Samantha Geimer, the woman who Roman Polanski raped when she was a 13 year old girl, has asked for the charges against the film director to be dropped.
Geimer’s decision came after the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office provided explicit details of her assault in a motion filed last week. The testimony from grand jury transcripts had already been posted on the Internet in 2003, but this was apparently the first time they’d been published in legal documents.
Explaining why, after 30 years, she thinks it’s now time to bring an end to the case against Polanski, Geimer said:
“True as they may be, the continued publication of those details causes harm to me, my beloved husband, my three children and my mother. I have become a victim of the actions of the district attorney.”
She went on to say:
“My views as a victim, my feelings as a victim, or my desires as a victim were never considered or even inquired into by the district attorney prior to the filing. It is clear to me that because the district attorney’s office has been accused of wrongdoing, it has recited the lurid details of the case to distract attention from the wrongful conduct of the district attorney’s office as well as the judge who was then assigned to the case.”
Whatever was behind the decision to go public with these details, it’s evident that this is yet another case of a rape victim being re-victimised by the legal process, a process that supposedly exists to protect and to provide justice to victims of crime, but which continues to let them down time and time again. Unfortunately for Geimer, it doesn’t look as though she’s going to get her way anyway: the LA county district attorneys’ office seems determined to pursue Polanski, no matter what her wishes or her feelings about it all, and no matter how many more years the case is going to drag on for.
Now don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to make a case for Polanski to be exonerated or let off the hook in any way here: I don’t buy into any of that “tortured artist” “forget the crime, the guy’s a genius” shit (I wouldn’t know {or care} if he is or not: in fact I think the only film I’ve ever actually seen of his is Rosemary’s Baby). No, a rapist is a rapist is a rapist in my book, and in an ideal world every rapist would be caught, brought to justice and punished for their crimes. But this isn’t an ideal world, and in both this country and in the US where this case has been going on for what seems like forever, it’s a far from ideal judicial system: particularly for the victims of sex crimes.
I don’t blame any woman who chooses to opt out of all this, who refuses to stand up in the dock and have the most intimate details of her life examined and cross examined in a process that still places more onus on the victim to prove her innocence than it does on the perpetrator to prove his.
And I don’t think it’s at all surprising that so many women do opt out: just one look at the rape conviction rates in both the UK and the US makes it easy to see why someone would choose not to put themselves through the wringer (again) just to see their perpetrator walk free at the other end.
Unlike the vast majority of sex crime victims, Geimer isn’t even allowed the “luxury” of anonymity, so when the details of her assault get constantly published and redistributed online, her family, her children, her neighbours and uncle Tom Cobley and all get to read all about exactly what her 13 year old self was subjected to.
No. It’s wrong. End of.
No matter how high profile a case this is, and no matter how much the authorities want to see Polanski pay for what he did, there’s no excuse for forcing this woman to spend her entire life reliving these traumatic events.
As Geimer says:
“I have survived, indeed prevailed, against whatever harm Mr. Polanski may have caused me as a child,”
Then let her put all this behind her, it’s time to let Samantha Geimer get on with her life.
Too Much To Say For Myself 
Word. On the subject of celebrities getting away with things, I was less than impressed to see ‘a free boy george’ poster in the club I was in last night.
No – he’s committed a crime. I don’t think anyone cares because the victim was a gay male sex worker. And therefore he falls into the category of males who were ‘asking for it’. Only heterosexual male rape victims are innocent.
“I don’t buy into any of that “tortured artist” “forget the crime, the guy’s a genius” shit ”
That happens, that’s it, and the ‘benefit of clergy’ which was bizarrely an actual legal free pass, for curates involved in beaconing vulnerable ships and homicide, that ‘mercy’ is passed over to Bill Henson who scopes out primary schools with the assistance of the teaching staff, or Gary Glitter, who was a national treasure, or Pete Tonshend, who if we are being honest wasn’t a great guitarist.
How badly do we need Polanski and is he doable? The idea of a free pass for these issues, is an inherited colonial concept, borrowed from the English. One has clergy, gaolers, judges, all being exempt to whatever degree.
With the Abu Ghraibh atrovities, the media wanted the photos of the females they knew the Pentagon were sitting on, and the ACLU, the defender of pornography in general, went out of its way to put that material in the public domain,
the ‘prostutes’ at Abu Ghraibh, were not really prostitutes, they were in some cases females abducted by the Iraqi security services and shared with US soldiers for their fraternity house, which was a torture prison.
“Unfortunately for Geimer, it doesn’t look as though she’s going to get her way anyway: the LA county district attorneys’ office seems determined to pursue Polanski, no matter what her wishes or her feelings about it all, and no matter how many more years the case is going to drag on for.”
Abu Ghraib was different because, as one can know, if one has the odd friend in high places, that nobody very important was ever going to pay for that. And so the answer to the ACLU was to say ‘no’ and the ACLU mostly won. That pornography is out there as ‘evidence’ for people opposed to the war. Nobody asked the victims.
“I don’t blame any woman who chooses to opt out of all this, who refuses to stand up in the dock and have the most intimate details of her life examined and cross examined in a process that still places more onus on the victim to prove her innocence than it does on the perpetrator to prove his.”
I dread to think what may be necessary, to do, to resolve a culture of state sanctioned child prostitution in the United Kingdom. The NASUWT are a far bigger problem than Roman Polankski.
Every schoolgirl who complains against a male teacher in the UK goes through as a matter of course, what Samantha Geimer has had to endure.
“Which explains why Samantha is bewildered that the director has just won £50,000 in a High Court libel action against Vanity Fair after the magazine claimed he made sexual advances to a woman on the day of his murdered wife Sharon Tate’s funeral.”
Polannski to me, is *exctly* like one of hundreds of NASUWT teachers relying on the British propensity to arrive at the entirely wrong decision.
Gary Glitter had records released via the same recoord labels as my own records.
New Statesman – The judge in Gary Glitter’s case gave a sensible …
Renate Williams, a former teacher, was acquitted of “sexually assaulting” a 15- year-old male pupil. And Gary Glitter was cleared of various sexual assaults, …
http://www.newstatesman.com/199911220021 – Similar pages –
Gary Glitter was to be given the ‘free pass’ treatment until the blue-collar people of Britain refused to re-accept the former idol.
“I don’t buy into any of that “tortured artist” “forget the crime, the guy’s a genius” ”
Great Britain has far bigger problems than the USA in that respect, music and drama, PE teacers, hundreds and hundreds of them, so, one doesn’t have to be great to get the ‘forget the crime’ reward and for the victi to be targeted for as long as it takes, in a fashion and form identical to what is happening to Samantha Geimer.
It certainly works over many years, the NASUWT do not forgive, especially for cases when the teacher is found guilty. The British legal system evolved with ‘benefit of clergy’ provisions simply applied by stealth to teachers, care-workers and the protected classes.
How badly do we need Polanski and is he doable? My own view is that whatever it takes. We can’t have the USA being credibly compared to Britain.
Yvette Doll
“I have survived, indeed prevailed, against whatever harm Mr. Polanski may have caused me as a child,”
It is wrong for the criminals to survive their victims and suicide is a problem in Britain, I don’t see any particular good reason why schoolgirls should kill themselves to cover up for a society and a teaching profession which is depraved.
‘When is a child not a child? When does childhood end and this thing called adulthood begin? How do we know? When, in November 1999, the glam-rock star Gary Glitter was cleared of indecently assaulting a 14-year-old girl nearly 20 years earlier, the judge said: “There is 14, and there is 14. Some 14-year-olds look like sophisticated young ladies and some 14-year-olds still look like little girls. You may wish to consider which category the girl was in …”
Gary Glitter’s case, he was convicted of child pornography the same afternoon. The British would have acquited Polanski.
HUTTON: Schoolgirl victims of pervert teacher tried to commit suicide
This is Total Essex, UK – 11 Nov 2008
A CLOSE relative and friend of both of Ian Sheffield’s victims has broken her silence over the girls’ harrowing ordeal in a bid to help prevent other …
In Great Britain schoolgirls are expected to keep their mouths shut, Britain has an allrgation based vetting system which doesn’t allow allegations. The pressures on schoolgirls to take their own lives are comparable to Japan.
“Her mother told the hearing today her daughter was so upset she tried taking an overdose before the matter went to court in 2005.”
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1813416.ece
If Roman Polanski was a British teacher he would be as free as a bird,
in fact he would probably be on a leadship panel of some kind and be sought after by Teachers TV. The UK targets, and humiliates schoolgirls in sleazy, prurient, reportage, that can go on for years, and at times decades.
It is the culture of British society ( inckuding feminism and Rape Crisis advocates) to protect their own educator versions of Roman Polanski.
Who is at large because of soft-hearted Europeans protecting their own kind.
Yvete Doll
Chris Langham the pervert who looked at child pornography was also cleared of rape in the same court that found him guilty of his child porn offences.
Samantha Geimer wouldn’t be being put through this if Polanski would return to the United States and serve the punishment for the rape he committed against her and for which he was found guilty. For some reason however that is unthinkable.
Europeans aren’t the only people who are soft-hearted Yvette – Polanski got a standing ovation from the audience at the Oscars when he won his, including from Anjelica Houston, who was there when he raped the thirteen year old (she spoke to her) and from Jack Nicholson, whose house Polanski used to commit his crime in.
It is amazing how ‘celebs’ get away with stuff. Like Bill Wyman (had sex with a 13 year old who he later married FFS), Pete Townshend (sex offences completely forgotten about), and all the ‘poor, poor Langham’ crap that was in the papers when he was convicted. Langham has now rewritten the script for a musical about Ian Dury, and the original actor playing the part of Dury was sacked when he complained. I didn’t know that about Polanski though Delphyne.
And I didn’t know about the Houston/Nicholson part.
Delphyne is a mine of information.
“Chris Langham the pervert who looked at child pornography was also cleared of rape in the same court that found him guilty of his child porn offences.”
A murderer was taped threatening a soon to be dead schoolgirl, and the jury doesn’t hear that because it is too damning.
The police should get that schoolteacher in Newcastle, the one in the CH4 programme, Douglas and John, because ‘age role’ schoolgirls are methadone to a pedophile, they’ll do smack sooner or later.
There is no such thing as a fake pedophile.
Tazia
You’ll find that a large proportion of th sexy escorts that we represent still retain their old school uniforms – so if you want a roleplay that involves you playing teaching to a cute teenager, this could be the option to go for!
http://www.angelsoflondon.com/escort_girls_in_uniforms.htm
With those credit cards, Jacqui Smith could tell the FBI she didn’t need them, those computers are a slam dunk.
Tazia