[Livia]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Ah yes the age old story of middle aged men seduced and entrapped by dangerous young Lolitas.

By describing the girl as predatory, she is recast as perpetrator and by default he is recast as victim: if she is predator, then he is prey. His sentence reflects this recasting.

How exactly, does a 13 year old girl 'prey' upon a middle aged man? How was she able to seduce him into allowing her to perform a sex act on him? The only way that works is if her charms were 'irresistable'. However sexually experienced or aggressive, however manipulative she might have been (not saying she was, just taking the description at face value) his defence rests solely on an assumption that he was unable to say no. That he was unable to resist, even whilst he believed that she was a young girl of 14 or 15. It rests on assumptions of male powerlessness in the face of desire and female voraciousness as a danger to men.

We are back in the land of the 'self-guiding penis':

http://www.theguardian.com/science/t...atell-rape-men

The conclusion to the above article is excellent:

He never said she was a "predator". He said she was "sexually experienced and predatory". There is a world of a difference.

Nowhere in this thread have I defended the man in question. In fact, I have said several times that believe he should have been jailed. But the hoohar surrounding this case is because the barrister called the girl "predatory". Which, judging by her behaviour, is a perfectly accurate description.

My main point, which hasn't been addressed by those who feel so strongly about the barristers words, is, where are the girls' parents in all of this? Why aren't people outraged that a 13 year old child is sexually exprerienced and going back to the house of a grown man for sex? The children's charities who are so very upset by the barristers quite accurate description should maybe turn their attentions to the neglect of the girl's parents.

His defence did not rest solely "on an assumption that he was unable to say no", you're making an assumption on your own interpretation of the barristers words, because you have not read the full transcript and I assume you weren't at the trial. Furthermore, we have not read the whole summing up, we've had bits picked out for us by the press and that's what this whole thread rests on.