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Re: pete and suicide



I just had this sent to me by a friend:

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The Who's Townshend Mulled Suicide Over Child Porn   
Sun Dec 28, 6:29 AM ET  Add Entertainment - Reuters to My Yahoo! 

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20031228/en_nm/britain_townshend_dc 

LONDON (Reuters) - British rock legend Pete Townshend (news) contemplated suicide 
during a police inquiry into his use of child pornography, he said in an interview published 
on Sunday. 

The 58-year-old guitarist from the Who was arrested in January during a high-profile 
crackdown on Internet child porn and was formally cautioned in May after a four-month 
investigation. 

Townshend, who said he was abused as a child, publicly admitted viewing child porn-
ography but said it was purely for research purposes. 

"If I had had a gun, I would have shot myself," he told Britain's Observer newspaper. 
"And if I had shot myself, it would have been awful because it would have confirmed 
what everybody thought." 

The inquiry found he had visited a Web site containing child abuse images in 1999 but 
did not download any images. 

On top of the formal caution, police have taken a DNA sample from Townshend and 
put his name on the national Sex Offenders Register for five years. 

"I'm not sexually attracted to children," he said in the interview. Among the Who's many 
songs was the track "Fiddle About," which dealt with the issue of child abuse.
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- SCHRADE in Akron

The Council For Secular Humanism
http://www.secularhumanism.org/