Have I read this 'story' right?? Please tell me I haven't.

@TheAtomicBroomstick, the only huge gap relationship I've known personally is my parents so I can't comment on others. In their case my mum (the younger party) always wore the trousers, held the purse strings etc. Even now at nearly 80 he asks my mum for pocket money so he can go to his social club.

It's pretty obvious surely why young teenage girls go for older boys. If you're 14, those boys you've been at school with since you were 11 (or 5 possibly) are still like little boys to you. But the 16/17/18 yos have cars, are in bands, have jobs, look like men. They are far more attractive a proposition.

I don't know what's going on in the head of a 20yo man who sleeps with a 15yo girl tbh. And I was that 15yo girl. We got on well, fancied each other, all that jazz. We were together for 3 years and are still in touch 20+ years on. He's a decent chap. Didn't like the fact I was so young. And tbh I was probably better off with him than many lads my own age.

To a certain extent? But why should it. Is there any reason why is should keep happening.

I may be wrong, but all of the relationships I've seen with huge age differences end up as very controling. And often, the younger person just doesn't realise that they are being controlled becasue it's more manipulative than anything else (the older being much more experienced with people, and most likely better at manipulation). What does this sort of relationship sound like to you?

To a certain extent I think it's always been like this. Little girls love playing at being grown ups and with the increased sexualisation of children, it's just the natural progression.

I have trouble getting my head round it. It's seems so utterly horrible, but at the same time, my mum got together with my dad when she was 14 and he was 34 (gross) and they are still together now over 50 years later.

I've often wondered about the age difference ideals.

I've heard before now of 15yo girls losing their virginity to 20 odd year olds plenty of times. I can never figure out what was going on in the heads of the 20 odd yo.

I'm 27 now. A 16 year old, whilst legal, looks too young. I look at a 16yo, and see someone who is barely out of childhood. Even someone of 18, really.

I also remember from school days that there is almost a contest amongst girls as to who has the oldest boyfriend. First it's 12:13, then it's 13:15, 13:16, and then 13:17 or 18, and it just get's worse.

The escuse you hear off the girls for it is, "girls are 2 years more mature than boys." OK, even accepting that (and that is just that puberty starts 2 years earlier on average), but that is 2 years. Not 4 years, or 5 years. Not 7 years or even (I've heard of) 15 years (that was 15:30, which is just plain pedohpilia).

Where has this come from? Who convinces these girls that basically finding the most pedophilic man they can is the coolest? It makes them wide open targets for societies worst predators.

It's kind of gross. What on earth were those men thinking of - they must have known the girls were young - 16 is still young - why on earth would they think it is ok to pick up 2 random 16 year olds in their car anyway?

what bugs me about this story is that while the law says it is ok to have sex with a 16 year old, that doesn't mean having sex with a 16 year old is risk-free, and the judge here seems to be trying to use the law to make it risk-free.

If you want to have sex with a 16 year old, as is your legal right, surely the onus is on you to make sure she is actually 16 and not 15 or 12.

There are sentencing guidelines. For actual intercourse with a child the sentencing range is 3-7 years custody; 1-4 years for naked genital to naked genital contact; 26 weeks - 2 years naked genital to non naked genital contact; and non custodial sentences for non genital sexual contact.

I am perplexed by this decision. Still waiting for the judgment to appear in the reports so I can read it in full.

(For those who want to read more, full sentencing guidelines are here: sentencingcouncil.judiciary.gov.uk/docs/web_SexualOffencesAct_2003.pdf)

'"Those that say it isn't relevant how they are dressed are missing the very point upon which the rapists ( very wrongly) were let off. Or is it okay for children to dress however they like?" Yes, imo, it is okay for children dress however they like and still be safe from being raped

Is this the victorian version of MN? It is isn't it? It must be. I cannot bring myself to believe that this attitude still exists in this day in age. I just can't. Not when I have two young daughters . I feel physically sick reading some of these comments from supposedly 'educated' women.

The only people at fault here are the rapists. No-one else. Not the girls, not the parents. Just the rapists. It really is that simple.

It doesn't matter if the girls were walking the streets nekkid and begging men to have sex with them at 4am in the morning. They are children. It is rape.

Exactly, Kladdkaka - anything else is just excuses, which a court of law should reject and the public at large shouldn't be so keen to believe. I am astounded that adults can proffer these weak excuses and society as a whole agrees to the extent that they ignore the very clear, unequivocal, law.

Jenai A sixteen year old girl may not represent a crime to a young man, just as a sixteen year old boy doesn't represent a crime to me, but I'd want to be DAMNED sure that the young boy I'm about to have sex with (even the idea is repulsive, tbh) actually WANTS to have sex with me. And that's before we get onto the legal issue of whether he can consent! What's more important - that his age and his wishes are established beyond doubt, or that I get to have sex right this instant?

I really do think that there needs to be far more of a taboo around adults having sex with children, or even adults who are just over the age of consent. Because at the moment what I'm seeing - not on this thread, but in society in general - is a freqently male individual's right to have sex whenever they please, with whomsoever they please, with no obligations or checks to their progress, upheld in legal decisions with public support.

It doesn't matter if they were going to turn 13 the next day, they were under 13. And I think 13 is a dubious age, anyway. You should be able to tell at 13, but the law says 13 is the youngest the defendents are allowed to use the excuse that they reasonably believed them to 16 or over. The prosecution rests.

Yes, it is quite obvious that the girls tried to dupe the boys, who IMO didn't really care as long they got sex. If tyou read the article, you will see that only one of the girls had full sex with them, while the other backed out after a "sexual act". This shows that one pushed the other into it. The question then remains, why did the first push for this. AS A MEGA-LOUD CRY FOR HELP. Abuse victims do this. They do something like this that is not normal so that no one can reasonably ignore it.

The two girls IMHO, have been failed by society, by their parents (yes, they failed somewhere for the girls to do this), by the judge and first and foremost by the men who should have seen what was going on being sane and reasonable adults.

I thought that sentencing was changed so that there were minimums that judges could not over-ride - or something - i'm sure there were problems with some cases and the judges saying that their hands were tied due to the sentencing guidelines.

if that is the case then how can these men get 2 years reduced to 1 or whatever it is?

VG The actual crime, not the crime they THINK they've committed. Fair enough. But what if they don't think they'd committed a crime at all? You also ask however; Did they 'genuinely believe', or did they just not care? that they were 16 - that is a very good point.

berkshirefem of course women and girls should be able to wear whatever they want. Which is why I've long had a big issue with the LGBG campaign (and with many of the posts on those threads, with talk of "mini-hooker chic" and so on). How they were dressed however is relevant in that it added weight to their claim that they were older. They could've been wearing Tescos uniforms tbh - it would've had the same effect.

Okay....law is law.

You're missing what I've already explained. It's doesn't matter if they had written confirmation that the girls were over 16 from God himself. It's irrelevant. All the prosecution have to show is that the sex occured and the girls were under 13 at the time. Anything else is just a smoke screen.

\link{http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367377/Six-footballers-jailed-gang-rape-12-year-old-girls-midnight-park-orgy.html\DM report from trial}

'When Edwards said he was with five friends a message returned from the girl's phone, suggesting: 'We can have three each,' before adding a smiley face icon.'

'if the activities had taken place just four weeks later than they had, when the main girl would have turned 13, none of the defendants would have faced any criminal charges because of the defence provided by her actions.'

'Before retiring to consider sentence Judge John said he had been hopeful but was not surprised that the girls' parents had not attended court.'

I'm just thinking that if the boys are quite young and they talk with the girls on FB, where they have their DOB showing them to be 16, it may never have occurred to the boys that they were younger. At 10 we have criminal responsibility...you could argue that these girls duped the boys into committing the crime....knowing that they needed to be 16 to have sex legally.

The fact that two twelve year old girls have been raped by several men is being exculpated because the guilty parties have stated that they 'looked older'. An awful lot has hinged on this 'genuine belief' that doesn't seem to have been formed from anything other than a few conversations and a Facebook page.

When I'm Head of the Universe all right-thinking people will hear a defence like that and piss themselves laughing at the idiocy of the defendant, and then deliver a sentence worthy of the crime. The actual crime, not the crime they THINK they've committed.

If the boys were given evidence and believed beyond doubt that the girls were 16 then I really don't know what to think.

I just don't think that the home life of these girls is, or should be, linked to the events in the park. Being outside, being sexually 'experienced' (whatever that means), even flat-out asking for sex does not mean that sex has to happen. That is not to say that home and family life is not something that should be investigated, just that there are no connection between the two. In an ideal world, of course, problems in the home would have been flagged up far in advance of this case.

I also have a problem with the idea that these men 'genuinely believed' that the girls were sixteen. Did they 'genuinely believe', or did they just not care?

Sure, they say that they genuinely believed, but then their liberty hinges on that fact, so of course they would say that. The reports that I've read seem to suggest some texts, and perhaps some Facebook contact, before sex occurred. That's simply not enough. It's nowhere near enough, and if we have a culture in which sex between people can take place with very little getting to know one another, then we need to establish basic questions and basic checks.

How can you 'genuinely believe' anything when you've had little or no interaction? I 'genuinely believed' my partner was over the age of consent when we met, not because he's over six foot tall with a beard (I was in school with fifteen year old lads who had those!) but because we met in a bar, we went on a date where we spoke about Sesame Street and cartoons from our childhood, he picked me up in his car. He described his four or five fulltime jobs. I went to his house and saw his degree certificate hanging on the wall.

I have no issue with consenting adults having sex with one another as often as they like, as soon after meeting as they like, whatever. But the idea that one participant can be very youthful looking (because sixteen might be legal but it's YOUTHFUL) and the older one doesn't have any assurances whatsoever other than their clothes, or even their word? And this stands up in a court of law? Ridiculous. Absolutely crazy.

It's a myth that ignorance is no defence in law, it can be depending on how the law is worded. A crime is made up of 2 parts, the actus reus which is the actual forbidden action and the mens rea, which is the state of mind. 'State of mind' means things like intentionally, recklessly, negligently all of which have precise legal definitions. If 'knowingly' is the stated mens rea of the crime then ignorance would be a defence. Of course that's a complete tangent as there is no mens rea for under 13s, they just have to have committed the actus reus.

Another correction (sorry I can't help myself) is the idea that you can't be tried twice for the same crime. That's how it used to be but the Criminal Justice Act 2003 changed that as a result of the Stephen Lawrence debarkle.

The prosecution could, in theory, file an appeal against an unduly lenient sentence.

I would feel more of a failure as a parent if my DDs were walking around thinking that they had to dress a certain way and not go out at night otherwise they would be to blame if they were raped.

The parents don't come in to this. Unless they are investigated and found to be complicite in the former abuse of the girls.

How anyone can say the girls being sexually expereinced is their own fault is beyond me. The whole point is that these boys had unconsentual sex with them... so surely anyone else who previously had sex with them also did so non consentually, ergo they are victims of abuse.

I hope they are getting help too.

The men's families cheering revolted me however. What these men did was wrong and it was idiotic. I can understand being relieved to get them home, but celebrating suggests they feel that the boys were victims, which they most definitely were not.

If these men genuinely believed that these girls were 16 - because they told them as much and because they looked so - then they weren't aware that they were committing rape. As I understand it, ignorance is no defence however so they have to be found guilty.

It doesn't sit right with me to call them rapists though, and certainly not paedophiles, as they were upthread.

I mentioned their ethnicity because that too was mentioned upthread.

On parental blame - if my 12yo was inviting people to have sex with her and going out late at night to do so, then I'd have fucked up somewhere down the line. That's not victim blaming in the way people blame women for walking home alone or being date raped imo. These circumstances are quite different.

And if one of those boys was mine I'd know I'd fucked up for raising someone who thought having group sex with teenage girls (bearing in mind they apparently believed they were teenagers) in a park (or anywhere else for that matter) is a good idea.

By law, I don't think there's anything anyone can do. You cannot be tried for the same crime twice, and I don't think they can impose a tougher sentance once it has been passed (don't know though - not an expert), but I've never understood why it works the other way. You can appeal against a conviction or sentance, but the victims cannot. It seems wrong somehow.