Marriage at 14 especially is completely obscene, I don't know if it's frowned upon in Spain but what kind of family would be comfortable with their 14 year old getting married?

I know, it's probably one of those really old laws that they were too lazy to get around to changing

I think this is the most important point. A 13 yr old can look and act like a grown woman but a 13yr old is definitely not a fully grown woman. IMO a 16 yr old isnt a grown woman either. The man took advantage of her no matter what she said or did or how she was dressed.

Spain is only 'consulting' on the age of consent. It is still 13.

I know that, I never said otherwise, but they obviously feel it's not right if they're planning on raising it

The point is all these ages of consent are artificial and vary from country to country. 14 seems pretty common. But worldwide it is as low as 12 and as high as 21. There is no consensus.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent

This isn't really the issue though is it?

Of course it is an issue if you are putting people in the slammer for something which is not a crime in several countries.

It is a bit like exceeding an equally artificial speed limit.

In some countries you can be whipped, beaten and put to death for crimes, that is irrelevant here.
Stick to the laws we have in place in this country please.

We are talking about arbitrary figures which are not agreed even within the EU, of which the UK is part.

I was merely pointing out the arbitrariness. That's all.

All laws within the EU can be considered 'arbitrary' then by that fuzzy logic.
The fact remains that 16 is the law in this country and as such a crime was committed.

I agree, talking about Spain and their laws is a different arguement for a different day. Trying to broaden this debate by bringing up other countries laws doesn't change the facts in this case. He bears total responsibility for what happened regardless of the girls actions. He committed a criminal offence knowingly and should be punished accordingly.

Using the girls so called willingness to engage in the act as mitigation is indefensible and should not have been allowed in open court as it is irrelevant to his actions. He should have been given a prison sentence in accordance with normal sentencing guidelines for offences such as these........!!!

A barrister who described a 13-year-old victim of sex abuse as "predatory" in court has been suspended from sexual offence cases pending a review.

Robert Colover has been criticised for his remarks, in which he also described the girl as "sexually experienced".

The Crown Prosecution Service said he would not be instructed in sex cases while it considered his situation.

Neil Wilson, 41, admitted abusing the girl at his home in Romford, London, and was given a suspended jail term.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) described Mr Colover's language as "inappropriate".

The CPS said the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, would carry out a review and decide what action to take.

A CPS spokesman said: "We are now considering the involvement of this barrister in sexual offence prosecutions and have advised his chambers that we will not instruct him in any ongoing or future cases involving sexual offences in the meantime."

The CPS added: "The word predatory in this context should not have been used and is of real concern to the CPS.

"It is not consistent with the work that we have undertaken alongside the judiciary and others in the past year to improve attitudes towards victims of abuse.

"We expect all of our prosecutors, including self-employed barristers who act on our behalf, to follow our guidance in these very difficult cases."

The Metropolitan Police said the word "predatory" did not did not appear in any police material concerning the victim.

A Met spokesman said: "The Metropolitan Police Service is aware of reports in the media surrounding terminology used by the prosecution barrister in the case of Neil Wilson.

"This is not terminology the Met Police Service would use to describe a victim in such a case, and was not used by the officer who provided testimony in this case."

Prime Minister David Cameron said he supported the position of the CPS.

He said: "I think the CPS are absolutely right to say that what one of their lawyers said was not appropriate. It isn't appropriate. We need a criminal justice system that stands up properly for victims.

"The victims should always be at the centre of our thinking and I'm pleased the CPS have made that statement and I'm also pleased that the attorney general has said that he is personally going to look into this case."


Labour has written to the Bar Standards Board to ask it to investigate whether Mr Colover had breached its code of conduct.

Shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry said: "It is appalling that, after the scandals of Jimmy Savile and Rochdale, these awful Lolita prejudices are still being served up in court, and by the prosecution of all people."

BBC legal correspondent Clive Coleman said a prosecutor must draw to a court's attention any matter that assists the defendant - and it is not at all unusual.

But, our correspondent added, the prosecutor needed to scrutinise the potentially mitigating material carefully and the language in which it is expressed.

The police were alerted to the actions of Wilson, who now lives in York, after his victim told a friend. Images of child sex abuse were also found on Wilson's computer.

Wilson later admitted two counts of making extreme pornographic images and one count of sexual activity with a child.

Mr Colover, who was employed by the CPS at Wilson's sentencing hearing at London's Snaresbrook Crown Court on Monday, said: "The girl is predatory in all her actions and she is sexually experienced."

The judge, Nigel Peters, said that when deciding Wilson's punishment he had taken into account the prosecution's comments that the girl looked and behaved older than she was.

Wilson's eight-month jail term was suspended for two years. The Attorney General's Office said the sentence had been drawn to its attention as "possibly unduly lenient".

Details of the case came as the head of the judiciary in England and Wales said a select pool of judges with specialist training would be created to handle complex child abuse cases, amid concerns at the way some child witnesses were treated in court by lawyers.

Javed Khan, chief executive of independent charity Victim Support, said: "Victims of sexual abuse should be praised for their bravery in coming forward not censured and have their credibility called into question, least of all by the prosecution."

However, Carl Gardner, a former government legal adviser, warned that most people commenting on the case did not know the full facts.

Paul Mendelle, a criminal barrister and former chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, said the behaviour of the victim is not usually a mitigating factor.

An online petition on Change.org calling for the CPS to investigate the language used by Mr Colover has been signed by 30,000 people

i think greg and livia put my thoughts across very well. i think both the parents and the man are to blame.

The third last and second last sentences of that article Ammi posted just above say it all for me really; that the barrister's words were in context and I assume he would not use those words lightly.

Government legal adviser = spin doctor.
Of course they will be wanting damage limitation from this and as little fallout as is possible.
Is there a link to this article?

I'm shocked everyone got so bent out of shape because he referred to a sexually experienced 13 year old as predatory, instead of getting angry that a 13 year old actually is sexually experienced and predatory.

I think he should have added that her parents are inadequate and irresponsible.

Agree with this 100%.

Yeah definitely agree with all of that. You can argue that parents can't control who their kids want to be - but at the age of 13 you can still keep them in the house and not let them do whatever they want in their free time.

If that were to happen both the boy and the girl would have committed statutory rape, statutory rape doesn't just count for girls :conf:

Just to be clear, it is an offence to have sex with anyone under 16. Regardless of gender.

Which was a great way to explain my lack of a love life for the first 16 years of my life but the last 6 years have just been really awkward at family gatherings.

''Paul Mendelle, a criminal barrister and former chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, said the behaviour of the victim is not usually a mitigating factor.''

That is because especially in cases like this it should never even be suggested, and I can well understand why the CPS are getting 'bent out of shape'.

''In a statement, the Crown Prosecution Service said that Robert Colover, QC, the prosecutor in the case at Snaresbrook Crown Court should not have used the word “predatory” and confirmed that he would be investigated by Director of Public Prosecution Keir Starmer. The statement added that the use of the word is “of real concern to the CPS”. It said: “It is not consistent with the work that we have undertaken alongside the judiciary and others in the past year to improve attitudes towards victims of abuse. We expect all of our prosecutors, including self-employed barristers who act on our behalf, to follow our guidance in these very difficult cases.''

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...s-8750521.html

Lets put this into a wider context though, Zee. It is a relatively recent thing that victims of rape or sexual abuse, and particularly children, have been considered entirely innocent in such instances.

Even now, it is far too common that the authorities look with suspicion on victims of this kind of crime. One of the girls systematically abused by that gang in Rochdale recently, having tried to report what was happening to the police, was dismissed as 'a prostitute'. Basically, having been turned by those men into a prositute for their own and others' use, that was then seen as reason to dismiss her, rather than additional reason to help her.

The girl was not responsible. Cannot have been responsible. And if she was sexually precocious, that just means her precociousness was abused and used against her by a man old enough to know better.

Might also be worth considering the fact that pedophiles often characterise even very young children as 'wanting it', or 'cockteasing' or 'knowing what they're doing'.

This description of a 13 year old girl as 'predatory' fits into a very old and very disturbing narrative around girl's sexuality and availability. And it resulted in a much shorter sentence being given to someone who was the real predator. It makes him out to be partially exonerated and shares the blame between them. It effectively recasts him as falling victim to a Lolita's charms.

It's dangerous and wrong.

You've made some fantastic points and I don't disagree with any of them. However, I stand by my original view that the barrister must have had very good reasons to make such statements and for the judge to accept them, when as Kizzy posted above, the behaviour of the victim is not usually considered - all of that suggests to me that the victim is only a victim in the legal sense of the term. I'm not in possession of the full facts so I can only speculate, but as Livia said, we cannot box all 13 year olds into the same "a 13 year old is a child" mentality because people grow and develop at different rates; and when you have children being subjected to sex in all forms of media, it's not surprising that children are growing up faster than they used to, which perhaps explains the comments about her acting older than she was.

Once again, that is not to say that that excuses what the man did. What he did was wrong, categorically wrong. I just believe that there are different levels of criminality and that if the 13 year old girl was actively pursuing this encounter then it would be equally wrong to denounce the 41 year old man as a predatory paedophile in the same category as men who raped children.