Wonder with the news of Noel and resurfacing of John B's behaviour, what Russell T Davies has to say about this given how much in charge he was on the show. He'll have to say something about this at some point.
Ah yes. The DW set/production in Cardiff was known to be a pretty toxic workplace right from the off, as per its own first season lead. Christopher Ecclestone, who is on record as having quit because of the culture of bullying from the top down - and here's what should tell you something about how incestuous the industry is - was effectively blackballed in the UK for some years afterward for doing so and putting the BBC in a difficult position. The fish, as is often noted, rots from the head. As showrunner and overall Big Cheese, the atmosphere and overall standard of behaviour allowed on his set began and ended with RTD.
Very possibly RTD as a gay man may hace enjoyed John Barrowman's (a good looking gay man) propensity for indecent exposure, and his apparent love of getting his knob out and touching people with it non-consensually. Certainly RTD as showrunner did not put a stop to this behaviour, , or order cast not to talk publicly about this behaviour, suggesting RTD did not find this behaviour wrong. The implication when I heard this story discussed uears ago was that you would be considered a prude or a killjoy on that set if you did have a problem with Barrowman exposing himself an draping his cock on you without consent or warning (which again, is sexual assault in the real world and tells you a lot about the entertainment world that apparently it wasn't treated that way), because apparently it's supposed to be totally cool if a homosexual man does it as opposed to a straight man. For the record, I don't care which sex you want to fuck, I am disgusted by any man who does this and consider it outright sex offender stuff.
As noted upthread, Clarke's own poor sexual behaviour was handled NOT by RTD firing Clarke or putting him on strict orders to behave or else, but by asking the potential victims of his behaviour (production staff and hotel workers) not to 'accept his advances or encourage his behaviour' ... which is the most basic, sly form of both not wanting to handle a problem and subtle victim blaming. Oh, Noel Clarke groped you or harassed you for sex? Did you
encourage it, dear? Which century are we living in, again?
You're failing to understand just how difficult it is to "absolutely solidly prove it to be true"
You're showing yourself as someone who has no understanding of how difficult it is to get a conviction on these cases, how much the system already favours the predator, notice how your putting the victims on trial instead of the criminal, the current system was written by men, for men and until that changes this is the only was to expose these predators and protect other women from them. Stop contributing to rape culture. If the best way to get protection was to go to the police, women would do that, you don't know that they haven't, maybe they have and were told there was insufficient evidence. If you're teaching your son about consent you really don't need to be worrying about him being falsely accused because of the way the world is headed.....however the risk to your daughter is very real because of how the way the world currently is, that is a legitimate worry. Your son has a higher chance of being struck by lightning.
I just want to point out how difficult it was for anyone to get UK police to even LOOK at Ian Watkins.
Ian Watkins' propensity for underage sex, child sex abuse imagery collection and creation and outright baby rape was reported to the police by an ex-partner multiple times, the poor woman went back again and again over the course of four or five YEARS to report him for having child abuse material on his computers and what happened?
Nothing.
For years, she was treated as an ex with a grudge and police failed to investigate Watkins. After all, he was a big old male STAH, and women? Exes? Clearly are not to be trusted.
Now, remember, these are the same police who will knock down your door or say 'we have to investigate every complaint' in the case of say, certain mean tweets, which in reality hurt nothing but a few feelings. People have been harassed over a fucking limerick that peeved a trans activist, ffs.
Remember, what Watkins was being reported for was the most serious form of sexual offences possible. Yet those who reported him were essentially laughed out of the police station for years, all the while allowing Watkins to keep offending against children. Multiple police officers from multiple forces have now been investigated over this total lack of professionalism and integrity in this case of Ian Watkins.
Ian Watkins: Inquiry investigating eighth officer - BBC News
Ian Watkins child abuse: South Wales Police criticised - BBC News
Because the fact is that some women are not worthy of believing enough to start a legal investigation to get at the truth when the accused enjoys a certain level of celebrity status which can sometimes function as a shield both inside and outside the industry. Bear in mind Watkins; ex had actual hard evidence of Watkins desire to rape children (texts from him stating such) and the police refused to look at it.
The fact is, with certain people who commit offences, you need some level of evidence gathering via proper investigative methods (as opposed to a tabloid smear campaign), such as Ronan Farrow's in the case of Harvey Weinstein, to even begin a legal approach with any chance of success. Getting witnesses to go on the record legally (which will put you in danger of libel proceedings if you can be proven to be lying btw) can result in a dossier that can be handed to the correct authority to force them to do their jobs.
In Clarke's case, he may or may not be proven legally to have done things worthy of prosecution, or rather the CPS may or may not decide there is evidence enough to meet the prosecutorial standard. Much of what he's accused of isn't even a criminal offence (workplace bullying), but a pattern of behaviour that he's been getting away with for years that the industry has zero mechanisms to deal with and it's no bad thing if that is coming out given there's apparently zero recourse within the industry.
If the police are now going to look seriously at the parts of the story where actual criminal behaviour IS alleged (basically the groping, the collecting of naked images of women without consent and likely, some kind of revenge porn if he is found to have distributed or shared those images) well, that's not a bad thing in itself. What is a bad thing is that it takes a public journalistic investigation collating multiple instances of the same behaviour for this kind of stuff to even have chance of being taken seriously legally.
or a total shit who deserves to be cancelled.
