Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Video Voyeurism in an unexpected place

Some things are just difficult to understand.
Take the case of Paul E. Holmes of Haughton, who was arrested and charged with Video Voyeurism and Child Porn.
If you are not familiar with the story, The Times has it online.
Assuming you have read it or seen it on the news, I will proceed with a few thoughts.
This is a case of a 55 year old man, active in his church, placing video cameras in a bathroom during a church connected sleepover for teenage girls at his home.
He apparently has no record of such behavior, and no criminal record. The church can’t be blamed. The parents of the girls showed due diligence in allowing their daughters to attend, it was in the home of one of their own church members, and they had absolutely no reason to even remotely suspect that something like this would, or could, happen.
I feel for the victims; a great mental and emotional stress attaches itself to something like this.
I feel for his family. I can only imagine what his wife and children are suffering.
I have heard of cases where someone with a brain tumor displayed a similar type of behavior, and I wondered if there is something like that going on with this man. I’m not looking for an excuse for him, but with no record of any similar behavior for 55 years, it makes you wonder.
If my daughter or one of my granddaughters was victimized in this way, I know that I would not look at it in such a subjective manner, I would only react to the event itself. And that reaction would not be good.
As my friend Rex pointed out in a Facebook exchange, thank goodness that one of the girls was aware of her surroundings and called her mother and let her know what was going on. That mother is the one who notified the police.
If there is a lesson here, it is to teach your children at an early age to be aware, and never to hesitate to talk to you, or to report to someone in authority if something out of the ordinary arouses their suspicions.

13 comments:

  1. I hope he get the maximum sentence on each count. Anyone who would invade a church, pretend to be a man of god and gain the trust of its members all to fulfill his perverted needs should be castrated. I hope there is no plea deal. It goes to show you that no one can be trusted 100%. Not even in church.

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  2. 3:39 - I'm rewording your comment slightly.

    "I spoke with someone very close to the situation today and said the father may be covering for someone else."

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  3. If the "covering for someone else" story is true, it is not a good idea. The man in Arkansas who killed his ex-wife and her current husband Sunday had parents who been covering for him since he was a child.

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  4. Subscribing. And "covering for someone" was my second thought about this.

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  5. The "cover story" still wouldn't make much sense. The person he would allegedly be covering for has no history either...and the impact and effects wouldn't last as long.

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  6. A plea deal... you betcha! That's all that worthless DA's office does. We won't hear anything else about this story. Mark my word.

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  7. i don't know, Bill. A co-worker of mine has a son caught on the internet with an ubdercover cop posing as a young girl. He got a long sentence ib bossier. What this guy did is much worse because actual girls are involved. I would not want to be in his shoes.

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  8. I think I know what case you are talking about. That kid (around 22-24) got hammered with a 12 year sentence for talking on the net with an adult male police officer. This Haughton guy is gonna wish he lived in another parish when all this is over with

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  9. yeh, this guy does not want a trial. if all this gets aired our via a trial, he will get a longer sentence. How long a sentence does this law have?

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  10. I know personally this family. It is horrendous for his family and for the young girls affected by this. We will never know what brought about this change in him but hope that people remember his wife and children were totally unaware.

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  11. Believe it!!!! This man molested me!!!

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  12. I don't think you can call it covering up when cameras were also found in the tops of HIS shoes so he could see up women's skirts!

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