Why the NFL and Bridgestone should not have invited Pete Townshend of the WHO to play the Super Bowl XLIV Half-Time
 

> Updates (Read)

> Correspondence with National Football League (Read)

> View the extensive media files (Read)

> Facts of the Townshend child porn case derived from the UK media (Read)

> Research, backup documents and video (Read)

> Florida, Miami-Dade Sexual Offender and Sexual Predator Ordinance 05-205 (Read)
 

Our Position
Child AbuseWatch objected to the hiring of Pete Townshend of the WHO by the National Football League as the half-time act for Super Bowl XLIV. Townshend was arrested by British police in 2003 for accessing and paying for viewing child pornography. He was placed on the UK sexual offender registry. It was not appropriate for a sex offender to be playing to a public audience of families and children many of whom are victims of abuse. An employee at the event would not have been hired to sell hot dogs with a sex offense such as Townshend's in his resume.

Background
Townshend confessed and pleaded guilty to the crime of accessing and paying for viewing child pornography online and received a 'caution' (approximate U.S. equivalent of a guilty plea with adjudication withheld) from the police and avoided a formal trial. He was never cleared of any charges pertaining to his caution and resulting sex offender status. Townshend was listed as a sexual offender on the British Violent and Sex Offender Register (ViSOR) from 2003 to 2008.

In a statement issued by his solicitor, Townshend said at the time, "I accept that I was wrong to access this site, and that by doing so, I broke the law, and I have accepted the caution that the police have given me."

The police did not detect child rape images on his computers despite his guilty plea of accessing child pornography. His excuse of conducting 'research' is one well documented by the FBI when they make arrests for child pornography (see under the previous sections Facts of the Townshend child porn case and Research).

Other points of interest:

• In 2002 Townshed wrote in a paper (see Smoking Gun article) 'that the "pathway to 'free' pedophilic imagery is--as it were--laid out like a free line of cocaine at a decadent cocktail party: only the strong willed or terminally uncurious can resist.'

• In 2006 he wrote and subsequently withdrew a graphic teen sex story on his website (See London Times article 2006).

'Fact is (that) even someone looking for a job as a groundskeeper at Land Shark stadium
wouldn't get hired with a sex offender status in his past; why then does Townshend?'
(E Daly, CEO, Child AbuseWatch in a Yahoo Shine article January 11, 2010)

Contact the National Football League

Write: Roger Goodell, Executive Vice President, NFL, 280 Park Ave, New York, NY 10017
Or email: GoodellR@nfl.com, info@nfl.com
 

NFL SuperBowl XLIV Sponsors
[From the NFL 'Sports Business Resource Guide & Fact Book' at www.nfl.com]

Bridgestone, BurgerKing, Campbell’s, Canon USA, Coors Brewing, Dairy Management Inc., FedEx, Frito-Lay, Gatorade, General Motors, IBM, Masterfoods, MBNA, Motorola, News America, PepsiCo: Diet Pepsi, PepsiCo: Tropicana,  Southwest Airlines, Sprint, Visa,