Neil Gaiman "cancelled"?

smartcooky said:
I don't know how things work where you live, but where I live (which is the jurisdiction where any trial would be held) we have something called "a presumption of innocence. When there have been facts presented in a court of law then I will make an assessment based on that. Until then, this is nothing more than a case of "he said v she said".

Note: I asked my friend at Auckland City Police this weekend if they could tell me anything more. They said they would not give me details, but said they knew the investigators thought both she and Gaiman were not being truthful about many of the allegations.

If she was being dishonest, Crown Law would not bother prosecuting. Harsh lesson for victims here is to stick to the facts, don't embellish or tell lies.
Click to expand...
It has been repeatedly explained on this forum that presumption of innocence is a legal restriction but does not bind everyone to being unable to make their own judgments about who is telling the truth. It doesn’t for example stop you from claiming that the woman in question here is a “gold digger”. So the homilies about presumption of innocence look hollow when only selectively applied.
 
Lithrael said:
While I don't mind cutting SC some slack due to his personal experiences, I do find it foolish to use one's personal anecdotes as a baseline, as opposed to a way to know that sometimes 'people don’t think it be like it is, but it do.'
Click to expand...
Its not the only baseline I use. As I said about 2% of rape and sexual assault allegations are false. It doesn't sound like much, until you present it as actual numbers with real people's lives impacted.

I am an ardent believer in Sir William Blackstone's principles as outlined the 18th century..."all presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously: for the law holds that it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than one innocent suffer"

This is a core principle of skepticism in relation to the law and determination of guilt or innocence. @Safe-Keeper - you might want to keep Blackstone's principle in mind when you start having a swipe at me about skepticism.
 
Last edited:
I'm mostly picking up on your vehemence and, like AngrySoba said, while you (correctly) point out that the accused should enjoy the presumption of innocence despite things seeming possibly sketchy, you seem to have no problem assuming the accuser is probably guilty of misconduct based on cop choices and hearsay.

Your friend said "the investigators thought both she and Gaiman were not being truthful about many of the allegations" and you have decided this means that the police not moving forward with the case was the accuser's fault for deciding to "embellish or tell lies."

This is of course all fine as speculation. It does get strange when you want to leverage how serious the damage of false accusations is, apparantly as part of your argument. Of course it is and of course it does happen. This isn't in dispute. "It's possible" would be important to point out if anyone was arguing that it was impossible. "It happens more than you think" would be important to point out if statistical likelyhood was part of evaluating guilt in an individual case - which imo it basically never should be.

If she made it some of it up then she shouldn't have. None of us have access to enough information to tell. So I'm more uncomfortable calling her a liar without evidence, than calling him pretty abusive sounding, based on several other accusations, while leaving this particular one in the maybe pile.
 
Last edited:
smartcooky said:
I don't know how things work where you live, but where I live (which is the jurisdiction where any trial would be held) we have something called "a presumption of innocence".
Click to expand...
The presumption of innocence is a rule imposed on the state. It's part of setting a very high bar of due process, before the state can legitimately exercise its powers of incarceration and other infringements on the life and liberty of the accused.

Nobody in the public is expected or required to follow this rule. They're free to reach their own conclusions, based on the evidence available. For example, based on the number of accusations, the number of accusers, the details so far revealed, and the fact that neither Gaiman nor Palmer disputes the essential facts of the accusations, I tend towards the conclusion that he's a scumbag for sure and almost certainly a rapist.

Remember, Gaiman isn't disputing the events themselves. He's just saying she wanted it.
 
Lithrael said:
I'm mostly picking up on your vehemence and, like AngrySoba said, while you (correctly) point out that the accused should enjoy the presumption of innocence despite things seeming possibly sketchy, you seem to have no problem assuming the accuser is probably guilty of misconduct based on cop choices and hearsay.

Your friend said "the investigators thought both she and Gaiman were not being truthful about many of the allegations" and you have decided this means that
the police not moving forward with the case was the accuser's fault for deciding to "embellish or tell lies."
Click to expand...
Yes it is, because she is the complainant. You seem to be under the impression that the dishonesty of both are two equal and opposite sides of the same issue. They aren't.

If the accused lies to the police, that will make it more likely that Crown Law would proceed with the case, because such lies can be tested and exposed in court with questioning, but lies told by the complainant will almost certainly torpedo the case. A jury will be negatively impacted if the complainant lies on the stand.

Therefore, it is in actual fact true to say "the police not moving forward with the case was the accuser's fault for deciding to embellish or tell lies."... the accused lying would not cause that to happen.
 
theprestige said:
The presumption of innocence is a rule imposed on the state. It's part of setting a very high bar of due process, before the state can legitimately exercise its powers of incarceration and other infringements on the life and liberty of the accused.

Nobody in the public is expected or required to follow this rule. They're free to reach their own conclusions, based on the evidence available. For example, based on the number of accusations, the number of accusers, the details so far revealed, and the fact that neither Gaiman nor Palmer disputes the essential facts of the accusations, I tend towards the conclusion that he's a scumbag for sure and almost certainly a rapist.

Remember, Gaiman isn't disputing the events themselves. He's just saying she wanted it.
Click to expand...
Exactly.

Looking at the podcast episodes, just from the blurbs, there appear to have been five women overall who have made allegations against Gaiman, and the nanny is one of the first two. It seems likely that her breaking her silence led to more people coming forward.

Also, the What’sApp messages are brought up in the second episode. The worst of the abuse is alleged to have taken place after the messages had been sent.

For those who are hard of hearing, a lot of podcast apps have automatically generated transcripts.
 
smartcooky said:
Yes it is, because she is the complainant. You seem to be under the impression that the dishonesty of both are two equal and opposite sides of the same issue. They aren't.

If the accused lies to the police, that will make it more likely that Crown Law would proceed with the case, because such lies can be tested and exposed in court with questioning, but lies told by the complainant will almost certainly torpedo the case. A jury will be negatively impacted if the complainant lies on the stand.

Therefore, it is in actual fact true to say "the police not moving forward with the case was the accuser's fault for deciding to embellish or tell lies."... the accused lying would not cause that to happen.
Click to expand...
No, I was saying their possible dishonesties were of similar weight in armchair opinions.

I also said that you decided that the reason the police did not pursue the case was because the accuser embellished or told lies. You do not know why the police did not pursue the case. You only know that your friend said that she knew that the investigators thought that she was not being truthful about 'many' of the allegations. You can only infer how much of a factor that was in their decisions. You certainly don't know how strongly they thought that (presumably strongly enough to be a factor sure) or on what basis.
 
smartcooky said:
Its not the only baseline I use.
As I said about 2% of rape and sexual assault allegations are false. It doesn't sound like much, until you present it as actual numbers with real people's lives impacted.

I am an ardent believer in Sir William Blackstone's principles as outlined the 18th century..."all presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously:
for the law holds that it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than one innocent suffer"

This is a core principle of skepticism in relation to the law and determination of guilt or innocence. @Safe-Keeper - you might want to keep Blackstone's principle in mind when you start having a swipe at me about skepticism.
Click to expand...
If 2% of rape and sexual assault allegations are false, then that is only one in fifty, as opposed to Blackstone's one in ten.

A skeptic is not going to ardently follow a dictum just because it was from the 18th Century or the person saying it has a "Sir" in front of their name. They are also not going to use it outside of the context in which it was designed (a court of law), and with no use of any of the surrounding context that we do know of.

Apparently there are about eight women who have made accusations against Gaiman. Is he some kind of supremely unlucky guy to have attracted eight gold-digging whores?

It's not impossible, but it seems to me far too hasty for you to be able to jump to conclusions about the moral depravity of the accuser while demanding everyone else suspend all judgment over Gaiman.
 
smartcooky said:
Yup, and the complaint's own text and WhatsApp messages unequivocally support his claim.
Click to expand...
I don't want to gang up on you, but you can't say it's unequivocal. Multiple people have explained why, and ignoring them is not good skepticism.
 
angrysoba said:
(...) while demanding everyone else suspend all judgment over Gaiman.
Click to expand...
Well, he's not actually saying that, he's just saying this one woman's case was too weak for the cops and that's probably down to her being a lying golddigger.
 
Lithrael said:
No, I was saying their possible dishonesties were of similar weight in armchair opinions.

I also said that you decided that the reason the police did not pursue the case was because the accuser embellished or told lies. You do not know why the police did not pursue the case. You only know that your friend said that she knew that the investigators thought that she was not being truthful about 'many' of the allegations. You can only infer how much of a factor that was in their decisions. You certainly don't know how strongly they thought that (presumably strongly enough to be a factor sure) or on what basis.
Click to expand...
Its not speculation, its a reasonable conclusion drawn from the facts we do know.

There are no independent witnesses to any of this, and that means her claims are the sole evidence against him... if the Police believe she is lying about ANY of it, then its reasonable to conclude that is the reason why they didn't proceed with charges.
 
Orphia Nay said:
I don't want to gang up on you, but you can't say it's unequivocal. Multiple people have explained why, and ignoring them is not good skepticism.
Click to expand...
Ok then...

"the complaint's own text and WhatsApp messages support his claim"

Happy now? :rolleyes:

Are any of those "multiple people" personal eye witnesses to what happened, or are they just speculating, reading between the lines (a form of speculation), or drawing their conclusions as to her state of mind (i.e., more speculation)?
 
(replying to #272)
Sure, and you believe the cops probably evaluated that correctly, and I'm open to that possibility but I don't tend to really take that kind of conclusion to heart unless I know what kind of evidence they have or at least that they've based it on more than those texts and vibes.
 
Last edited:
To be clear, I am not a fan of Gaiman. I had no idea who he was until this story broke.

Apparently, he was 60ish at the time. The fact that he was engaging is sexual activity with a mid-20s woman makes him a scumbag in my view, but if it was consensual (and the only documentary evidence we have is that it was) then that mean the rape allegations are false.

ETA: Its worth noting that Gaiman's ex-wife also denies Pavlovich's claims.
 
Last edited:
Lithrael said:
(replying to #272)
Sure, and you believe the cops probably evaluated that correctly, and I'm open to that possibility but I don't tend to really take that kind of conclusion to heart unless I know what kind of evidence they have or at least that they've based it on more than those texts and vibes.
Click to expand...
Crown Law won't proceed with a case if they do not think there is much chance of a conviction.
Police won't pass a case to Crown Law if they don't think Crown Law will proceed.

For the Police not to pass a case to Crown Law, means that case must be very weak... if the complainant has lied to them, then that WILL be the prime reason for not proceeding. Its almost impossible to win a case when the ONLY witness is lying.
 
The What’s App messages an are being presented here as some kind of bombshell revelation, and I admit that I didn’t know about them myself. But the podcast addresses them right at the beginning of the first episode. The host points out that just because someone is in a relationship and has had consensual sex with someone it does not mean that everything in the relationship should be assumed to be consensual. If that were true there would be no such thing as rape within marriage, and indeed the law did not recognize it in most countries until recently. But would we see love letters as evidence that the wife is lying if she said she was raped by her husband?
 
arthwollipot said:
Some of you need to learn about coerced consent.
Click to expand...
Yes, we all know about coerced consent. The thing is, in coerced consent cases, the victim will almost always tell friends about it at the time. Pavlovich told no-one, and messaged no-one about what she claims Gaiman was allegendy doing to her

At the very least, if the victim communicated with the alleged attacker, it will be expressions of anger or resentment... it won't contain messages like this

​
I am consumed by thoughts of you, the things you will do to me. I'm so hungry. What a terrible creature you've turned me into. I hope tomorrow, or some other time soon.​
​
What have you done to me, only a couple of hours and I've already been the baddest girl. I think you need to give me a huge spanking very soon. I'm ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ desperate for my master​
​
So naughty even sending you texts like that. Extra punishment needed. Goodnight.​


Don't tempt me​
I mean ..... If you happen to be alone later tomorrow night and are struck by an adventurous impetus, maybe I could come for a visit and then vanish in the morning for work like an apparition .... I'm at your service .​
You've made me a bit of a greedy girl. : ) ​
​
I may be ill but I am tying here with my sick little mind wandering into terrible, filthy, dark places and I want you to (if I'm lucky), occasionally instruct me with naughty things to do so that I can fill all this alone time imagining your cruelty. I mean you have turned me into a bit of a bratty slut after all and now that I am naked in your bed that smells of you with your dirty boxers between my thighs it is kind of your responsibility to at least force me into doing a few despicable things whilst you're away, right master? Or will I be punished much later for this bold and disreputable text? I'm sorry I'm such a desperate and perverted and kinky sad little girl. What do they say, when you play with fire ........ : )​
​
Dream dark dreams. I'm glad you are there with my μnwashed clothes in my bed.that smells like me.​
​
I'm glad you unintentionally left me some unwashed clothes you know I ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ love it. This whole house smells so damn good because it smells of you. I'm now downstairs watching Tarkovsky's Stalker which is my favourite film ever made and I figure it will help with the dark dreams. ​

Now I'm sorry, but if you or anyone else believes these are the words of a woman being coerced into consent, then you are living in a fantasy world of your own making. And there are literally dozens more just like these, some are even more explicit. If you want to see more, then here you go...

WARNING: 9MB PDF and also NFSW
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom