Did a character reference. If someone you know was accused you might have to do one. Its common and just says what their like as a person and whilst DW knew him he most likely did not do anything wrong
Not accused mate.. he pleaded guilty.. there's an old saying ,you are judged by the friends you keep sorry, I wouldn't stand up for a child molester under any circumstances, even if it was my family... suppose it wasn't his daughters who were fiddled with though..
Its not 'standing up' as such - just an honest character assessment. Whelan isnt getting him out of jail, he is giving a character reference which is true to him to allow the judge to make a fair and balanced sentence
yeah, are great "character" who accused his victims of lying in public.. and in interviews.. then claimed it was a conspiracy against him..then tried to hide his assets.. I certainly understand why Whelan wanted to be associated with that,
Don't really do Twitter so haven't read through all the stuff etc - did Dave Whelan give the character reference before the verdict? - if so, he might have been doing it in good faith not believing the guy he had known was capable of such vile behaviour. These people seem to be very good at masking their moves and behaviour due to the power and influence they have. DW might genuinely have believed the accusations to be false - there have been false accusations in his area and that kind of mud sticks. My other half comes from a small Welsh town - her family knew a guy (married with kids) who got accused of flashing at a couple of school girls as he answered his front door in his dressing giown. The guy and his family were drummed out of the village and he ended up topping himself - many years later one of the girls (now an adult), came forward and admitted that they had made it up - she couldn't carry on with the guilt.
... then I wholeheartedly agree with you - there are no redeeming charactersitics in such individuals as far as I'm concerned.
If I was Dave Whealan I would have done all I could to distance myself from him. Not pissing help him
but its a character reference. I havent read the entire case but, despite child molestering, he could have also offered a lot of good things to society - like his charity work than DW referenced. DW isnt condoning what he did, or trying to change a verdict. Everyone knew he was guilty, what the court then had to do was work out the appropriate punishment. As a child molester, the man will clearly have never done anything to abuse DW. DW gave a character reference based on his knowledge of the man. Its how court works and does not show DW to be condoling his actions, or to be standing up for the man saying he should not be sentenced.
Ian Brady is currently arguing that he is not as bad as some other killers, including governments, who have killed many more than the 5 that he has (owned up to) ... the difference that he doesn't seem to get (the sick ****) is that he killed kids for his own perverted sexual satisfaction ... it doesn't really matter whether he helped an old lady across the road at some point or did some work for charity ... a character reference should never ever anything other than 'sick ****' ...Dave Whelan has really dropped one here IMHO ... he could have caveated his reference with at least a comment that he had obviously been fooled by a manipulative sexual predator ...
believe me.. stuart hall has got away very lightly.. lot of stuff never got to court. whelan is an old fool..
Regardless of how they work he should have steered clear of him. Last thing the victims and their families want to see if Dave Whelan pop up saying he is a decent bloke etc.
"Atilla the Hun was nice to his mum ... but he tended to get anxious whenever he was faced by crowds ... resulting in some rather anti-social actions" Don't think we are misunderstanding ed - I do get your point - just think that Mr whelan should either have refused or caveated the character reference with a final line along the lines of "I now feel rather embarassed at having been taken in by someone who was obviously a deviant character under the facde of his charm".
