They handled him quite politely, as a witness somewhat than a suspect, and informed him they understood that pornographic materials had been left at his house by someone else. Within the occasion this was to lead to a two-12 months delay, during which Eric’s abusers have been left free to continue raping their manner round Greater Glasgow, and Eric himself was crucified by the tabloid press whereas being forbidden to defend himself as a result of the matter was sub judice. Having been given solely a fraction of the information, the tabloids assumed that if baby pornography had been found at Eric’s house he must be the owner and user of it, and went overboard on headlines about “Wee Pervy”. This fairly pleasant visit passed off at about 8am. By lunchtime the news that a police raid had removed child pornography from the house of “Wee Burney” was throughout Radio Clyde. Far from being a person of little one pornography himself, Eric was scared and revolted by this material – having been compelled to pose for this form of thing himself.

Though he was 28 Eric, an achondroplastic dwarf, nonetheless had the dimensions and to some extent the appearance of a baby. Because of Eric’s childlike look this pattern of routine gang-rape and beatings had continued well into his twenties. Within the early morning of thirtieth August 1993, quite a few policemen went to Eric’s home. Nevertheless a choice was taken to prosecute him for having exposed himself to minors (i.e. having “mooned” within the presence of younger boys), and for having had obscene material in his house – even on the premise that he had accomplished so only because he had been ordered to by his abusers and had been too terrified to refuse. In spring 1994 Eric was charged with having had unlawful pornography in his house and with exposing himself to the boys within the “mooning” photographs (i.e. having mooned where they might see it). Being in a state of hysterical collapse Eric did really tell one particular person concerning the police visit – he referred to as his pal and colleague Charles Kearney, informed him that the police had raided his home and asked him to return and collect him, as he himself was too shattered to remain the place he was and too dazed to drive.

Now that the thing was out within the open anyway, and it was much less doubtless that they would come spherical within the night time and minimize his throat if he talked about them, he was decided to present proof against them and see them convicted – partly out of a pure want for revenge, but mainly to cease them abusing other youngsters. The police themselves, nevertheless, still evidently didn’t regard Eric as a paedophile, since they didn’t come close to him once more for many weeks. One confirmed two youngish boys dropping their pants someplace on the banks of the River Clyde, and the other showed one of those boys and Eric (who was then a faculty student in his early twenties), additionally doing the identical. In any case Eric insisted these shots have been taken by Currens, who had ordered him to expose himself to the digital camera as part of a sample of abuse wherein he was routinely photographed naked.

At this level the Crown accepted that Eric had appeared in these “mooning” shots only underneath excessive duress. However this excessive part of his breakdown was fairly brief-lived. Because of the shock of getting his hideously embarrassing private suffering made so public, and the stress caused by the tabloids’ instant assumption that he should be a paedophile himself, and of discovering himself about to be prosecuted for having been abused, Eric suffered a extreme psychological breakdown and spent several weeks on a psychiatric ward. As he grew older the sexual facet of the abuse had tailed off to some extent, however once he grew to become a star his abusers switched to extortion strengthened by bodily violence – slapping him round and threatening to reveal his years of abject sexual humiliation to the tabloids except he paid them to keep quiet. He handed the material over immediately and started to inform them what had been happening to him, hysterical with a mixture of shock and relief – realizing that no matter else happened, their arrival had put an end to the years of abuse which he had suffered. He himself instructed the police a couple of recent incident by which his abusers had strengthened their control over him by deliberately compromizing him, by forcing him to commit a minor offence on movie – raping him and threatening him with worse if he disobeyed.