Lunacy

walshb

Is this what our 158 Euro is being spent on?

RTE pays out for expenses of sex abuser

ADVERTISEMENT





LARA BRADLEY

RTE paid for return flights from America and upmarket hotel accommodation in Dublin for the Late Late Show appearance of a convicted child abuser and paedophile.

But the station last night refused to give an exact figures for how much it cost to bring the controversial child sex abuser Jake Goldenflame to Dublin.

"No fee was paid to Jake Goldenflame for his appearance on the Late Late Show. As with any guest, his expenses were paid - that is, his hotel and flights and the expenses involved in getting him here. People appearing on the Late Late Show are usually looked after in this way."

And Late Late presenter Pat Kenny was also in trouble last night for his clumsy handling of the issue of child sex abuse.

RTE was swamped with complaints after Kenny dismissed Tim Allen's conviction for downloading 1,000 child porn images as "a hoo-hah" and a "tragedy" for the Allen family during an interview with celebrity chef Darina Allen last November.

Now a leading abuse victims charity is to lodge an official complaint with the RTE Authority over Mr Kenny's apparently soft handling of a convicted paedophile on Friday's show.

Mr Kenny was "not available" to comment yesterday on the victims group's complaints that his interview was "hurtful" and "grossly irresponsible". But an RTE spokesman said they were "100 per cent satisfied" with the interview.

Charity One in Four is "outraged" that American child molester Jake Goldenflame was allowed to make a number of "extraordinary" assertions without challenge on the show.

Mr Goldenflame admitted on the show that he had preyed on "countless" young boys and referred to his conviction for molesting his daughter, but he said incest was "different" from paedophilia and the issue was effectively dropped.

In fact, Mr Goldenflame abused his daughter for two years from the age of three to five when the child finally told her mother. He has previously admitted on e Oprah that he "fondled" his daughter and engaged in "oral copulation" with the infant. He told Ms Winfrey the abuse gave him an "intoxicating kind of power" and that he was working as a paralegal on child sex abuse cases at the time.

Mr Goldenflame was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, but served just five years. After receiving therapy and becoming a counsellor of other child abusers, the articulate 69-year-old legal attorney has become well-known in America where he makes regular TV appearances as a "paedophile pundit".

Mr Goldenflame is one of the few child abusers to speak publicly in support of a published register of sex offenders and he is regularly lauded in the American media for his "bravery" in speaking out.

But his RTE appearance was not so graciously received by Irish sex abuse victims. One in Four director Colm O'Gorman said: "While we believe that an appropriate and balanced discussion which seeks to explore the perpetration of sexual violence against children has considerable merit, we do not believe the Late Late is an appropriate forum for such a discussion."

The charity was particularly offended that the brief interview with Mr Goldenflame was followed by an interview with a comedian and then a male strip act. Mr O'Gorman said: "It was in appalling taste and displays scant appreciation of the sensitivity and delicacy required when dealing with the issue of child sexual abuse."

An RTE spokesman said: "The nature of the Late, Late Show is that it is a mixture of the heavy and the light. This wasn't a frothy show. Pat asked all the relevant questions and handled this extremely well."

But Mr O'Gorman does not agree. He said: "That Pat Kenny conducted such an interview without ensuring input from a professional, qualified and experienced therapist to challenge thedistortions of this convicted paedophile was grossly irresponsible."