paying as well.

The thing with peodophiles is they dont seem to understand that a child is incapable of sexual desire/urge

Actually, this is a fallacy. Some children have sexual urges from a very young age - I would guess most of them - and pedophiles know this better than you and I.

My very first memory is looking up from my crib and feeling "in love" with one of the women who worked at the nursery that used to take care of us when we were children. Shortly after, I can remember constantly sliding down the fire pole and the poles that held the slide up while fantasizing about my nursery school teachers.

In retrospect, I was horny almost from birth and masturbating every day from the age of 5 years old.

This doesn't give an adult the right to take advantage of children, but it is one way that they justify it to themselves.

In retrospect, I was horny almost from birth and masturbating every day from the age of 5 years old.

General, that is far, far too much information for those of us who have just finished breakfast.

I agree, but it is pertinent to certain things that have been said earlier in the thread.

Ever considered that you might not have been a run-of-the-mill child, UG? Not meaning anything bad there, but I certainly wasn't having those feelings and experiences in early childhood. Maybe I wasn't normal, who knows? I think, in general, most of us consider children not to be sexual beings.

Yes, I have, and I've talked with a lot of other people about their experiences and most did not have, or will not admit having these feelings at that young an age. However, I know that my best friends back then were thinking and doing similar things because we would talk about wanting to rub our weenies against little girls and older women and sometimes "stimulate" ourselves in the same room.

I'm not really sure if we were that unusual, compared to other kids, or if I'm just more willing to admit my weirdnesses.

Opinion piece from The Times :

August 4, 2007

Langham: a victim of gross injustice

Our columnist finds a familiar mix of greed and a ravenous media

Carol Sarler

It is, I grant you, a plea likely to fall upon a deaf national ear: that Chris Langham, acknowledged enthusiast of grotesque imagery of children, is in fact a victim of injustice. When a man has just been found guilty of downloading abusive pornography, thus surely establishing himself as — at least — a sleazy fool, it is tempting to decide that nobody should care further; throwing away the key, indeed, becomes attractive.

Nevertheless, if we are to consider the charges upon which he was convicted, it is only right to consider the greater charge upon which he was not: the sexual assault of a teenage girl. To anyone who followed the trial, it was obvious from the start that she, now an adult woman of 25, was selling fantasies at best or porkies at worst; no jury was ever going to buy them and it would be astonishing if the police and the Crown Prosecution Service did not know that. It is fair, then, to ask why they brought the assault case at all – and to conclude that, on the evidence available, it was cynical manipulation designed to guarantee a hostile jury for the other charges.

Her testimony would not prove her own claims. But it would ensure that the jury was exposed to a drip-drip recitation of “grooming” and “underage” and “paedophile”; they would hear an admission by the defendant of sex when he was 50 and she 18 — not illegal, but adding to the pervy feel; they would be told that her evidence supported the proposition that Langham had a generally unhealthy interest in young girls (if that were a pattern in his life, where are the others?) — and, most of all, it would beget a useful blurring of the otherwise mitigating distinction between looking and touching.

For the police, especially in succulent cases involving the famous, it is increasingly easy to find such a handy helpmate. It starts with trawl by avid media: make sure that when Pete Townshend is driven off, the paparazzi are at hand; when Jonathan King is questioned over allegations subsequently withdrawn, it is leaked to the tabloids; when Matthew Kelly is arrested, it happens in a filled theatre; when Chris Langham is charged, it coincides with an awards ceremony where he was tipped, correctly, to win.

The rest takes care of itself: out from the woodwork crawl the snipers and the vipers, each busting guts to help the CPS to bolster potentially wobbly prosecutions. Facts don’t come into it. The nature of most of these cases means no witnesses, no evidence, no forensics; allegations are frequently carbon-dated – King’s went back 30 years, as did Kelly’s, and Langham’s nearly a decade – so one word against another is all there is. If the anonymous accuser is not believed, he or she has lost little but time and theatrics; if he or she is, the rewards are great and, crucially, calculable before the trial begins.

Criminal compensation is awarded according to published tariff; you can actually look it up to see how much for oral sex, how much for intercourse, how much for buggery — so if there is to be no supporting evidence anyway, the incentive is clearly to go for broke. Meanwhile, agent purveyors can tell you, in advance and to the penny, the eventual return for waiving anonymity and flogging the sorry tale to a panting Sunday rag . . . if, that is, you manage to be convincing enough in court. Langham’s friend failed to be; the next one might.

The bigger pity, of course, is not just that a minx makes money. It is that in this mutually back-scratching collusion of interests, between alleged victim and instruments of prosecution, it is truth that is the first casualty. And anyone who thinks that the greater good is still served by helping to lock away a bad or weak or troubled man like Langham might spare a second thought for someone like Kelly: wholly vindicated, on all counts, yet with his life and career savaged. He said at the time: “If you don’t have your name, you don’t have anything”; today, four years on, friends say he will ache for the rest of his life.

Is there a simple answer? I wish. But we might start by addressing what is an elemental, systematic problem in this area of justice. Perhaps we revisit the idea of anonymity for the accused, under which Langham would still be forever remembered for pornography but not, as he surely now will be, also as a rape suspect.

Perhaps we relax the rigidity of fixed compensation tariffs, leaving more flexibility for a judge who knows a chancer when he meets one. Perhaps we beef up the rules on chequebook journalism, including hurling bricks upon any hint of a “deal”, on or off record, before trial. Most of all, we should stop the bundling of dissimilar charges; viewing pornography has nothing to do with sexual assault, and nobody is served by pretending otherwise.

Next time the lawyers of the CPS have a witness such as the woman who testified against Langham, let them prosecute if they think they can win in a stand-alone trial. Failing that, they — and she — should button a lip; the notion that ends justify means might have visceral appeal, but it has no place in law.

Nonetheless, it was pornography in which children were abused. Would he have had to pay for those images, directly or indirectly (advertising on websites) ? I still have to agree that he was fuelling the demand.

Have the police traced back to where the images originated? Some obviously, because it is reported that a child has been taken out of an abusive situation.

But the most important thing is to catch the suppliers, the perpetrators, as well as the down-loaders. And give them life.

Yes, I have, and I've talked with a lot of other people about their experiences and most did not have, or will not admit having these feelings at that young an age. However, I know that my best friends back then were thinking and doing similar things because we would talk about wanting to rub our weenies against little girls and older women and sometimes "stimulate" ourselves in the same room.

I'm not really sure if we were that unusual, compared to other kids, or if I'm just more willing to admit my weirdnesses.

No no, your not weird UG, not at all (well maybe you are, but not in this case ) I wasnt really clear in what i was trying to say. I mean more on an emotional level. A lot of children do play with themselves because its a nice sensation, its normal. Its also important that parents dont scold them for this, rather just distract then if necessary by giving them something else to focus on. Children enjoy it in the same way they enjoy many sensations, its innocent, and naive. I am trying to say they are not sexual beings in the adult sense. If it feels good then of course they want to touch, but its not the same kind of developed sexual feelings one has as an adult. Its certainly not an invitation for adults to engage in any kind sexual act with them.

Its certainly not an invitation for adults to engage in any kind sexual act with them.

I agree with this completely, but, on the other hand, even as a child, I fantasized about adults and other children constantly. I wanted to shag my freind's mothers and sisters and grandmothers; almost any female that I knew. If a lady of any age had capitulated to my desires, it certainly wouldn't have been something that I ever held against them or wanted them to go to prison for. I would have considered it to be my choice.

What I wonder is, who is responsible when a gay child has these kinds of desires for older men and ends up getting poked in the fanny? Should the guy who does it go to jail for life and become a despised outcast from society?

^ There was one case not long ago in OZ where a 26 year old female school teacher was convicted of (statutory) raping a 15 year old student, the boys mother pursued the case.

I'm not sure what to think about that... seems kinda wrong

What I wonder is, who is responsible when a gay child has these kinds of desires for older men and ends up getting poked in the fanny? Should the guy who does it go to jail for life and become a despised outcast from society?

Not quite with you there, i thought fanny meant...

^ There was one case not long ago in OZ where a 26 year old female school teacher was convicted of (statutory) raping a 15 year old student, the boys mother pursued the case.

I'm not sure what to think about that... seems kinda wrong

What I wonder is, who is responsible when a gay child has these kinds of desires for older men and ends up getting poked in the fanny? Should the guy who does it go to jail for life and become a despised outcast from society?

Not quite with you there, i thought fanny meant...

I bet that boy never felt anything bad until they forbid him from seeing her again.

"Fanny" means the bottom or buttocks in American English.

A child / young teenager cannot understand the meaning & consequences of sexual activity. If a child/teen showed interest in sexual contact, a responsible adult would not respond sexually (and would certainly not initiate such contact).

Showing "unusual" interest in sex is one sign of sexual abuse in a child.

Showing "unusual" interest in sex is one sign of sexual abuse in a child.

Well, I was BORN interested in sex, and no one ever abused me.

"Fanny" means the bottom or buttocks in American English.

where I come from it means the front door, anyways, mental note made.

What I wonder is, who is responsible when a gay child has these kinds of desires for older men and ends up getting poked in the fanny? Should the guy who does it go to jail for life and become a despised outcast from society?

back to your question, imagine a gay version of you UG , say he was 7 years old and "ready for it" - I hesitate to even use that phrase - hel_l yes, the man should go to jail.

A child / young teenager cannot understand the meaning & consequences of sexual activity.

A blanket-statement thrown around by a lot of people without any basis in litterature.

Let's not forget, age of concent is a Victorian heritage. A lot of our kings, forfathers and religios icons married or had relations with people far younger than you could today without going to jail for a very-very long time.

Well, I was BORN interested in sex

I guess most of us are, in an innate sense, but when and how adults should/should act not upon that interest is the issue here.

What I wonder is, who is responsible when a gay child has these kinds of desires for older men and ends up getting poked in the fanny?

In my mind, the adult is - unquestionably - responsible. However, it might be argued that any adult who commits such an act is emotionally unequipped to live as an adult with adult responsibilities. What then ? Prison/other security - to keep this person from doing further harm ? Treatment - will it work ?