I have done plenty of "stupid things", but being a sexual predator is not one of them. This is so far beyond the realm of "stupid things" that we all do in our lives. Describing it as a "stupid thing" is like saying "Oh, I just fell over naked and that naked boy broke my fall, stupid thing to do really." This is a man who decided to move to a third world nation and prey upon young boys for years. A man who found a nation with a legal loop-hole that allowed him to pursue his perverted lusts, and he did so with no moral qualms.

I don't think he got as much press as, say, Michael Jackson. In fact, outside of The Sunday Mirror article and a couple of sites on the net, it was a pretty quiet affair. Of course, Clarke's legal machine stomped the allegations out pretty quickly. Sri Lanka is a country where a well placed bribe or two can get you out of nearly any legal wrangle. If Jackson could do it in the States, how easy would it have been for Clarke to do in Colombo? What can the distraught peasant parents of the abused children do against the might of a "great white sahib", who has friends in high places?

It's interesting to note that another thread in the news concerning an Australian police officer and his 8000 odd child porn images has garnered a good few pages of vitriol. Yet Clarke, because he is considered some kind of science fiction "Demi-God", is beyond reproach.