Posted on 01/12/2003 6:35:38 PM PST by ejdrapes
Cops can come and get me WHO star Pete Townshend last night told The Sun he wants cops to come into his home and check his computer for child porn. The rock legend, 57, admitted he had looked at porn sites three or four times after accidentally stumbling across one. He said he had been driven to see what sort of material they contained for research and out of anger at how easy they were to access. But in a world exclusive interview with The Sun, he insisted he was NOT a paedophile and that his actions had been “stupid” rather than sinister. The millionaire spoke out after it emerged at the weekend that a British rocker’s credit card details were on a list of subscribers to a vile website in Texas. The list, compiled by US authorities, included some 7,000 British names passed to police in this country. Townshend said: “I am not making any excuses. I am angry about child porn on the internet, and deeply wounded at the inference that I might be a paedophile. “I have looked at child porn sites maybe three or four times in all, the front pages and previews. “But I have only entered once using a credit card and I have never downloaded. With hindsight it was very foolish but I felt so angered about what was going on it blurred my judgement.” Townshend said he spoke to a lawyer friend about visiting the sites and had been advised to keep silent. He was outraged when he first came across them while surfing the Net with son Joseph, now 16, about six years ago. And he stressed: “I have never purchased any forms of child pornography or wished to own any. I saw the first awful photo by accident. It repelled me and shocked me to my very core. “I was not breaking the law at the time. This was in the winter of 1996/1997. It was then illegal to download, which I did not do, not to search and view. “I did not think using a credit card was illegal either at the time. As a public figure I would never have given details had I known I would be breaking UK law. “I need to regain the trust of police and authorities involved in protecting children to continue to use my energies and determination to help what they do.” Townshend, who believes he was abused himself as a little boy, went on: If my therapy revealed anything, it indicated that I might regard myself as the victim of paedophiles. I was stupid to try to deal with my anger about child porn on the internet alone. We must try to stop it but if we can’t do that we should invest our energy in helping victims of abuse. I believe I may have suffered some sexual abuse which makes me angry about all this stuff. If my celebrity has a value perhaps it is to get the reality of this problem once and for all back into the public mind. I’ve never been attracted to children. My own abuse is half-remembered, and I now think was probably at the hands of a male guest of my maternal grandmother when I was living with her while my parents tried to work out a marriage problem. The star applauded the arrest and jailing of pop figures Jonathan King, who preyed on teenage boys, and Gary Glitter, who had vile computer porn. He said: “Chasing after people like Gary Glitter and Jonathan King is important, and it is important that the police are able to convince themselves that — if I did anything illegal — I did it purely for research. I am not a paedophile.” Referring to Operation Ore, the huge police probe into the subscribers, he said: “I agree with what the police are doing. No, I did not expect to be targeted in their swoops. "Foolish of me, but not arrogant. I sincerely believed that the police would know my history as someone who works tirelessly to help the abused, and that since 1978 I have run a charity which has contributed millions to organisations working to prevent violence and abuse.” Townshend said he had received support from star pals including David Bowie, Jerry Hall, Bob Geldof and Bono. He also said he had spoken yesterday to Jackie Malton, formerly a Detective Chief Inspector based in London’s Fulham, with whom he discussed child pornography last October. He said: “She reminded me of our conversation and said she would be willing to speak to my lawyer or the police.” Townshend said that in the past he contacted the National Crime Squad and had hoped to work with Scotland Yard and the NSPCC to front a website warning of the Net dangers. This idea never got off the ground but Townshend revealed he would be willing to turn his back on his music career and dedicate the rest of his life to work against child abuse. He said: “I want to live my life, enjoy my family and continue with my work. “But if all I can do from now on is fight the sexual abuse of children, and to help those who become victims, well that wouldn’t be too bad a way of living the rest of my life.” Townshend said he looked at the porn sites as research for a book he is writing. He went on: Part of my story is about a young man who helps to invent a specially powerful version of the internet to raise spiritual awareness by using music. At heart I think the internet is a wonderful thing. But it is allowing child porn to be circulated freely around the world, crossing borders, allowing laws to be ignored, and there are real children behind the images, children like I was. I have not heard from the police yet. I am anxious that they can discriminate the man I am today from the young tearaway I used to be. Thanks Dominic for giving me this chance to speak. There was little movement around Townshend’s £15million mansion in Richmond, South West London, yesterday. Blinds stayed closed and his silver Mercedes ML55 remained in a lane. His ex-wife Karen, a 57-year-old music company director, refused to comment outside her home in nearby Twickenham. Last night pop experts warned Townshend might never recover from the incident. Chart guru Pete Waterman said: “It’s something you can’t live with. Even if he is totally innocent you’ve got the stigma.” Bob McLachlan, ex-head of Scotland Yard’s paedophilia unit, said Townshend would never be convicted unless police got hold of his computer. Mr McLachlan said claiming to be doing research was a “classic defence” of paedophiles. And attacking police delays in carrying out the investigation, he said there had been “adequate time and warning” to get rid of any evidence. Additional reporting by MIKE SULLIVAN and EMILY SMITH.
By DOMINIC MOHAN | Showbiz Editor
"He said he had been driven to see what sort of material they contained for research and out of anger at how easy they were to access."
Yes, and most people who buy Playboy do so for the articles...
Rock & Roll Part II
Yeah, unfortunately it's the same guy.
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