Marcus Fakana gets prison sentence in Dubai.

Sorry I'm being lazy here ... but the age of consent thee is 17 right? And how old was he at the time it happened? And do we know their age difference and how far off age of consent at the time they both were?

His parents will have learned the hard way that it's extremely unwise to take children too old to control and too young not to be reckless to places with draconian laws. He will have learned that reaching the age of 18 makes you a proper adult and that no one is going to be holding your hand any more, so do your due diligence. I feel sad for the family, its hard lessons.

For all saying "the spiteful mother waited to report until they got home", wasn't it said that she didn't actually know about this until they returned?

Anyway by Dubai standards 1 year sounds on the low side for sentencing, so maybe he should just be glad it wasn't worse

Typo

@BefuddledCrumble the organisation who've been representing Marcus - the name escapes me now - said the girl was from a south asian family
Not that I expect her race to have made much difference to the sentence ...

I'm genuinely relieved for him that he only got a year. Hopefully they won't keep him locked up for the full term. Twenty years would have been disastrous.

Am i missing something re: posters saying this is definitely a racially motivated report?

I can't seem to find any information on the race of the girls family.

Not that it would matter, black, white, she's clearly a vindictive cow. But I don't understand where the racist elements are?

I know, so deflating, all about the money but the people in my family who are big football fans definitely won't be going now!

They have the money to do it. It's really that simple. Lots of countries can't afford to host world cups etc.

Oil.

2034 World Cup just announced - Saudi Arabia hosting. How these countries get these gigs with their human rights records is beyond me.

She wouldn’t have been underage here though. She was almost 18!

100% of course not. But we can talk about those laws (and the sentence) in situations like this where there are nuances and can say it feels awful and unfair.

Same. I watched a documentary before where a British woman was jailed, she was in a taxi cab with a man, he left some alcohol in it and got out.
She was then arrested for a crime relating to having alcohol in public. She spent weeks sofa surfing. Then had to go to jail and it sounded like
something out of the Middle Ages.

I remember another case either in Dubai or UAE where a girl was waiting for her trial and thank god some how her parents managed to smuggle her out of the country first.

The bbc have regularly reported on migrants worked trapped in packed dormitories unable to go home as their passports are kept with their employer and they have to pay their debt off. I couldn’t stay in a hotel there knowing that.

17 year olds do vary in maturity and experience.
Months and years make more difference at this age than in their 20s.

Indeed, so she could have been the more mature one.

He's 18, living at home and still at school. I doubt that he knew enough about the holiday destination that his parents had chosen to do some independent research on the laws in Dubai.

Anyone else wondering if the mum is reading the thread?

17 year olds do vary in maturity and experience.
Months and years make more difference at this age than in their 20s.

Question wasn’t directed to me but um yes I would feel the same if it was fully consensual and my daughter was only a few months younger than him!

They were months apart in age, it was a holiday romance, how do you know he seduced her, were you there?

18 isn't a child.

And that monster woman waited until her precious child was home safe in the uk before reporting him.

What a despicable nasty woman she is. I don't know how she sleeps at night

And you can't pick and choose which laws you obey no matter where you are. Not without something happening.

Would you feel the same if he’d seduced your underage daughter!

This is ridiculous. They're pretty much the same age.

Would you feel the same if he’d seduced your underage daughter!

@Ludovico not for the slaves that get beaten to death, or the local women and girls. Your luxury opinions are grotesque to me.

And shame on the parents who took a naive and/ or reckless teen on holiday to a country with such radically different laws.