I don't want to believe it!

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Having just skimmed through the Sun (shame on me, but it is early) I found an article on page 29 which has shocked me deeply (due to the content and who is involved).
One of 2000ad's artists is up in court on charges, now he's not been charged and I hope he's found innocent but he's in court nevertheless. I'm not going to go into the charges as you'll find out what they are when you search for the story.

I suppose this post can be deleated by the powers that be but the story is now out in the public domain and we are mostly all adults. If it doesn't get deleated then it might start a debate about the press and the releasing of names from court cases before any verdict is reached. As I said I hope this person is innocent but he could be forever tarnished even if he is.

[JOE SOAP]

Speechless.

[Pete Wells]

Aw maaan, that's awful. Let's hope this stays fairly low key in the media 'till our man is hopefully proven innocent.

[Buttonman]

I  agree, I hate it when it says Joe Bloggs of 42 High Street was cleared of raping Miss X who made the whole thing up and whose identity is being kept secret.

The Sun does a similar job of anticipating the verdict itself :

"*******acted out a string of sick fantasies in the guise of "teaching" her - even role-playing a knifepoint rape, Guildford Crown Court heard. "

"The trial continues. "

How those two sentences can appear in the same story escapes me.

As a card carrying law and order fan I can only hope that justice prevails, although how you prove something didn't happen 20 years ago is always going to be a big ask.

[DavidXBrunt]

So come on, name names.

[Pete Wells]

How those two sentences can appear in the same story escapes me.

I'm with you there BM.

I worked in a wonderful special school for 10 years with amazing, caring and truly exceptional staff. During that time there were four occasions where staff were given temporary 'gardening leave' while minor (and in all cases, absolutely ridiculous) incidents were investigated. Every single time the scumbag local press got a hold of the stories and every single time they warped or embellished the facts to make the story sound as sensational and negative as possible. Thankfully, the staff members were never named but it was always very upsetting for everyone who knew and cared for these people.

I never believe this sort of shit when I read it.

[TordelBack]

That's bloody rough whichever way the verdict goes, and the wording of the Sun report is, as always, reprehensible.  How do you even begin to make sense of the truth or otherwise of these type of events from 20 years ago?  Just awful news.

[uncle fester]

Thing is, he can be cleared of all charges down the line and people will still point fingers. Mud sticks when it comes to this sort of accusation. Bad news.

[LARF]

Oh god - never would have thought it would be him!

It's on the Sun website do a search for comic artist...

[Van Dom]

Im in shock.

[Richmond Clements]

Oh fuck right off!

[Jim_Campbell]

Oh fuck right off!

The defence rests, m'lud.

[Richmond Clements]

Oh fuck right off!

The defence rests, m'lud.

I think I missed me calling when I didn't study law...

[Proudhuff]

In cases like these no names should be used at all, only, only if a guilty verdict is reached then names used.
From the little on-line about this there is no way you could know who is the victim here, we haven't heard the evidence so  we shouldn't judge.

[Peter Wolf]

Is the defendant innocent until proven guilty or the other way around ?

You can always tell with the Sun that its the latter.

They dont even use the word allegation as if its a foregone conclusion.

I wonder who tipped off the Sun anyway ?



I think it must be the fact that a 13 yr old child was *allegedly* involved that turns them on otherwise they would not have been interested in covering the story.

There was another story featured that has the line "Ron defends his strip".