Gary Glitter in trouble in Vietnam

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And let's not forget Juliet Capulet, 13 when she eloped with Romeo.

What gets my goat is the hypocrisy of the popular press in the UK: as mentioned on the Wiki entry on Brass Eye which Stewart linked to, one UK tabloid had outrage about Brass Eye's programme on paedophilia hysteria on page one, and on page two a piece about the breasts of singer Charlotte Church, then 15 ("Charlotte's looking chest swell..."). Another paper - the Daily Mail, soi-disant guardian of the nation's morals - had outrage about Brass Eye on page 1 and on page three had paparazzi pictures of the Duchess of York's two daughters, aged (I think) 13 and 15, in their bikinis on a yacht, with accompanying text about how they were blossoming. Then there's The Sun, another moral siren, whose female editor was recently arrested for assaulting her husband, shortly after beginning a campaign in the paper against domestic violence. A few years back it had a series of pictures shown over a week of a schoolgirl gradually stripteasing, until on the last day (which was her 16th birthday) she appeared topless. Of course the photographs would have been taken before she was 16. The aforesaid editor of The Sun previously edited its Sunday counterpart, the News of the World, which ran a Name and Shame campaign of convicted paedophiles, printing their mugshots every week, until they finally caved in to pleas by police and child welfare campaign groups to stop, as they were sending paedophiles 'underground' and highly counterproductive.

From BBC News site at the time:

There were violent scenes throughout the country as local people formed vigilante-type mobs intent on driving men taken to be those pictured in the paper out of their neighbourhoods.

In Portsmouth 300 people attacked the home of a local taxi driver who had been named by the paper.

An innocent man, Iain Armstrong, was beaten up by a mob in Manchester after being mistaken for one of the pictured paedophiles - apparently because he wore a neck-brace which looked like one worn to the man in the News of the World's picture.

There was a similar case in Norwich, and a celebrated incident when an entirely innocent South Wales paediatrician was attacked after confusion over the meaning of the word.

In the Midlands police received messages from vigilante leaders threatening to drive suspected paedophiles from council estates warning that police stations would be attacked if officers got in the way of mob justice.

Amid what the Home Office called a "climate of fear and panic" in parts of the country, a named paedophile, James White, committed suicide after a vigilante attack on his home. White's solicitor later said White had been "literally scared to death".

At the same time senior police officers asked the News of the World to call off its campaign because it was wrecking investigations, alerting paedophiles and forcing them "underground".

Gloucestershire chief Constable Tony Butler said the News of the World was engaged in "irresponsible journalism".

There was also the danger of prejudicing juries and thus preventing offenders from being brought to justice.

In Manchester one paedophile walked free from court because, following the publication of his picture and address in the News of the World, the judge ruled that he - and innocent family members - had already suffered enough at the hands of mob justice.

Any non-UK members now wondering who Charlotte Church is: don't bother. It's not worth it.