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Underground > Radio & Music >

Peter 'File' Townshend waves goodbye to his career

15:08 / 11.01.03

BBC news story here.

So, Pete Townsend has admitted paying to see a child porn website - but just to 'see what was there.'

He claims he is not a paedophile, but was carrying out research. However, he adds that adult porn has been a 'long-time' interest.

Oddly, he has admitted this himself - albeit with a Daily Mail story hinting at, but not naming, a rock star being involved with an FBI probe.

Thoughts?

15:48 / 11.01.03

Oh, shit.

Stupid, stupid move.

But in all honesty, until there's any further evidence, I'm inclined to take Pete's claim at face value.

Pete's relationship to his own sexuality is a tortured one: he has constantly and consistently (over)analyzed himself and his own motives for everything he's ever done, has claimed at various times to be straight, straight-pretending-to-be-gay, bi-curious, bisexual, gay, straight again...

Quite frankly, checking out a child porn site out of morbid curiosity (about himself, as much as anything) sounds like exactly the sort of thing Pete would do.

Doesn't make it okay, though. I mean, I've always wondered what it would be like to kill someone: doesn't mean I can do it and then excuse it as "research."

16:55 / 11.01.03

Edited highlights of the full story (all bolds mine):

...The Who guitarist and song-writer did admit studying child pornography for research into a campaign against it. He told reporters on Saturday that he told police what he was doing.

[Towneshend said] "To fight against paedophilia, you have to know what's out there. I have been involved in a campaign against paedophilia on the Internet but it fizzled out. I think I may have been sexually abused as a child and I was doing research into it. .... 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."

17:13 / 11.01.03

Wow. That topic abstract is pretty harsh. Give the man a chance. I've just seen a news report on this and had a row with my mother, who also should know better. The media in the UK have been on a paedophile witch hunt for some time now. Townsend may, just may, be telling the truth, in that he's writing his autobiography and is trying to figure out if he was abused as a child. It may be bullshit, but don't condemn him just yet. If any of you have been accused of really nasty stuff that you haven't done - which has happened to me - you'll know how dreadful it is when people don't listen to your side of the story.

19:08 / 11.01.03

You're all contributing to a thread that discussing 'podiophiles' which of course, in the eyes of the NME, makes you all racists (eh?)

IMHO All I can say that if Pete Townshend's excuse is a genuine one, it still rates as possibly one of the dumbest things he's ever done. Either way adopts Jabba voice: "You tabloid fodder now! ho, ho, ho!". Never mind, perhaps the tabloids will take out mind off the grim stuff with a stunning pic of Charlotte Church (when she was 15).

Strange Machine Vs The Virus with Shoes

01:24 / 12.01.03

I just can’t help thinking that ignorance is no excuse. He should know the stigma attached to this kind of stuff.
If he has the evidence, let him show it. This type of stuff is very disturbing; he has no official capacity to launch a paedophile investigation, does he think he is god?

02:11 / 12.01.03

He knows a lot about Sean Connery!

Strange Machine Vs The Virus with Shoes

02:45 / 12.01.03

I think that if anything is going to discredit allegations of peodphilia, it is a knowledge of Sean Connery.

09:45 / 12.01.03

i would say 'knowledge' of mr connery is grounds for arrest in most countries... wether he was of age or not.

10:43 / 12.01.03

I'm with Jack Fear on this one.

After all, if one is to learn, why not learn from them? (Although it got him arrested)

13:16 / 12.01.03

I stand by the topic abstract.

While giving Pete the chance to have his say before the tabloids set upon him, I still think his pre-emptive attempt to deny a story which hadn't even broken yet was a very silly move.

I'm not suggesting that Pete is a paedophile in any way; and the fact he is willing to come out fighting in such a way suggests that either he is not, or he has major, major front to me. I'm still uneasy with the statement - which has a lot of bits which don't seem to ring true - but I am not, repeat not, attacking Townshend for being a Paedo.

I am just suggesting the way in which he is handling this situation is very, very risky.

That said, the News of the World's headline - which I was dreading, it being the paediatrician-attacker's paper of choice - was 'I'm No Glitter, Says Pete' or similar, so I may be wrong. But I will remain convinced that Pete could have handled this far better than he has - innocent or otherwise.

14:27 / 12.01.03

bloody hysterical witchhunting crap.. I too align myself with what Mr. Fear says..

16:03 / 12.01.03

Mr Townshend understands this only too well it seems...

"I haven't been charged with anything....but I think I'm fucked"

lord nuneaton savage

17:24 / 12.01.03

Does this mean I'll have to stop listening to Substitute? I'll always be inclined to trust Pete Townshend, he's a bit of a God 'round my manor.

18:16 / 12.01.03

BBC quote the Internet Watch Foundation.

Vice chairman Mark Stephens said: "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," said vice chairman Mark Stephens.

He said Mr Townshend had admitted a criminal offence, and if he was prosecuted it would be for the court to decide his motives in doing so.

Chairman Stephens, in his hurry to disassociate IWF from Townsend, neglects to point out that his organisation has no more of a mandate than the pop star, and rules that even researching academics aren't clever enough to look at kiddie porn. It's illegal, yes (and of course it should be), but criticisms such as "wrong-headed" are surely out of his remit.

Yes, a witch hunt indeed, complete with a Witchfinder General. If this wasn't about paedophile sites but about, say, white supremacy sites, the issue would be that of Townsend's privacy.

15:35 / 13.01.03

I've never been very comfortable with the idea of looking at something being illegal. Paying for it, yes. That funds the people who do the actually immoral bit - which is taking the pictures of children and distributing those pictures. But it seems to me highly questionable practice to make looking at or reading something illegal, no matter what it is...

16:01 / 13.01.03

Tom, now you mention it, I think you're right.

And this case opens up a technological conundrum. Via the web, how does one look at a file without actually "possessing" it on one's own machine? I don't think it's possible, is it?

Whereas, if one were to look at a printed copy owned by someone else, the distinction would be more easily made.

18:01 / 13.01.03

Oh, shit.

Breaking news on CNN (no workable link yet): Pete's just been arrested.

18:05 / 13.01.03

First reports up here.

"Townshend, 57, was arrested at his London home on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children, suspicion of making indecent images of children and suspicion of incitement to distribute indecent images of children, Scotland Yard said.

"He was taken into custody at a south-west London police station, police said."

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

18:34 / 13.01.03

Oh dear. I was/am inclined to believe him. (And I'm not even a fan.) The problem being, now, that even if he's innocent of these new charges (which I hope he is), shit sticks. Because "innocent until proven guilty" no longer counts for shit when the media are your judge & jury.

The Return Of Rothkoid

21:14 / 13.01.03

Well, the thing is that if he looked at it on the web, unless he's scoured his computer's cache/cookies/etc, it's going to be on a piece of equipment he owns. Which means that he will be in possession of it. And while I do think he went into this with the best of intentions - the talking with cops, the way he's always said he was researching it - I think he was incredibly stupid and naive about it. The lawyer friend who advised him that it was a-OK should be first in line for an arsekicking when he's out.

I think he might get a slap on the wrists, maybe community service. I don't think he'd go to prison, but... you never know, especially since Glitter ended up there, didn't he? But I really don't think he's going to get out of this unscathed, I really don't, which is a shame. But he has been monumentally stupid to underestimate the law in this area...

Tom: good point - although I guess the argument in these cases always is that he has to possess it in order to look at it: it's this that's illegal, isn't it?

Matthew Fluxington

15:44 / 14.01.03

Well, for some cheap sniggering about this, I recommend ILM's thread about Who song titles which are now funny or disturbing in this new context.

The Kids Are Alright, indeed...

15:48 / 14.01.03

who is he, what music did he do, coz id never heard of him b4 the other day.

Matthew Fluxington

16:16 / 14.01.03

I'll just humor you, okay?

Pete Townshend was the guitar player and primary songwriter of the British rock band The Who, who were one of the most popular and influential bands of the 60s. Townshend did a lot to popularize the concept album and the 'rock opera' with his Quadrephenia and Tommy records. Tommy went on to become a major Broadway hit in the early 90s.
You may know these popular Who songs - "Who Are You", "Won't Get Fooled Again", "The Kids Are Alright", "Baba O'Riley" (which has the chorus "teenage wasteland, it's only teenage wasteland"), "My Generation", "Substitute", "5:15", and "Magic Bus", all of which are massive hits that are still played on classic rock radio stations and advertisements to this day.

21:57 / 14.01.03

I know what you mean, Tom, but there's also the question of what sort of material, specifically, he was accessing and how it was produced. The fact that it was a pay-to-view set-up suggests that children may have been placed in exploitative/abusive situations in order to satisfy the overall demand to which Townsend contributed...

15:07 / 07.05.03

Update/bump: Pete's been given a warning and placed on the Sex Offender's Registry.

15:16 / 07.05.03

Which doesn't mean automatic rot-in-jail-forever sentencing just yet, but Blunkett's working on it...

18:18 / 10.05.03

So what could he have done otherwise to ameliorate the situation?

Just talking as a guy who has bought "The who ulitimate collection", and is wondering if it's the same as thinking hitler was a nice painter (different scale obviously).

18:53 / 10.05.03

Anyone notice, btw, that the beeb were using the opening of 'Baba O'Riley' in the adverts for that 'Leonardo: Hey, He Was, Like, Really Smart, Y'know?' series they did recently?

I have a conspiracy theory that they're trying to bankrupt him so he sells the rights to the songs to someone for a pittance, and they can be used - ironically, of course - to advertise Huggies.

12:58 / 14.05.03

Apologies (to Pete as much as anyone...) for not updating, and thanks to Jack. I should have made clear he'd been cautioned and the matter was over, legally. Sorr, not here very often nowadays.

BTW, has anyone seen that some groups are calling for Carol Vorderman (British celeb and campaigner) to be prosecuted after she accessed a dodgy site on an edition of 'Tonight with Trevor McDonald?'

I suppose this could be seen as the same thing, 'research,' and I've never liked her much anyway, so...