Web watchdog condemns rock star
Sunday, January 12, 2003 Posted: 10:57 AM EST (1557 GMT)
Townshend: "I think I may have been sexually abused as a child and I was doing research into it"
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LONDON, England -- An Internet watchdog has described British rock guitarist Pete Townshend as "incredibly foolhardy, naive and misguided" to enter a website advertising child pornography.
Townshend admitted paying to enter a site as research, but denied been a paedophile. (Story)
The 57-year-old star, who said that he had only done so "purely to see what was there", issued a frank admission on Saturday confirming that he had used his credit card on one occasion to access a site.
Townshend, who is married with children, said: "To fight against paedophilia, you have to know what's out there.
"I've been in touch with Scotland Yard to tell them what I was doing. I have contacted them but no police officers have contacted me.
"I am waiting for the police to talk to me but they haven't been round. I was worried this might happen and I think this could be the most damaging thing to my career."
But campaigners condemned his actions as "wrong-headed and illegal" and described his explanation as "no excuse."
Mark Stephens, a lawyer with Finers Stephens Innocent who founded the Internet Watch Foundation, told the Press Association: "It is OK to lobby. There are many high-profile individuals who fight against child pornography.
"But it is wrong-headed, misguided and illegal to look at or download or even to pay to download paedophiliac material and if you do so, you are likely to go to prison.
"Pete Townshend has admitted a criminal offence and this goes to mitigation and it's a matter for a court to accept if he was merely doing research or something worse."
In his statement, The Who star said: "I am not a paedophile. I have never entered chat rooms on the Internet to converse with children.
"I have, to the contrary, been shocked, angry and vocal (especially on my website) about the explosion of advertised paedophilic images on the Internet." (Statement)
He added: "I have been writing my childhood autobiography for the past seven years.
"I believe I was sexually abused between the age of five and six and a half when in the care of my maternal grandmother, who was mentally ill at the time.
"I cannot remember clearly what happened, but my creative work tends to throw up nasty shadows -- particularly in Tommy." (Profile)
Under UK law, it is a criminal offence for anyone to possess indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children.
But an accused person has a defence if he can show that he had a legitimate reason for having the picture.
He also has a defence if he can show that he had not seen the picture and did not know that it was indecent, or that it was sent to him although no request had been made by him or on his behalf, and he had not kept the picture for an unreasonable time.
Prosecutions for the offence, created in section 160 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, may only be brought by or with the permission of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The maximum penalty is five years in prison, or a fine, or both, if a defendant is convicted by a jury. The law defines a child as being someone under the age of 16.