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Equestrian Australia - Eventing Australia crumbling over Eventer Callum Buczak Rape Charge

Eventing
#81

I was speaking to the sentence this person received when I asked why you are so argumentative. We clearly don’t agree about the risks of false accusations but there’s nothing to agree about. The statistics are there and based in reality.

https://www.nsvrc.org/node/4737

A highlight: 63% of sexual violence goes unreported. That means a person, when speaking about 3-10% of false accusations, needs to realize it is 3-10% of the 37% of cases that are reported.

And as poltroon pointed out it’s in line with false reporting for other crimes.

2 Likes
#82

Again, I don’t care why he’s in prison. Kill him humanely if death is decided to be the punishment. No need to bludgeon him to death because that solves… nothing. No one “deserves” one form of death over the other. Violence doesn’t solve violence (in most cases).

The fact that some goes unreported (again, all these statistics can’t possibly be very well grounded, due to their nature), and the fact that it’s in line with other crimes, does not discount the need to be able to account for the inevitable false report. Do you think that one is a felony and the other to be handled in civil court fair? Shouldn’t a false reporter receive a similar sentence to the rapist, seeing as how they were trying to ruin/end (figuratively) someone else’s life? Is our sports governing body prepared to deal with that lawsuit? Lord knows when it happens, they will sue any and everybody involved, as they should.

1 Like
#83

You conflate “not guilty” with “innocent” and they are two entirely separate things. The willingness to do nothing because perfection can’t be obtained is throwing the baby out with the bath water. Worrying about such a negligible number of people over the larger number of sexual assault victims just seems miss placed.

Agree to disagree as our sympathies are in different camps.

9 Likes
#84

It matters. Even one person matters. But I feel very confident saying that one person does not matter as much as ten people, and if we aren’t taking care of the ten people, then we should focus on them before we focus on the one. In the case of rape cases, and it seems to me pretty much only in the case of rape cases, people want to focus on the one before they focus on the ten. I don’t get it.

Even if you wanted to argue that men hold a lot of societal power and are afraid of being falsely accused, men are statistically more likely to be sexually assaulted than to they are to sexually assault. This is a problem everyone should be worried about, and it baffles me on a daily basis why that is not the case.

5 Likes
#85

There’s a recurring theme of “the parents aren’t there” in some of these discussions, and I think it’s important to realize that the majority of these offenders are very charming and groom the parents and even the authorities as much as the kids. This is true of many kinds of criminal activity, including theft and murder.

I highly recommend taking the time to listen to the NPR podcast “Believed” about the Larry Nassar case. It’s well done and full of people who did their best to report him and to no avail. https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510326/believed

7 Likes
#86

This ignores the philosophy of the American justice system. I remember my father (an old school, Atticus Finch type figure) frequently saying, “It is better that 10 guilty men go free than that one innocent man is punished.” Turns out he didn’t make that up–it was embraced by the Founding Fathers and other great legal thinkers. https://www.cato.org/policing-in-america/chapter-4/blackstones-ratio

If we decide we want to toss out that philosophy, I guess we could lower the criminal standard from “beyond a reasonable doubt” (i.e., near certainty) to “more likely than not.” Heck, we could dispense with criminal trials altogether, since we know that over 90% of people who are arrested are guilty, so why worry about punishing the one innocent person?

It is because most Americans embrace this philosophy that people get squeamish about proceedings (like SafeSport) that effectively brand someone a rapist or sexual abuser on a lower standard of proof. And yes, we all understand SafeSport is not a criminal proceeding and it’s a quasi club etc etc so we don’t need to re-open that discussion. Despite all these factors, the bottom line is some people walk away having been publicly branded a rapist, and it’s a legitimate question what standard of proof should be met before that happens.

#87

All of this. I can explain the focus with rape. It’s the new “she asked for it because of what she was wearing.” Since men statistically commit more violent crimes than women, it stands to reason that a crime that people think specifically effects women would have a bunch of worry of innocent men.

What blows own my mind is prison populations have more of a moral compass than society. Rapists and child molesters are at the bottom of the barrel.

Also men are the most under reported group.

7 Likes
#88

Very, very true.

Parenting is parenting. It isn’t always convenient. There is no trainer who should ever be considered to be such a paragon of virtue that a parent can simply turn their child over to them, with no secondary oversight, just assuming everything is always fine. The trainer might or might not be a child molestor, but aside from that, some trainers don’t really take on the role as primary caretaker, and/or are permissive / don’t have the best judgment.

In fact, when the parent leaves the child in the hands of the trainer, the child is often even more intimidated by the trainer’s status and power, and less likely to report anything untoward. The child may believe that even if they don’t like it, it must be normal if the parent left the trainer fully in charge. If the parent thinks the trainer is always a-ok, it must be so.

I was dismayed that some of the initial reaction to the SS standards of communication was that the parents didn’t want to be bothered to be included on those text exchanges. Really ??? And that some trainers and parents seemed to think it would interfere with the trainer’s role as a private ‘counselor’ to teens. That’s in a horse trainer’s job description? That’s the person the parent chooses to guide their child through life? What a testament to the amount of leverage and influence a trainer can potentially have over a minor. :eek:

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#89

I strongly suspect that if we could see inside the SS investigative process and records, we would find that the ones that make it onto the public list are far less than those that probably should, but SS just doesn’t have what they need to fully meet their standard of proof.

I’m confident in the SS standard of proof. That if someone is on their public list, there is a legitimate reason why.

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#90

A note on parenting and being present: When you see things like “parenting…isn’t always convenient” that is a direct knock on parents for, I guess, their laziness? And it’s BS.

Here’s the thing: parents are specifically barred from many places in sport. Parents cannot, for instance, be in the locker room with the team. There is a child safety aspect (haven’t background checked every parent/guardian) and there is also simple physics: few locker rooms have space for a whole team plus one parent per child athlete. Parents are also usually asked NOT to be present for many/most practices. Coaches rightfully want to avoid the parents who butt in and try to coach themselves, and also want to avoid the children being distracted by their parents being there.

My child’s dance class has one class per semester that parents are allow to attend to see how the children have got on. For choir, band, and after school classes there are zero meetings we can attend as parents. We get to come to the Christmas and Spring concerts. My child does a pony camp with a local trainer. We drop off at 9 and we pick up at 3. Again, there is one day when the kids show us how they progressed, show their horse knowledge, etc. But having 6-8 adults also sat around the barn, following the kids out to the pasture to collect mounts, standing at the door as they muck stalls, up in the meeting room as they study horse knowledge - that is not allowed. For those of you who think parents are so negligent, please tell me how you see a child going to a camp and how you see a parent also going to the same camp, every day and being present for every activity. Not a rhetorical question; please map this out for me as a parent.

Take home for the cheap seats: PARENTS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO BE PRESENT FOR MANY OF THE EVENTS IN A CHILD’S SPORT/EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITY/CAMP/COMPETITION. PERIOD. FULL STOP.

This is not lazy parenting. It is not that we feel it’s inconvenient. I have an only child and would LOVE to be present all the time but this is not normal in any situation at all. BTW, I also cannot shadow her around school all day.

For riding, someone please tell me of when they have ever seen a trainer of any discipline teaching, working with the young riders, going around at shows with them, back in the show barn, etc. and every single child has had a parent shadowing their every move. Please also tell me a trainer who allows one adult per child within, say 10 feet of that child for all they do at the barn.

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#91

Truly “lazy” parents wouldn’t take their kids to sports at all.

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#92

There is great movie on Netflix about the Stella Liebeck case. Imaginatively titled “Hot Coffee”.

Hot coffee tastes better. Fresher. There was a company standard to set the carafes at this temperature, despite it being extremely dangerous and hundreds of people being burned. Business decision to save $ in actually making multiple pots of fresh coffee.

1 Like
#93

Also the legal team had a pre-decided policy of never settling a case regardless of the merits as they assumed they could out spend any plaintiff. So much was rotten in that situation.

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#94

That’s not what I’m talking about. You’re lumping in about half a dozen different scenarios into your defensiveness, while derailing the real point.

I’m talking about the parents that are genuinely ignoring their kid, passing off responsibility to others who aren’t accepting it, or just no one being responsible at all. That’s not you, so you don’t need to rail on about it. Studies show that those parents are out there, and statistically YES their kids are most at risk.

There’s no point in trying to build up every parent in your own model because all parents are NOT the same. And parents who want to dump their kids find the barn a convenient place to do so - at least sometimes. I have watched it, I have known those kids to come to unfortunate encounters with predators, and known them to feel they have no adult to turn to that they can trust, including their own parents. That’s not you or your kids, so don’t take that on personally.

Maybe if those parents (the ones not like you) better understood the potential consequences, they would take a second look at how they are handling their children’s horse time.

So please don’t deflect an attempt to find better answers for kids more at risk than yours are, by taking something personally that isn’t about you.

3 Likes
#95

I’m trying to think of the best way to say this, but can’t really find the words where it doesn’t sound messed up… it basically boils down to, I would rather have a few people falsely accused of rape, and have their reputations ruined (which a reputation CAN be fixed so that isn’t necessarily a life-destroying thing) or have to spend time in jail unfairly, and have more people come forward about their actual rape and find justice for them and their rapists punished, than not take any accusations of rape seriously for fear that some might be false accusations and have all of those people afraid to come forward for fear of people wanting to protect their rapist.

14 Likes
#96

No, you’re I think purposely dismissing my point b/c it illustrates how difficult this is in real life.

My point is, parents (good and bad) cannot be around all the time. Also, again, parents were IN THE ROOM with Nassar. When you glibly toss out that “parenting isn’t convenient” you indulge in just another form of victim blaming. Many parents do the best job of checking things out that they can including searching publicly available information, getting references, going only to established places of which they’ve heard nothing bad (even a yelling trainer is out for me). Then we have to drop off our children and hope that the people we researched and think are good really are good. Because there is no guarantee no matter what you do. Again, see US gymnastics.

Just bear in mind that what you again glibly call defensiveness could be the reaction to your words of a parent who has experienced the worst despite their best efforts. If you have known kids who have encountered predators at a barn where you are then all the kids at that barn were at risk - even a kid like mine who has parents like me. If there’s a predator at your barn, they will prey on whoever comes along. If it was my child, sure, she’d have someone to tell. But she’d still be a victim.

You’re not offering a solution. You’re saying parents are lazy and should do more. So I gave you some scenarios and asked how you see parents doing something different that would help. Please take that up and let me know how you see it working. I’m honest, tell me the fix you have in mind for those scenarios. Or, take the one you mention above: kids got dropped off at the barn (a barn you trusted enough yourself to be in or you wouldn’t have been able to see and witness this behaviour) and were victimized by a predator. What would you have had those parents do differently? Because for pony camp, I drop my kid at a barn, not b/c I don’t care but b/c she’s in camp. And when I was a young working student my mum dropped me off at the barn, not b/c she didn’t care but b/c I had hours of work, some riding and a lesson to do before she picked me up. So kids of what you would call good parents like me and the kids of what you would call not good parents like the one’s you witnessed being “dumped” at the barn are all at risk. What’s your suggestion to parents to avoid this?

You brought up parenting in a way that seemed to suggest that was an avenue to make things safer. I gave you real-life, concrete examples and asked you what you see parents doing differently that would make things safer. You finger wagged at me for taking it personally. How about just going through the scenarios and letting us parents know what your proposed fixes to improve child safety are if that’s what you consider the REAL point. That’s not derailing; that’s asking you to expand on what you wrote and let us know what your proposed plan is to improve child safety through better/different parenting in those scenarios.

6 Likes
#97

Nope.

Not continuing this conversation. You are off on your own tangent. It has nothing to do with what I was talking about, but carry on your ranting regardless, if you wish.

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#98

It is sad and also intellectually lazy to read someone’s thought out post and call it “ranting”. Name calling and labeling like that is just ineffective and typically a sign that the person has nothing to offer and so deflects with such techniques. If parenting differently will help then respond intelligently and constructively to the real-world constraints on parental involvement that I outlined and let’s see what we can come up with. There are loads of parents on here so let’s brainstorm.

Someone who has been in a barn and observed children exposed to predators and has connected that danger to the behaviour of the parent must have some insight.

You claim this is your real point: “I’m talking about the parents that are genuinely ignoring their kid, passing off responsibility to others who aren’t accepting it, or just no one being responsible at all. That’s not you, so you don’t need to rail on about it. Studies show that those parents are out there, and statistically YES their kids are most at risk.”

Okay, then continue. Tell me how you suggest parents act to reduce those risks. I’m honestly all ears. What I posted was not a rant anymore than your slightly breathless attack on what I posted is. You’ve said what you’ve said about parents and you’ve clarified your point as quoted above. Now follow through: what’s your fix? It doesn’t need to be final or definitive. Just what would you have suggested the parents do differently to protect their child from the predator at your barn?

4 Likes
#99

Exactly. Rape, more or less, is like other serious crimes - the vast majority of reports are genuine, and there absolutely are a small percentage of false reports.

The messaging that women would never lie about being raped harms victims, because if you’re going for an inarguable absolute (no woman would ever…) then even one demonstrable case (OMG DUKE LACROSSE!) is enough to blow up your whole position.

But that messaging came about for a reason, and that was that unlike burglary or armed robbery victims, these genuine victims of rape who constituted the majority of reports weren’t being taken seriously by the justice system, and were being blamed for the crime. Still are, too often.

4 Likes
#100

Yeah, this. It was not “carafe was malfunctioning” at all, short version or long - the excessive temperature was a company policy, people had gotten burned prior to this case and the company was aware, and this is why the award was so high; it was punitive damages.

5 Likes

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