Saturday 3 February 2018

TIMING

Timing is everything.

Take, for example, the father of one of a number of young women abused by a gymnastics doctor.

Attending the trial of the abuser, the Father asks the Judge for five minutes in a locked room with the perpetrator. The Judge of course refuses. One minute, then, asks the Father. Again, the Judge begins to refuse. The Father lunges forward with a view to attacking the defendant. Deputies quickly grab him, before any harm is done. He is wrestled to the ground, cuffed and led away. I expect he will not be charged, though it's a possibility. When he returns home and perhaps goes to his local bar for a drink, people will gather round and clap him on the back, perhaps buy him a beer. "I'd have done the same myself," they'll say.

But I think the moment of sentencing is an odd time to choose.

Were my daughter to make an honest accusation of abuse, it is possible to imagine I might quickly find myself in a private confrontation with the accused, well before any legal proceedings. A confrontation which might quickly escalate, with the accused man becoming angry enough to threaten me, or even attempt to assault me. Acting therefore purely in self defence, the sharpened machete I happen to have with me would be a natural weapon to deploy.

With nothing other than reasonable force, of course.

No one would congratulate me for that.

But then, I don't often go to bars anyway.

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