It's been a while

But I'm now on the next element of SOGP.

In the interim, I've been through "Victim Empathy". This included the woolly concept that a Victim is not necessarily the person who suffered as a result of your action. Indeed, in the case of one of our members, the facilitators suggested that the victim was the uninvolved person who reported him to police!

What claptrap.

A victim is a victim only if they have suffered harm by the improper actions of another person towards them. In other words, a 16 year old boy who sleeps with his 25 year old teacher, by consent, is no more a victim than the chairman of RBS when he picks up his unfeasibly large salary.

For anyone to suggest that someone uninvolved, unaffected and unrelated to the event could be a victim is ludicrous.

And then we had to role-play as our victim! I was expected to accept the victim suffered harm. The harm that was so severe and traumatising that she refused to give evidence, co-operate with police or make any victim impact statement, and so severe and traumatising that since release she has written to me three times, telephones me weekly and wants to meet me the day my licence expires.

This is purely a box-ticking exercise. I may well decline to continue the course.