Ben Cowburn
A popular TV comedian dedicated a performance to a teenage boy who had killed himself just months after allegedly being ‘groomed’ by the star.
An inquest has heard the gay comedian ‘took advantage’ of Ben Cowburn after introducing the fashion student to his ‘hedonistic lifestyle’, involving parties fuelled by alcohol and drugs.
But despite the serious nature of the accusations against the comedian, he was referred to simply as ‘Mr X’ during the inquest after the coroner backed an informal agreement to protect his name.
theneedleblog 
On expert witness in the case read here. How corrupt is the whole thing:
http://www.doctors4justice.net/
that’s not a ‘doctors’ website. It’s just another blog repeating what is on here. A 100 blogs siting each other as proof does not mean something is true.
I agree that this is about age and responsibility and if people genuinely condemn bad behaviour regardless of gender then fair enough. In terms of males I actually think this happens less often than it did in the past. When the gay male age of consent was 21, which many considered to be grossly unfair, some men tended to make up their own rules.
The papers report that the young man made 43 attempts to take his own life after being persuaded to do ‘sexual things’ with the celebrity. All things considered I can’t help but think that this may in part have been negative feelings due to being gay. In which case we’re back to the stigma. The number of suicide attempts would seem to suggest someone who was very troubled indeed and perhaps going beyond the situation with the celebrity.
The problem with the current gay community is actually similar to how it was 40 years ago. Then all you saw were flamboyant camp characters. Now there’s the perception that every gay man is a wealthy gym and drug using hedonist who only cares about Kylie or a grotesque celeb. So we’re still dealing in stereotypes. Like straight men, gay men come in all shapes and sizes.
Gender has something to do with it only in the sense that it seems to me there would be a much bigger media and public hullaboo if 17 year old was a female. Sadly it seems that a certain section of the gay community engage in this type of predatory behaviour and scream “homophobe” at anyone who criticises it.
I reject any suggestion that the disapproval of Mr X’s actions is anti-gay. If a bloke in his forties employs then sexually pursues a vulnerable 17 year old girl, that in my opinion is wrong. Gender has nothing to do with this; age and responsibilty has.
In some countries, offering a 17 year old employment and then engaging them in sex acts could get you put away for “Sexual Exploitation”, at the least. Doubly tragic that he chose to destroy himself, since that would seem to let He Who Cannot Be Named off the hook for legal consequences. I’m skeptical about the boy being genuinely consenting – or even gay, considering his statement to the contrary to psych staff. Someone 17-18 years of age, perhaps with no prior sexual experiences to speak of, could certainly lack the assertiveness skills to say NO! to an older, more sophisticated and more aggressive person, and get out of the situation. I appreciated the tweet you posted, thank you. Perhaps the Gay community in UK may put the man on their “stay away from this predator!” list, even if he’s never charged with anything.
Last message on his twitter feed is poignant.
Ben.. Are you okay? Haven’t heard from you in a while, howas everything going? XXxXX @bencowburn
Well done. I’d found the Twitter message and the “comedian” being “followed” and as a “follower” on this poor kid’s Twitter page.
Fame and sex together can create an arrogance. This poor young man was left feeling awful, betrayed and used. Maybe he was just too young, too inexperienced and too sensitive to be able to throw this awful experience into a skip and forget about it.
Very sad.
You sound young and inexperienced because you are making bizarre declarations about the case when you couldn’t have the slightest clue what happened. Just because someone makes a claim does not make it accurate or true.
On the other hand there has been a lot of evidence given by professional psychiatrists that this sad young man was mentally disturbed. Perhaps it was drugs but who could possibly know how he obtained drugs.
If you think young people need an older person to hold their hands obtaining and taking drugs then you need to go to one of Britain’s thousands of raves, pubs and nightclubs on the weekends and witnesses hundreds of thousands of young people off their heads.
As sad as this situation is – and as pointless as the attempt at secrecy, it is an unfortunate fact that some people cannot cope after relationship breakdowns. I don’t know the ins and outs so won’t comment further but I’m not sure how the age of consent really comes into it. I think homosexual men are as capable of making decisions as heterosexual men…
Think you are a bit wrong there gw – my brother `came out` when he was 17, went out with very older men (because what they could offer) – my life at 17, being `hetro` was with girls my age (i.e totally different values towards sex and its consequences).
And of course young girls have never gone out with 40 year old men because of what they could offer, namely wealth? And 17 year old boys have never hooked up with 40 year old women because they wanted someone with more sexual experience? Much of this outrage is for one reason only: it involved two males.
There’s a very good reason why some young men seek out older gay men. It’s because men of the same age tend to be immature and indiscreet.
For ten years I’ve been in a casual relationship with a man who is 12 years younger than me. Because he is “in the closet” one of his biggest fears was getting involved with a bitchy, gossipy, immature man who would betray him.
The ironic thing is that the more prejudice you whip up against being gay, the longer these tragic incidents will continue, due to guilt and feeling dirty.
I’ve very sorry about what happened to this young man., It sounds like he was let down. But not all older gay men are like that.
Reblogged this on Thinking Out Loud and commented:
The age of consent is somewhere many people, afraid of being shouted down by the vociferous if minuscule politically correct minority, is of very important and under rated significance. Some people mature more slowly than others some lack the maturity to know when they are not in a relationship they are a spare and easily dispensed with part. This is very sad. I’d link to think the well known comedian is more aware of that than anyone.
Reblogged this on justiceforkevinandjenveybaylis.
that website quotes unproven and ridiculous statistics. While there may be millions of ‘sex slaves’ they are largely in Asia and they are run by Asian gangsters often with connections to local generals or politicians who protect them and the trade is exclusively within the Asian community.
A tiny proportion are ‘sold’ to westerners and the money grabbing ‘charities’ run by westerners never EVER interfere with the local trade as they would last a week. The current price for an assasination in Thailand- two men on a motorbike with a cheap gun, is around $200 and they would never be caught.
The local gangsters like it that way and allow western charities as it lto chase a few token western pedos.
The only way to solve this is to raise the living standards of all poorer countries but that is unlikely to happen
Great to see you’re back Gojam – you had us worried there…
Three questions occur to me on this story:
– is ‘Mr X’ being afforded a higher level of privacy than you or I would in a similar circumstance, and if so why?
– while it would appear that Mr X’s actions do not constitute a crime (Ben was 17 and willing at the time), does our revulsion at such acts suggest they should be? If so, what are we suggesting should be a crime – sexual grooming of a person under 18 by a person over 21?
– if the court has heard that drugs were supplied to Ben, then why is that particular crime not being investigated, or is it?
It’s a coroner’s inquest and not a trial. Who knows, if the relevant authorities think there is a case to answer perhaps there will be a trial in future.
‘Mr X’ is not being afforded any more privacy than anybody else in the same situation. Police investigated, found no evidence of any criminal activity, and therefore it would be utterly unfair to allow him to be named in connection with alleged sex crimes in a courtroom full of journalists.
Who said anything about crimes ?
He should have been named because his relationship to Ben Cowburn was a contributing factor in his death.
Another young man too young to assess what he was getting into, with no protection from the laws that were demolished when they dismantled the laws of homosexual consent, sacrificed on the altar of political correctness which turns a blind eye to the features of orgies and SM rife in this area.
If I had been his parents I would be burning hot with anger at what happened, but if they had felt that way and had acted upon it they would be termed the criminals. Parents have been disempowered even from having their 16 year old sons groomed and sodomised, and if they catch up with s.o. who did this and administered even a mild assault, they would be the criminals and the groomer go scot free. Where is the justice in that? The parents have to suppress their feelings to remain within the law whereas some predatory man doesn’t ? And where precisely is the justice and the logic in that?
I agree LJMT totally! and well said
I’m disappointed that in tabloid style this blog has posted a quote about a “teenage boy” and not made clear that he was over the age of consent.
What evidence is there that he was “sodomised”? Bigots are always obsessed with male/male anal sex for some reason… I have news for you: numerous straight people engage in it. Quite a number of gay men don’t and it’s far from obligatory in any encounter anyway. I’m gay and 52 and have never been to an orgy or engaged in S&M. It isn’t “rife” at all.
Would you be similarly outraged if the case involved a 17 year old girl? If we’re going to be outraged about “grooming” by 40 year old men then let’s be equally outraged when the 17 year old is male or female. When it’s a 40 year old man preying on a 17 year old girl (and let’s be frank, that used to be standard practice and probably still is), why isn’t the focus on the fact that the disgusting man is heterosexual? A predator is a predator.
You’re just whipping up hatred due to one incident.
Perhaps the idea of a young 17-year-old male in this situation also causes more outrage because of a perception that males are more valuable than females.
Calling male-on-male abusers homosexuals can apparently cause abuse victims to feel even worse:
http://www.malesurvivor.org/myths.html
http://themensproject.ca/MaleToMaleChildSexualAbuseInContextOfHomophobia
“Would you be similarly outraged if the case involved a 17 year old girl?” If it involved these levels of manipulation and orgies, yes. Easy question for a woman to answer. I care about people, male or female, not being manipulated into lustful relationships that are dead ends near the beginnings of their lives. Do you?
And who were the ones in court for the inquest, open and grieving for the son that they loved? And where was the comic? Apparently in hiding. That is the difference between love and lust; one suffers and goes to great lengths. The other uses, manipulates and then hides if the going gets tough.
You might call that bigotry. I call it mere observation.
I agree. The vast majority of gay people are as law abiding and prim and proper as heterosexual folk.
Things are said especially in an inquest where it is natural for grief to overwhelm family members and seek any answer apart from the obvious :their child was mentally disturbed and sadly took his life as almost 1000 males do every week in the UK.
This is being whipped up by the media who don’t give a toss about who may be damaged.
Sad to think that the press baron Rupert Murdoch who dragged Britain’s tabloid media into the filthy gutter married a woman 40 years younger than himself and this is seen by the world as something wonderful even though he made a fortune from publishing under aged topless teen girl photos before 2003.
Or that Richard Desmond who owns the Express made millions from publishing the most disgusting pornography in the country.
For some reason on the internet people think they can amplify what in the past was over the back fence gossip by stupid old women or Poison Pen Letters without giving a stuff who is hurt : accusations and claims are presented as though they are proof or evidence.
Can’t be Gojam, it says “Popular” and “Comedian”.
Glad to see you back with a bang.