Didn't Operation Yewtree investigate accusations against John Peel as well? I have a bad habit of skimming the Daily Mail on my lunch break and a few months ago there was a big kerfuffle about Peel's love-child with a teenage groupie.

You know, I can't listen to PTA anymore without thinking its a bit creepy and uncomfortable.

calumlynn wrote:

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Rolf Harris is a million miles away from Gary Glitter!!

The crimes that Rolf Harris committed were awful, and I'm glad he's been prosecuted for them. But, not being religious, I don't believe in concepts of good and evil. The horrible stuff that Rolf Harris did was horrible, and the great stuff that Rolf Harris did was great.

My immediate reaction to his conviction was "oh god, all my memories of loving Animal Hospital as a child have been ruined"- but they haven't at all; I loved that programmes because he was a warm, empathetic TV presenter who seemed to really care about the programme. He's still all of those things, he's just also been found guilty of some horrible sexual offences (not rape though- some people seem to be getting confused about that).

It's easy to feel betrayed when famous people you like are found guilty of crimes, but in my opinion the only people who have a right to feel betrayed are his friends and family, as they are the only ones who actually knew him. The rest of us only ever saw and liked his public persona. Also, I'm not implying that his public persona was a lovely family entertainer whereas in reality he was a sexual deviant; in his personal life he was as complex a human being as anyone else in the world- not inherently good or bad. Who knows why he committed those crimes, but logically they don't define his entire personality, life and career, except in the eyes of the media.

I wouldn't feel bad or guilty about owning a Stylophone box with his face on it, similarly I don't feel bad listening to Phil Spector records (and his crime was infinitely more abhorrent- and he was a well documented abuser too), and if John Peel was posthumously linked to allegations it wouldn't affect my view of his radio work, unless it was on a Saville-esque scale.

And while Gary Glitter obviously committed abhorrent crimes when living in Asia and is terrifyingly remorseless, thinking that the Glitter Band had some absolute tunes doesn't make you a bad person. Rock and Roll Part 2 is played at sport events all the time in America without the entire world imploding.

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Not to be a prude about this, but sexually assaulting an 8-year-old and conducting an abusive relationship with a 13-year-old is fairly serious.

The important issue from a fan's point of view is that these celebrities were able to carry out these crimes because they were enabled by the population at large, who were always keen to give them special treatment and always inclined to assume the best about them. In our society that means an unequal balance of power in your relationships with other people, and power corrupts, especially when you're the kind of attention-seeker who makes the effort to get famous in the first place. They did these things because they could, and they could because we let them.

Edit: If anyone hasn't read this piece from Andrew O'Hagan from a couple of years back then please have a look - it puts this all in context very well.