Friends back Townshend in child porn flap

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- Friends of rock star Pete Townshend are defending him following reports that he was arrested in London on suspicion of child pornography.

Scotland Yard announced that a 57-year-old man had been arrested on suspicion of making and possessing indecent images of children and of incitement to distribute indecent images of children. Citing anonymous police sources, CNN reported that the suspect was Townshend, but that he had not been charged with a crime as of late Monday.

Police said Townshend was arrested under the Protection of Children Act, and investigators were examining computers taken from his home.

Townshend, the lead guitarist and main songwriter of the legendary band The Who, denied that he is a pedophile.

"I think pedophilia is appalling," Townshend told a reporter for Britain's Press Association. "To fight against pedophilia, you have to know what's out there."

Townshend acknowledged on Saturday that he had used a Web site that advertised child pornography, as part of his research on an autobiography. He issued a statement following speculation in the press last week that he was the unidentified British rock star being investigated by detectives for allegedly downloading child pornography.

"I have never entered chat rooms on the Internet to converse with children," said Townshend in the statement. "I have, to the contrary, been shocked, angry and vocal (especially on my website) about the explosion of advertised pedophilic images on the Internet."

Townshend said he was working "as a vigilante" to help organizations that fight child abuse. He also said he was trying to help Scotland Yard "to build up a powerful and well-informed voice to speak loudly about the millions of dollars being made by American banks and credit card companies" that profit from online pornography.

"I do not want child pornography to be available on the Internet anywhere at any time," said Townshend. "On one occasion I used a credit card to enter a site advertising child porn. I did this purely to see what was there. I spoke informally to a friend who was a lawyer and reported what I'd seen."

In Los Angeles, writer-producer Martin Lewis -- who has known Townshend for more than 30 years -- said he can't believe that that Townshend is involved in child pornography or pedophilia.

"My initial impression was that the tabloid mentality we live in tends to be overzealous in its pursuit of prospective victims," said Lewis. "I know that Pete has been running a campaign for the last two years on his Web site ... about how horrified he is by the proliferation of child pornography and urging that the world do something about it."

The Welsh newspaper The Western Mail reported that model-actress Jerry Hall said she and Townshend had spoken at length about the dangers of child pornography on the Internet, and that he does not match the profile of a pedophile.

"Since 1992 I have campaigned for both public and private child welfare foundations both in raising public awareness and funds," said Hall. "Pete Townshend is an avid supporter of these causes. In addition he advised me on how to prevent my children from inadvertently gaining access to (child pornography Web) sites."

Hall also said Townshend had told her that he believed he had been a victim of sexual abuse when he was a child, and that he had been having difficulty coming to terms with his past in the writing of his autobiography.

In his statement, Townshend acknowledged that he had been exploring a memory of having been sexually abused as a child.

"I believe I was sexually abused between the age of five and six-and-a-half when in the care of my maternal grandmother who was mentally ill at the time," he said. "I cannot remember clearly what happened, but my creative work tends to throw up nasty shadows -- particularly in 'Tommy.'"

One of Townshend's most famous works, the 1969 rock opera "Tommy" features a song in which an uncle sexually abuses the title character, described as a "deaf, dumb and blind kid."

Lewis said the public should take Townshend at his word that he visited the Web sites as part of the research for his book.

"If anybody read his statement and concluded -- as I heard on Fox News today -- that it sounds like 'the dog ate my homework excuse,' that is not true. It's well-known in the entertainment industry that he's been working on his autobiography. So that's not something he invented, it's patently the truth."

Still, Internet experts told The Western Mail that Townshend's explanation was at best "incredibly foolhardy, naive and misguided."

Townshend's arrest was part of Operation Ore, a crackdown on people who view child pornography on the Internet, in which British police have arrested some 1,300 suspects -- including a judge, a deputy school headmaster, several doctors and dentists and several dozen police officers.