"In a television interview, she did not exonerate Polanski for the way in which he had taken advantage of her â" "what he did to me was wrong" â" but she did say that she had felt more damaged by the media's subsequent handling of her case than by what had happened to her at the time."
================== (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/28/roman-polanski-arrested-ignores-victim) Those who arrested Roman Polanski have ignored his victim The woman sexually assaulted as a child will suffer even more if the case comes to court. Only the lawyers will win The most important person in the story of Roman Polanski's arrest in Switzerland at the weekend is Samantha Gailey, a middle-aged bookkeeper living quietly with her family in Hawaii. In 1977, as a 13-year-old in Hollywood, Gailey was given champagne and drugs by the director, who then had sex with her. Polanski, who was then aged 44, pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, spent 42 days in prison in Chino, California, and was due to be sentenced to time served when it became clear that the deal his lawyers had negotiated with the prosecution was not to be honoured â" and he would have had to spend much more time in jail than had been agreed. He fled the United States in 1978 and has never returned. Seven years ago, after Polanski had won an Oscar for his film The Pianist, the case came once again under scrutiny in the US. Gailey was tracked down to her home in Hawaii where she had settled with her husband and three children. In a television interview, she did not exonerate Polanski for the way in which he had taken advantage of her â" "what he did to me was wrong" â" but she did say that she had felt more damaged by the media's subsequent handling of her case than by what had happened to her at the time. "What happened that night, it's hard to believe," she said at the time, "but it paled in comparison to what happened in the next year of my life ⦠He did something really gross to me but it was the media that ruined my life." As to what punishment she felt Polanski should now suffer, she said: "He made a terrible mistake but he's paid for it." Gailey, who waived her anonymity when she gave the interview, has made similar comments whenever the case has been discussed. Last year she repeated her comments when she attended the New York premiere of the documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired. She was and remains the victim in this case; and no amount of mentions of the fact that "it was the 70s" and people did things differently then can excuse the fact that a man three times her age had sex with a 13-year-old when she was under the influence of drink and drugs. But, as Gailey has said herself, Polanksi has been punished. He lost what was, at the time, a glittering career in Hollywood. He has been publicly humiliated. His name is associated by many people as much with that sex offence as with all his cinematic achievements, from Rosemary's Baby and Chinatown to Tess and The Pianist. He has also suffered separately in ways that few people who stand in judgment of him can understand, in that his then wife, Sharon Tate â" who was eight months pregnant with their child â" was murdered in vile circumstances by the Charles Manson gang in 1968. What will be served by Polanski being extradited to the US to stand trial? Gailey will have her privacy invaded once more as the details of the case, already posted in prurient detail around the world, receive more coverage. The case itself is already mired in confusion as a result of allegations of judicial misconduct at the original trial and is unlikely to have a swift conclusion. Some lawyers will benefit, but who else? Of course there are many cases of offenders who have evaded the courts for years and who should still be forced to face trial, even if they are old and the decades have passed. War criminals (whether Nazis, or torturers from Latin America), predatory sex offenders and murderers should always have to live in fear of the tap on the shoulder and answer to their crimes. There are countless occasions when the extradition laws can and should be used. But extradition should be employed when the case merits it. We are already familiar with the attempts made by the US authorities to extradite the British computer hacker Gary McKinnon for the victimless offence of embarrassing the US military's computer system. Compassion should have come into play there too, both from the US authorities and Britain's home secretaries. As for the suggestion that the Swiss authorities have a reputation for punctilious attention to legal niceties, it has not stopped them in the past from protecting the private bank accounts of many a dictator or financial criminal. The real victim in this case has called for compassion. But compassion is unfashionable at the moment, so the chances of her voice prevailing may not be great. The desire to exact punishment, regardless of how the actual victim is affected by it, and to justify that punishment with some grandstanding rhetoric, is the fashion of the moment. Child sex, like the Middle East, is a subject where the normal conventions of debate degenerate very swiftly into name-calling and deliberate misinterpretat ion. There is no reason to believe that this case will be any different. But the victim still has a right to be heard, even if what she says does not satisfy those seeking vengeance. Many commenters have simply used the term 'rape' in relation to Roman Polanski's 1977 conviction. The offence he pleaded guilty to is often described as 'statutory rape' but more precisely as 'unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor'.
