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Tom Humphries: Guilty of child abuse

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    #122
    ceadaoin.
    Registered Users Posts: 8,121 ✭✭✭ceadaoin.


    Is that really the most important thing to comment on when the person in question has been grooming an underage child? Poor guy, he's totally not a paedophile, just a silly easily led man. That he purposely groomed this girl over the course of tens of thousands of messages? That's not the important thing here, once he doesn't have his life ruined by inaccurate labels. Ffs


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    #123
    drunkmonkey
    Registered Users Posts: 28,119 ✭✭✭✭drunkmonkey


    ceadaoin. wrote: »
    Is that really the most important thing to comment on when the person in question has been grooming an underage child? Poor guy, he's totally not a paedophile, just a silly easily led man. That he purposely groomed this girl over the course of tens of thousands of messages? That's not the important thing here, once he doesn't have his life ruined by inaccurate labels. Ffs

    Will you please go look up the meaning of the language your using. He is not a paedophile.


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    #124
    ceadaoin.
    Registered Users Posts: 8,121 ✭✭✭ceadaoin.


    drunkmonkey wrote: »
    Will you please go look up the meaning of the language your using. He is not a paedophile.

    I don't need to look anything up thanks. I think you'll find I never said he was one. I'm talking about the people who rush in to point out that he isn't a paedophile, but have little comment to make about what he actually did. It's still grooming and child abuse. Just because his target was a teenager, doesn't mean he isn't a predator or that she led him on in any way

    I mean, if you think that people calling him a paedophile is the worst thing about this thread then you might want to re think your priorities tbh


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    #125
    Outlaw Pete
    Registered Users Posts: 10,423 ✭✭✭✭Outlaw Pete


    Candie wrote: »
    The attitude that other people have done worse, so it's not that bad. :(

    Nobody said such a thing nor implied it.
    I think the sentence was appropriate.

    He hasn't been sentenced.

    This thread is nuts.


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    #126
    keith_sixteen
    Closed Accounts Posts: 518 ✭✭✭keith_sixteen


    Ben Gadot wrote: »
    That's not to say I have a pitchfork out for the man. I hope he gets the help he needs and is allowed to live his life in peace eventually.

    Well your hope is as misplaced as a pitchfork would be. I have no hope for him, only for his victims.


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    #127
    Ben Gadot
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,767 ✭✭✭Ben Gadot


    keith_sixteen wrote: »
    Well your hope is as misplaced as a pitchfork would be. I have no hope for him, only for his victims.

    As per the other two paragraphs that you didn't quote, I've no sympathy for what Humphries faces in terms of sentence for the abuse he has subjected someone to who would have trusted him.

    However, it's in the interest of society to rehabilitate people like Humphries and certainly not in the interest of society that we let mobs deal out their own sense of justice. So yes I do hope he gets the help he needs and can carry on with his life once he has served his sentence.


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    #128
    Jobs OXO
    Closed Accounts Posts: 887 ✭✭✭Jobs OXO


    up for anything wrote: »
    If it were my 14/15 year old daughter he'd been grooming, he wouldn't have made it to prison and similarly if it were one of my sons at 14/15 and a middle-aged woman she wouldn't either. Kids of that age are not mature regardless of whether they think they are/were.

    What do you mean? You would favour a suspended sentence???


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    #129
    BillyBobBS
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,568 ✭✭✭BillyBobBS


    ceadaoin. wrote: »
    This.

    I've noticed a disturbing trend online of posters minimising grooming and child abuse in this manner. It's very disturbing

    Been one or two on this very thread :(

    Hope he's sent down for a long long time. Dangerous predators like that should have no place in society.


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    #130
    Mutant z
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,487 ✭✭✭Mutant z


    Good that this pervert will face justice for his heinous crime, these people are the scum of the earth.


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    #131
    retro:electro
    Registered Users Posts: 21,039 ✭✭✭✭retro:electro


    As someone who was groomed (but not abused) when she was 14 this story hits home with me. I really could not give two fcuks about the guy or what talent he had or how his life is now messed up. She was a young teen- he should have known better. What the fcuk was he thinking.
    She will have to live with this forever and the shame and embarrassment will never leave her. The poor girl.


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    #132
    Outlaw Pete
    Registered Users Posts: 10,423 ✭✭✭✭Outlaw Pete


    anna080 wrote: »
    She will have to live with this forever and the shame and embarrassment will never leave her. The poor girl.

    I know you mean well, anna, but I hate when I read people saying such things as I don't think it helps anyone. What if a young girl read that. It's so jarring for young girls to read that they will never be the same and that their life is ruined. I know you didn't say the latter part but I read it, and hear it, all the time but all it does is feed into this notion that if a young girl is groomed or abused, or both, that their life is ruined and that they will never be the same again and that needs not be the case. I have known lots of girls that were abused and have in fact had this very discussion with them and they too have told me that they feel how people treated them made it worse and in fact with regards to one girl I know, made her not report it.

    I don't mean we should act as if it's grand and sure they'll be grand, in the same manner you would a scuffed knee but it should be spoken about in a manner that makes it clear that anyone that does it is wrong, needs reporting and should be jailed but also without question society should also make sure that it's not generating and contributing all the time to the notion that children who are abused will never be the same and that they're lives are ruined.... as they may just read it and believe it.


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    #133
    retro:electro
    Registered Users Posts: 21,039 ✭✭✭✭retro:electro


    Outlaw Pete wrote: »
    I know you mean well, anna, but I hate when I read people saying such things as I don't think it helps anyone. What if a young girl read that. It's so jarring for young girls to read that they will never be the same and that their life is ruined. I know you didn't say the latter part but I read it, and hear it, all the time but all it does is feed into this notion that if a young girl is groomed or abused, or both, that their life is ruined and that they will never be the same again and that needs not be the case. I have known lots of girls that were abused and have in fact had this very discussion with them and they too have told me that they feel how people treated them made it worse and in fact with regards to one girl I know, made her not report it.

    I don't mean we should act as if it's grand and sure they'll be grand, in the same manner you would a scuffed knee but it should be spoken about in a manner that makes it clear that anyone that does it is wrong, needs reporting and should be jailed but also without question society should also make sure that it's not generating and contributing all the time to the notion that children who are abused will never be the same and that they're lives are ruined.... as they may just read it and believe it.

    I never said her life will be ruined. Hopefully with the right help and support she'll live a normal life and go on and do normal things and thrive.
    I said she will live with the shame and embarrassment forever- which she will. It will regurgitate when she reads or hears of cases like this, like it does with me. I'm not saying that just because I feel like this that all people who have been groomed will automatically feel the same- but there is shame attached and it's something I've noticed others say who've been through the same. Like I think back and go sh!t, what the fcuk happened there that all of that could even have happened, and you want the ground to open up and swallow you. I didnt realise what was happening was wrong, and when I was old enough to realise it was wrong I felt ashamed.
    I'm lucky that sending pics wasn't as common when I was 14 as it is now otherwise I'm sure I would have gotten into the very same situation as this girl.

    I hear what you're saying but it's important to be real about these things too.
    So what would you say? That we tell them they won't feel these things? And then when they feel shame and embarrassment they think it's not normal and that there's something wrong with them. No. It's perfectly normal to feel those things after something like that happens to you.


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    #134
    Creol1
    Registered Users Posts: 554 ✭✭✭Creol1


    Jim Bob Scratcher wrote: »
    No need to over scrutinize my post, I was merely making a point if it was a middle aged woman and a teenage boy there wouldn't even be a thread about it on here.

    Anyone remember this? And her "toyboy" was nineteen, so well over the age of consent.


    http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/film-tv/iris-robinsons-toyboy-kirk-mccambley-affair-to-be-retold-for-national-geographic-documentary-original-sin-34816557.html


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    #135
    Heisenberg1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,511 ✭✭✭Heisenberg1


    What a dirty scumbag I hope he rots in prison the sicko.

    As for some of the posts in this thread some how condoning his actions is unbelievable, I'm sure you would have a different opinion if it was your daughter that was abused.


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    #136
    Murrisk
    Closed Accounts Posts: 889 ✭✭✭Murrisk


    ceadaoin. wrote: »
    This.

    I've noticed a disturbing trend online of posters minimising grooming and child abuse in this manner. It's very disturbing

    Very, very disturbing. Especially when people who condemn the act of child grooming are portrayed by some as feminist, right-on pinkos. Like... what? WHAT??? When did child grooming become a thing people would want to in any way defend? And don't get me started on the blame being heaped upon the victim at times. The original thread on Adam Johnson was a thoroughly depressing read. The amount of "She knew what she was up to" and "She wasn't that young" commentary... sigh. :( Normally I'd say that those posters are only making themselves look bad but it makes me wonder if it's something that is seen as acceptable to more and more people in society as well as being very revealing of the feelings of many towards "fallen women" still.


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    #137
    osarusan
    Registered Users Posts: 16,562 ✭✭✭✭osarusan


    Absolutely brilliant writer, but he should have already been in prison for his oft-mentioned hatred of League of Ireland football.


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    #138
    SEPT 23 1989
    Registered Users Posts: 43,027 ✭✭✭✭SEPT 23 1989


    Fair play to the girls father for having the patience to involve the law

    If she was my daughter he would not be able to hold a pen again


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    #139
    Outlaw Pete
    Registered Users Posts: 10,423 ✭✭✭✭Outlaw Pete


    anna080 wrote: »
    I never said her life will be ruined.

    I know you didn't, which was I said:
    Outlaw Pete wrote: »
    I know you didn't say the latter part but I read it, and hear it, all the time...

    I said she will live with the shame and embarrassment forever- which she will.

    I don't agree.... she has nothing to feel ashamed for....and children that do feel ashamed, generally do so because society has made them feel as if they should feel a certain amount of shame. It's almost in the ether. I have known people that have taken their own lives because they were abused and so I'm not trivializing the impact it can have but I know for certain that these people struggled to cope as a direct result of how they were treated by family members and psychologists (directly after it was uncovered that they had been abused). I know because they made it damn well clear that they had.
    It will regurgitate when she reads or hears of cases like this, like it does with me. I'm not saying that just because I feel like this that all people who have been groomed will automatically feel the same- but there is shame attached and it's something I've noticed others say who've been through the same.

    Of course there is but we (society) are responsible for that. Children don't lick it off the grass as they say.
    I hear what you're saying but it's important to be real about these things too.
    So what would you say? That we tell them they won't feel these things?

    They are not inevitable is the point, depends on the level of abuse also. I remember reading Goldie Hawn's book and in it she spoke about how her daughter, Kate Hudson, came to her and matter of factly, but innocently, told her that she was being molested and Goldie immediately said something like 'Well, that shouldn't have happened as that person isn't supposed to do that and we'll make damn sure he don't again but if they do, you make sure and let us know, okay?' and that was that. Years later when they both discussed it Kate thanked her for what she did because she said she never thought of it after that, felt no shame, but that she had known other girls who had been similarly abused by their relatives and as is typical in the states they had been shipped off to shrinks and psychotherapists and their parents' reactions were generally taken on board by them and they generally went off the rails. Kids are sponges and if parents/society acts like a child's life is ruined and tainted, they pick up on it.

    Now in the hope of avoiding a strawman here, not by yourself, anna.... I am not suggesting that if a child is savagely raped well then all family members and society at large have to is act like it's no more than a bee sting and it's all grand.... obviously not Words are powerful is the point, particularly around kids, they follow our lead and for damn sure if they are abused then they will look to society to make sense of it.
    It's perfectly normal to feel those things after something like that happens to you.

    Upset, hurt and anger are normal, for sure, but feeling that you're ruined and destroyed and will never be right is not. I was beaten and bullied as a child by adults. It affects me to this day but I don't feel ashamed of it because society hasn't instilled a sense that I should feel shame about it. I don't feel my life is ruined over it either because again, I never got a sense that's what I, nor anyone else, should feel. I was raised in a world that doesn't blame kids for being bullied, they blame the bully. Much different with sexual abuse as there is this stigma that if you're molested that you're life is ruined and that you're broken irreparably. People speak about it with a sense of doom and tragedy that is second to none.

    Anyway, way off topic and most likely a discussion best had on a more appropriate thread, as doing so here will no doubt just result in some, if they haven't done so already, framing my views as if I am merely attempting to trivialize abuse.


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    #140
    Red_Wake
    Registered Users Posts: 1,571 ✭✭✭Red_Wake


    Amazing the number of people trying to rationalise what Humphries did, were he a priest the condemnation would be absolute.

    A vile indictment of modern Ireland that society still doesn't universally condemn such predators.

    Was Humphries involved in coaching at the GAA? If he was, it's worth investigating to ensure no abuse occurred there as well imo.


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    #141
    farmchoice
    Registered Users Posts: 1,026 ✭✭✭farmchoice


    Red_Wake wrote: »
    Amazing the number of people trying to rationalise what Humphries did, were he a priest the condemnation would be absolute.

    A vile indictment of modern Ireland that society still doesn't universally condemn such predators.

    Was Humphries involved in coaching at the GAA? If he was, it's worth investigating to ensure no abuse occurred there as well imo.

    if i recall correctly the girl in question played on the team he coached.


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    #142
    Red_Wake
    Registered Users Posts: 1,571 ✭✭✭Red_Wake


    farmchoice wrote: »
    Red_Wake wrote: »
    Amazing the number of people trying to rationalise what Humphries did, were he a priest the condemnation would be absolute.

    A vile indictment of modern Ireland that society still doesn't universally condemn such predators.

    Was Humphries involved in coaching at the GAA? If he was, it's worth investigating to ensure no abuse occurred there as well imo.

    if i recall correctly the girl in question played on the team he coached.
    I wonder if the club in question has put any safeguards in place to prevent such predators doing this again?

    Knowing the GAA, I doubt it.


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    #143
    farmchoice
    Registered Users Posts: 1,026 ✭✭✭farmchoice


    Red_Wake wrote: »
    I wonder if the club in question has put any safeguards in place to prevent such predators doing this again?

    Knowing the GAA, I doubt it.
    obviously you know absolutely nothing about the GAA.


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    #144
    drunkmonkey
    Registered Users Posts: 28,119 ✭✭✭✭drunkmonkey


    Red_Wake wrote: »
    I wonder if the club in question has put any safeguards in place to prevent such predators doing this again?

    Knowing the GAA, I doubt it.

    It's gone a bit mad, when putting up pictures of teams now they mix up the names to protect the kids. We've a real problem in this country that hasn't gone away it's still well and truly brushed under the carpet or sidestepped.
    Feck it put the kids name under the photos, can't live with this constant fear everywhere.


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    #145
    nice_guy80
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,723 ✭✭✭nice_guy80


    drunkmonkey wrote: »
    It's gone a bit mad, when putting up pictures of teams now they mix up the names to protect the kids. We've a real problem in this country that hasn't gone away it's still well and truly brushed under the carpet or sidestepped.
    Feck it put the kids name under the photos, can't live with this constant fear everywhere.

    we just don't put up any names. problem solved.

    GAA clubs in general have good child protection procedures and training (via county boards) in place


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    #146
    Snickers Man
    Registered Users Posts: 5,301 ✭✭✭Snickers Man


    Deleted User wrote: »
    A brilliant, utterly brilliant writer. He opened up worlds on that newspaper and was responsible for raising the standard of the entire sports department.

    As far as I see it if the man got 10 months or 10 years it's incidental. In our tiny society, his life is over. To have had so much respect, to have lost it all, and to face into every single day of the rest of your life conscious of that. Dead man walking. There are things we can all recover from - bankruptcy, addiction, broken marriage, cancer, etc - and then there is this. The man's name is worse than mud. You don't come back from this, ever. His life sentence began in 2011, and it won't end when he's physically released. Try live a day of your life without hope. Now try and find hope for this person's life after this. Nothing to gloat about here. Deeply saddening. Aside from the obvious destruction of two families, what an awful, awful waste.

    Think you said it all there. Not much to add. It's a very sad case all round. And justice must be served, but I would not want to ally myself with the "let 'im rot" tendency, some of whom are vocal here.

    The only point I would like to discuss further is what should now happen to his body of work? Some have suggested that it should be "disappeared" or at least removed from the Websites on which it appears. Someone has specifically mentioned that possibility with regard to the piece he wrote on child sexual abuse in sport.

    I think it would be a mistake to expunge his written output from history. His writing talent and output and his crime(s) are independent of each other. Or at least mostly. One of his, for me, most memorable pieces was probably informed by his knowledge of his own guilt and transgressions. It was one of the last pieces he wrote for The Irish Times before his crimes caught up with him and it's fascinating to read it with the hindsight of what we now know.

    It was about the death of Michaela Harte, daughter of Tyrone football manager Mickey Harte, and how the family might face into the future. I believe, although I am not certain, that the girl Humphries abused was a friend of his own daughter's and played with her on the camogie team that he coached. The piece, linked to below, has some poignant references to how much he envied Michaela's very obvious admiration for her own father. And given the timing, there was probably an awareness in his own mind that he would most likely fall very far short in terms of his relationship with his own daughters.

    Does his guilt, and our knowledge of that guilt, make the piece more or less valuable to the READER? I would suggest the former. I hope his written work endures, while not attempting to minimise the gravity of the crimes to which he has admitted and for which he has been convicted.

    Humphries on Harte


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    #147
    drunkmonkey
    Registered Users Posts: 28,119 ✭✭✭✭drunkmonkey


    nice_guy80 wrote: »
    we just don't put up any names. problem solved.

    GAA clubs in general have good child protection procedures and training (via county boards) in place

    That's nearly worse, how will history know who they were. I find it unbelievable it's come to this that people are afraid to put the names up.
    I'm guilty of it as well, I said I don't want my young kids photos up on Facebook when the creche looked for permission, what was their solution now when there's a class photo my children are taken away so there not in the picture at all. I don't know whether I'm protecting them are depriving them. Its a ****ty position to put parents in either your kids go on Facebook or you never get a class photo.


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    #148
    farmchoice
    Registered Users Posts: 1,026 ✭✭✭farmchoice


    drunkmonkey wrote: »
    That's nearly worse, how will history know who they were. I find it unbelievable it's come to this that people are afraid to put the names up.
    I'm guilty of it as well, I said I don't want my young kids photos up on Facebook when the creche looked for permission, what was their solution now when there's a class photo my children are taken away so there not in the picture at all. I don't know whether I'm protecting them are depriving them. Its a ****ty position to put parents in either your kids go on Facebook or you never get a class photo.
    i assume team pics that go up on the clubhouse wall or school wall will have names etc but not on Facebook, but you're right its a sad state of affairs that it has come to this and of course in reality it probably protects no one


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    #149
    robbiezero
    Registered Users Posts: 4,354 ✭✭✭robbiezero


    Seems a bit much alright. Has there been many cases of paedophiles looking up random kids on facebook?
    I would have thought it was mostly people that they know or come into actual contact with, would be far more likely to be a danger.


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    #150
    Red_Wake
    Registered Users Posts: 1,571 ✭✭✭Red_Wake


    nice_guy80 wrote: »
    drunkmonkey wrote: »
    It's gone a bit mad, when putting up pictures of teams now they mix up the names to protect the kids. We've a real problem in this country that hasn't gone away it's still well and truly brushed under the carpet or sidestepped.
    Feck it put the kids name under the photos, can't live with this constant fear everywhere.

    we just don't put up any names. problem solved.

    GAA clubs in general have good child protection procedures and training (via county boards) in place

    Were these in place at the time of Humphries' acts?


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    #151
    Skylinehead
    Registered Users Posts: 11,690 ✭✭✭✭Skylinehead


    Outlaw Pete wrote: »
    This thread is nuts.
    ****e like this certainly doesn't help
    Outlaw Pete wrote: »
    Can you link to where I said it was an onslaught please. Thanks.



    Can you link to where I said it was the consensus please. Thanks.


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