[Kizzy]

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?

[CaudleHalbard]

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

[Z]

Originally Posted by CaudleHalbard

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.

[Kizzy]

''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

[DanaC]

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.

[Z]

Originally Posted by DanaC

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.

[DanaC]

Actually, to be fair 'pedophile' is the wrong word anyway. She was pubescent not prepubescent.

But: in terms of mitigating his guilt, it would have been acceptable to say that the girl looked, acted and claimed to be older than 13. That woulld have mitigated his guilt without judging her. As it stands she was judged to be 'predatory'.

She was not on trial, he was. But she was still judged. That is wrong. It is far too common, sadly, that young women and girls, especially, are routinely held accountable for their victimhood.

We are assuming the prosecutor had good reason for using that word. But how do we know that? When it is, as I say, all too common for girls to be held accountable for the actions of men.

To say she is predatory is to paint the man as her victim. He was not some innocent, naive, sexually inexperienced young man. He was a middle aged man with a computer full of images of child pornography and bestiality. He also made pornographic images. I do not beleve that the prosecutor and judge used that word because of the evidence. I believe that two older men were willing to accept that a young girl bears more responsibility for sexual activity than another middle aged man.

We in our society treat women's sexuality as essentially seductive and men's sexuality as essentially reactive to that seduction. Time and again in rape trials, the fact that a woman was wearing revealing clothes is held up as evidence against her in mitigation of her rapist's guilt. The implication being that the man simply misread the signals and couldn't help himself. That he was reacting with understandable desire to an object of desire and seduction. Time and again, girls and women are assumed by the authorities to be lying about consent. despite the rarity of false rape claims and prevalence of rape, the conviction rates for that crime remain terribly low compared to other violent crime.

The reason the police set up specialist units was precisely because of this paradigm. And even then those specialist units have been caught advising, and even bullying female victims to withdraw their accusations. The reason the CPS now insists on specialist lawyers for cases of this nature involving children is because they require specialist knowledge of crimes of this nature. Too many cases were falling through the system because children were not believed , and because predatory sexual offenders specifically target very vulnerable children. Kids in childrens homes, for example, who having been abused are then disbelieved or treated as criminals themselves.

I think that this prosecutor was operating on an outdated model of child sexuality and female culpability. It would sit very comfortably in the 1980s or even 1990s, when high court judges would make statements about girls 'asking for it' because they wore a short skirt.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Actually, to be fair 'pedophile' is the wrong word anyway. She was pubescent not prepubescent.

But: in terms of mitigating his guilt, it would have been acceptable to say that the girl looked, acted and claimed to be older than 13. That woulld have mitigated his guilt without judging her. As it stands she was judged to be 'predatory'.

She was not on trial, he was. But she was still judged. That is wrong. It is far too common, sadly, that young women and girls, especially, are routinely held accountable for their victimhood.

We are assuming the prosecutor had good reason for using that word. But how do we know that? When it is, as I say, all too common for girls to be held accountable for the actions of men.

To say she is predatory is to paint the man as her victim. He was not some innocent, naive, sexually inexperienced young man. He was a middle aged man with a computer full of images of child pornography and bestiality. He also made pornographic images. I do not beleve that the prosecutor and judge used that word because of the evidence. I believe that two older men were willing to accept that a young girl bears more responsibility for sexual activity than another middle aged man.

We in our society treat women's sexuality as essentially seductive and men's sexuality as essentially reactive to that seduction. Time and again in rape trials, the fact that a woman was wearing revealing clothes is held up as evidence against her in mitigation of her rapist's guilt. The implication being that the man simply misread the signals and couldn't help himself. That he was reacting with understandable desire to an object of desire and seduction. Time and again, girls and women are assumed by the authorities to be lying about consent. despite the rarity of false rape claims and prevalence of rape, the conviction rates for that crime remain terribly low compared to other violent crime.

The reason the police set up specialist units was precisely because of this paradigm. And even then those specialist units have been caught advising, and even bullying female victims to withdraw their accusations. The reason the CPS now insists on specialist lawyers for cases of this nature involving children is because they require specialist knowledge of crimes of this nature. Too many cases were falling through the system because children were not believed , and because predatory sexual offenders specifically target very vulnerable children. Kids in childrens homes, for example, who having been abused are then disbelieved or treated as criminals themselves.

I think that this prosecutor was operating on an outdated model of child sexuality and female culpability. It would sit very comfortably in the 1980s or even 1990s, when high court judges would make statements about girls 'asking for it' because they wore a short skirt.

Two really excellent points that tie in with the reason I joined the debate, there is something very old fashioned and blinkered about these attitudes that appear not to have grasped the concept that child grooming is prevalent in the UK despite years of evidence that it is now of epidemic proportions.
It is shocking that there are these professionals that are conciliatory towards these practices and due to their archaic standpoint it is important they don't oversee these cases.

[Ammi]

..wasn't the prosecutor banned from similar cases while being investigated for the case..?..

..for me there isn't any circumstances where a 13yr old should be held to have any responsibility in a case like this because she's a minor, whereas he is a paedophile who is three times her age and completely responsible for his actions...she may have been sexually active, which is also wrong for a minor but that's another debate...her actions whatever they were, don't in any way take his guilt away and should not have an effect on his sentencing...I find describing a child as a sexual predator completely sickening...


..anyway, I'm going to opt out of this thread now because I have nothing more to add....

[DanaC]

Here's a little quote from the prosecutor's case just to demonstrate what I am talking about:

During the trial, Judge Peters had been told by prosecutor Robert Colover: “The girl is predatory in all her actions and she is sexually experienced.
“She appeared to look around 14 or 15 and had the mental age of a 14 or 15-year-old despite being younger than that.
“There was sexual activity but it was not of Mr Wilson's doing. You might say it was forced upon him despite being older and stronger than her.”

Really? Forced upon him? The sexual activity was not of his doing?

because men cannot help themselves once aroused is that it?

And she 'looked around 14 or 15'. Not 18 as has been quoted by some: so a grown man simply couldn't help himself when faced with a 'predatory' girl who looked 14 or 15.

[Z]

But nobody's arguing that he didn't commit a crime and nobody said she looked 18 - I said she could have been anywhere up to 18 years old if she was in a school uniform, I think that's the only comment along those lines that was made. What he did was wrong. That is not up for debate. The prosecutor's argument that it was "forced" upon him is of course a heap of nonsense, but the point he's making that she was the one pursuing the encounter is an important point in my opinion that differentiates this case from cases where men force girls into acts that they didn't want to commit.

[Nedusa]

Apparently the girl in question did not report the incident a friend of hers reported it to the police a few days later.

So the man could have denied it as lies or said the girl was trying to blackmail him for money or some other story. But as he has been convicted for this offence you have to wonder if he admitted it from the off even though it was only his word against hers... Not enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt I would have thought ???

[Z]

Originally Posted by Nedusa

Apparently the girl in question did not report the incident a friend of hers reported it to the police a few days later.

So the man could have denied it as lies or said the girl was trying to blackmail him for money or some other story. But as he has been convicted for this offence you have to wonder if he admitted it from the off even though it was only his word against hers... Not enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt I would have thought ???

A lot depends on what she said to her friend and how she said it, I think. Was she upset and confided in a friend or was she bragging to a friend who thought it was wrong? Pretty much everything I think on this case hinges on the opinion of the girl - because this is a statutory rape it doesn't really matter what the girl herself thinks in the eyes of the law. She was underage and that is wrong. So whether or not she totally consented to it is irrelevant; except in this case, the court seems to have taken into account that she wanted the encounter and suggests that she was pursuing it aggressively (going by the prosecutor's comments and the judge accepting them) so that's led to the abuser getting a lenient sentence. It's very curious to me. If she was upset and told a friend about it and what the prosecutor is saying are lies, then this is a total travesty - but if she consented to it and was actually the one pursuing it then do we need to change the existing laws in some way?

[DanaC]

He didn't just get a lenient sentence, he got a suspended sentence: effectively no sentence at all.

Even if she wanted it: by the above statements he thought she was around 14 or 15. Therefore he knowingly committed a crime in allowing sexual activity to take place.

[Z]

Originally Posted by DanaC

He didn't just get a lenient sentence, he got a suspended sentence: effectively no sentence at all.

Yeah :/ I think that's ridiculous. He still committed a crime, he ought to be in jail.

[Livia]

Originally Posted by DanaC

He didn't just get a lenient sentence, he got a suspended sentence: effectively no sentence at all.

Even if she wanted it: by the above statements he thought she was around 14 or 15. Therefore he knowingly committed a crime in allowing sexual activity to take place.

He got a suspended sentence. It is lenient, but it is till a sentence. No sentence at all would have been if he had been given no sentence at all.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Livia

He got a suspended sentence. It is lenient, but it is till a sentence. No sentence at all would have been if he had been given no sentence at all.

I never got the suspended sentence thing though, he walked free from court, what good is a suspended sentence?

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

I never got the suspended sentence thing though, he walked free from court, what good is a suspended sentence?

A suspended sentence means that the sentence is hanging over his head. If he commits a crime while his suspended sentence is running, it will be added to any further sentence he's given.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Livia

A suspended sentence means that the sentence is hanging over his head. If he commits a crime while his suspended sentence is running, it will be added to any further sentence he's given.

Pah, that's a load of s**t tbh not much consolation to any victims

[DanaC]

I honestly think this says a good deal more about the prosecutor and judge's view of girls than it does about the details of the individual case.

[Livia]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I honestly think this says a good deal more about the prosecutor and judge's view of girls than it does about the details of the individual case.

I think it says a lot about the judges and the prosecutors view of 13 year old girls who are sexually experienced and sexually predatory.

Although this girl was underage, although the man was totally in the wrong and should have been jailed, you cannot deny that the circumstances surrounding this case were mostly initiated by the girl. She didn't even report the case. Which begs the question, what did her parents think their child – because that’s what she is – was doing while she was willingly performing sex acts on a paedophile?

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Livia

I think it says a lot about the judges and the prosecutors view of 13 year old girls who are sexually experienced and sexually predatory.

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:

It makes a lot more sense though if, like Ross, Wolf, Platell, and a thousand other hacks, you believe the myth of the self-guiding penis. It allows offenders to abdicate responsibility for their actions, and transfer it to seductive women; it leads people to assume that rape is a crime of passion rather than a cold, premeditated act of psychological manipulation and physical oppression; it reinforces the victim-playing notion among misogynists that female sexuality is a dangerous weapon; and it reduces men to the role of a barely sentient bag of hormones clinging desperately to the back of a rampaging penis.

The myth is as offensive to men as it's dangerous for women. Perhaps the worst part of it is the subliminal message repeated across the media each and every day of the week: whether it's porn driving men crazy or short skirts inviting rape, female sexuality is dangerous, and it must be controlled to protect men. How bizarre to be confronted with the world the way it is, and come to that conclusion.

[Ammi]

It makes a lot more sense though if, like Ross, Wolf, Platell, and a thousand other hacks, you believe the myth of the self-guiding penis. It allows offenders to abdicate responsibility for their actions, and transfer it to seductive women; it leads people to assume that rape is a crime of passion rather than a cold, premeditated act of psychological manipulation and physical oppression; it reinforces the victim-playing notion among misogynists that female sexuality is a dangerous weapon; and it reduces men to the role of a barely sentient bag of hormones clinging desperately to the back of a rampaging penis.

The myth is as offensive to men as it's dangerous for women. Perhaps the worst part of it is the subliminal message repeated across the media each and every day of the week: whether it's porn driving men crazy or short skirts inviting rape, female sexuality is dangerous, and it must be controlled to protect men. How bizarre to be confronted with the world the way it is, and come to that conclusion


..the thing about this case though is wasn't a woman, it was a child...and I don't believe a child should ever be perceived or described as a seductress...

[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.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Livia

But the hoohar surrounding this case is because the barrister called the girl "predatory". Which, judging by her behaviour, is a perfectly accurate description.

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.

Neither of us have access to full transcripts.Therefore both of us are drawing on our own interpretation of the words.

When sentencing Wilson to eight months' imprisonment suspended, it seems that the judge, HHJ Peters QC, referred to the 13-year-old female victim as 'predatory.' Unfortunately, this is a case where sentencing remarks are not available, and so only the media reports are available. The barrister representing the Crown Prosecution Service, Robert Colover, is reported to have said to the court: "The girl is predatory in all her actions and she is sexually experienced."

http://www.legalweek.com/legal-week/...a-media-furore



Regardless: that girl was not in court to be judged; the defendant was. Yet in the summing up she has been judged and branded as predatory and essentially made partially responsible for something in which she can bear no such responsibility and on the basis of that description of her action as predatory, the 41 year old man who allowed or encouraged a girl who looked two years under the age of consent to return with him to his home, strip and engage in sexual activity walked away with a suspended sentence:

Passing sentence, Judge Nigel Peters then said he had taken into account that the girl looked and behaved "a little bit older" than she was.

"The girl was predatory and was egging you on. That is no defence when dealing with children but I am prepared to impose a suspension," he said.

http://www.onlinepublishingcompany.i...active_id/5752