talkmagic.co.uk

After talking to Mandrake he has said that he feels this story cannot be ignored so i am posting this first. It is a sobering lesson for all in the modern comms age. i am not making any judgement just reporting a news story.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ds-newsxml

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP0F1_Lf4FU

I hope we can discuss this calmly without going over the top.

Jesus!

I only met him on Monday, was such a good feeling to meet one of my heroes of magic and this is quite a shock to read....

Not happy at this news

Much love

Aza

My favourite part of hos YouTube clip he posted was "no lets get one thing straight, she was 15 AND A HALF, not 12 or 13, those people are in a different category"

Oh yeah of course

For those of you with young daughters like me, lets hope hes not allowed near any nurseries or schools in the future, does this mean he goes straight on the sex offenders list or do we have a trial first?

Why would anyone threaten to rape someone via text?! WTF is this World coming to....

He says the rape line was a joke and that is his sense of humor, speechless!

As a retired Police Office, I can tell you he is making reference to the punishment given to sex offenders for unlawful sexual intercourse. There is one catergory for offences against 13 to 15 year olds and and a more serious one for under 13's. He was thinking with his b******s and not his brain. Sadly not very good for the rest of us, especially the Childrens entertainers.

The story is already being talked about and passed on by email and social media sites so we can't ignore it and hope it'll go away. Obviously feelings and emotions will run very high but we do need to keep comments under control as far as possible. Certainly it was a very stupid thing to do and I for one can't understand why he did it. There are obviously lots of factors involved which we don't know about but which will, no doubt, be revealed in the coming weeks.

Many professional entertainers have done similarly stupid things and have lost their families and careers as a result, if a sensible discussion here helps others to think twice before going down the same path then it'll be worth it.

The key to this case, is that it highlights a weakness In Rich, and that he gave in to temptation, when this girl sent him images first.

What he did, could be something that anybody on here could do in that situation. Note i said COULD.. not would. The language used in the text messages, from both parties would have to be seen, before you could make a judgement on who was to blame in this, although it seems to be clear that the girls age was known.However, these days, few girls of 15 1/2 look 15.And I feel that the media, and the internet is partially to blame in cases like this, as sexualising " barely legal" children, for want of a better term, seems to be the unacceptable norm in today's society.

People get confused sometimes.

It's simple - if you're a grown man don't send sexual pictures and texts to an underage girl.
I feel sorry for his wife and family, he'll also never recover the career he has spent so long building up.

I for one wouldn't respond to something like that from a child and his excuses such as texts about raping an underage girl being his "sense of humour" rank alongside Pete Townsend's "researching a book" as a ludicrous justification for repulsive behaviour. I'm sure if it was his daughter when she's that age he would be furious.

How can texting a 15 year old girl and allegedly saying you will "hold her down and rape her" be seen as a humorous quip?
Relating it to a comedian's act is bonkers. Saying something unsavoury on stage as part of an act and texting it in a two way conversation to an underage girl are two completely different contexts.

There's no excuse for this behaviour and if anyone is going to be held down and raped it could possibly be Mr Bellars when he's behind behind bars.

Indeed, you cannot compare a comedy act to this. When you go and see Frankie Boyle, Jimmy Carr etc they are adults and know the person on stage is making jokes and mean nothing by it. This is a different matter and i cannot believe he can compare the two.

I doubt that he wil get a custodial sentence. If he has no previous convictions and as no actual physical contact was made (we hope), a judge would be very unlikely to make him eat porridge. However, who is going to employ him whilst on the Sex Offenders register? It seems to me that he was just on the point of becoming a 'name' and now its all finished. Very Sad.

Well, he said that such statements by themselves would sound totally appalling so I just wonder what the context was that made them less so? As has been stated, the girl sent the first image and he initially did the right thing in deleting it. After that it all went very, very wrong.

He knew she was 15. He knew it was wrong. He's married with children. Whether he meant it as a "joke" or not he still allegedly sent texts to a 15 year old girl talking of raping her. As much as magicians will try and excuse his behaviour because he's a bit of a name, it's not really something he can excuse and his explanations sound rather desperate.

People may feel sorry for poor little Richard and his lost career, but how must his wife and family feel?
One minute he's posting happy pics on Facebook of him holding his baby and with his wife, the next moment this.
His wife must be suffering the most in all this.

corindaman wrote:I doubt that he wil get a custodial sentence. If he has no previous convictions and as no actual physical contact was made (we hope), a judge would be very unlikely to make him eat porridge. However, who is going to employ him whilst on the Sex Offenders register? It seems to me that he was just on the point of becoming a 'name' and now its all finished. Very Sad.

It is claimed the girl sent images first and i noticed on some news forums people are saying she should be blamed. She has broken no UK laws or is there one that you know of?

As I understand it the law is a bit grey when it comes to minors making sexual images of themselves.

RB wouldn't be alone on the Sex Offence Register when it comes to casting their victim as their seducer. That seems to be the way it goes: "she approached me", "she's not like other girls her age; if you met her, you'd understand", and "I'm not like the other guys (and so it's better she's doing this with me than someone else)."

It's such a strong taboo - these aren't the excuses they tell other people, it's what they've told themselves to allow their own behaviour.