February 6

Events

• Current events

• 1997 - Not an ally, but an incredible simulation! - Dr. Howard Barbaree, the head of forensic services at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry in Toronto and a professor and head of the forensic program at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto and clinical director of the Warkworth Sexual Behaviour Clinic testified to a Canadian Parliamentary committee on this date about two bills dealing with the release of pedos after their sentences. He said, in part, "When we talk about pedophilia we're talking about a sexual preference for or a sexual interest in children rather than adults or as well as an interest in adults. When we talk about the sexual preference, people usually think about that sexual preference in the same way as they think about homosexuality. There are schools of thought that say this sexual interest in children is acquired through experience with sexual activity with children and there are some schools of thought that say this sexual interest is determined genetically or at least prenatally. Is there any evidence in the literature that we have treatments or interventions that can change that sexual interest? The answer is no. Most of the studies just find no long-term effects on that sexual interest. I think there is a view in the general public that everyone who molests children can be diagnosed as a pedophile, that all of them have this underlying sexual interest in children. The fact is that in the research studies, only about 50% of men who molest children have a discernible sexual interest in children apart from their offence."

• 2001 - An un-Whiting consequence of his actions - In England, police charged Roy Whiting with the kidnapping and murder of 8 year old Sarah Payne on this date. Payne, who disappeared the previous July near her grandparents' home in southern England, became a national celebrity and sparked a national campaign for tougher laws against pedos. Ultimately Whiting was convicted and given a life sentence. As a result of this case, Sarah's parents demanded the introduction of "Sarah's Law" - a version of America's Megan's Law where communities are told the whereabouts of known pedos. But the government and other critics of the proposal said access to such information would be unlikely to prevent crimes and could lead to vigilante attacks, exactly as happened in Britain around that time.

• 2001 - A pedo by any other name .... - Mr. Randy White, a Canadian Member of Parliament, proposed Bill C-240, an act to amend the Criminal Code. The bill would have prohibited certain offenders from changing their names. High on his list of concerns were pedos. he relayed a couple of cases in his speech, one of them being that of Robert Gordon Stevens. Stevens was a very serious sex offender who abused children. He went to prison. He met a fellow in another prison who was also a serious sex offender and who had changed his name from Willoughby to Oatway. Stevens and Willoughby-Oatway met in another prison and had themselves a little arranged matrimonial ceremony while in prison. Stevens then changed his name to Oatway, which meant that Robert Gordon Stevens became Bobby Gordon Oatway and Willoughby was also named Oatway (still with me?). Bobby Oatway is the result of this. Bobby left prison. Since people who knew him as a sex offender under one name might know who to keep an eye on now that he had a new name, it made it harder for people to persecute .. er ... protect themselves from him. So banning name changes for convicted pedos (and others) was proposed. The bill did not become law.

Births

February 6, 1864 John Henry Mackay was an individualist anarchist, writer, and boylover.