man jailed after meeting 12 year old girl on a dating app who pretended to be 19

I also remembered the case in Scotland and wondered how they got away with giving such disparate sentences. I’m not denying this guy is a slime ball but I’m not convinced he should be classed as a sex offender if the girl said she was an adult and convincingly looked older. The girl in the Scotland case fooled a number of people into thinking she was older, including the police. It is possible for a girl to pass for several years older. I can only assume the sentence in this case was different because the jury decided the girl didn’t convincingly look older?

When I was about 12 I looked like a child but my friend didn’t - she was fully developed and wore makeup and was having sex with a 23yo who had no idea about her age. I was with her when she met him and she told him I was her niece.

I have a 12 year old child. I know lots of 12 year olds - boys and girls. I don't know a single one of them who would seek out sex with adults unless they had been groomed or sexually abused. Very few 12 year olds are sexually active, even with their peers.

He knew.

There was a main girl in my area who was widely known for going into the next city and doing this from about 13. When we were 16 ish the song ‘Plan B Charmaine’ came out and she became known as Charmaine to most people - To us as stupid teenagers it was funny but actually, looking back, she could’ve cost a man his future.
It’s difficult but no, I don’t think you should be able to ruin someone’s life by being deceitful and walk away with no reprocusions.

* I’m not sure she should get off completely when she did lie about her age.
I think she should. There shouldn't be any repercussions for her.*

As a social worker, this girl's behaviour tells me that she has already experienced repercussions.
12 year olds don't go on dating apps and lie about their age and hook up with older men unless they've already been exposed to sexual abuse.
12 year olds might have sex with other 12 year olds but even that is not all too common.

I'm happy he was jailed, and I think the sentence is ok, but I don't think he's on the same level as men who seek out children.
If he's someone who likes very young females, looking on an 18+ dating site is going around it the wrong way.
I think he has some defence, but at the end of the day it's his responsibility to check.
And like Seaseasea, when I was 15/16/17, girls my age were lying about their age to sleep with 19/20/21 years olds. And they were convincing too.

I’m not sure she should get off completely when she did lie about her age.
I think she should. There shouldn't be any repercussions for her.

I spent a year teaching in a girl’s school. The girls were all obsessed by makeup and I can think of several year 8 girls who could pass for much older when made up. one of them was caught working in a bar using fake ID.

At 13 I looked much older - old enough to go to clubs on a weekend.

At the same time I have a friend who well into her twenties could pass for a school kid without make up. Looks can be deceiving.

It’s really tricky. When I was younger a lot of my friends who were 13/14/15 were meeting people and saying they were much older. They definitely passed as older and would get served in shops and pubs from the same age.
Girls that have perhaps had to grow up before their time, could easily pass for a number of years older.
He had sexual contact and took pictures of a minor so he deserves prison. However, I’m not sure she should get off completely when she did lie about her age.

I agree that he's a shitty person who probably treated numerous other women badly (the photos etc are indicative of this) and I'm not arguing that he's not guilty.
I think the verdict is fair and I don't even have an issue with the custodial sentence. It sends a clear message to other men that it is their responsibility to make sure their prospective sexual partner is of age, and blows the "she told me she was old enough" argument out of the water.
I was just pointing out that despite being a slimeball, he's not a threat in the way the other cases are. Persistent, escalating sex offences with no jail term. Is it just that this chap makes an easier bad guy? (Not a minority, not a father with kids, no learning difficulties etc)
Because it isn't going to matter to the victim which kind of man abuses them, the impact will be the same whether he's rich and clever or not. Hence why the sentencing not seeming to correlate with "danger to the public" being an issue.
A bit like the Brock case in the US perhaps, he got a super-light sentence because of his "future". And we dole out non-sentences because an unemployed father of six who hasn't let his wife learn English is needed at home (what for? Not wages, and presumably not childcare if she's at home all the damn time too).
The sentencing is predicated on the impact on the offender not the impact on the victim/public.

Something odd in the reporting / case.

We do not have a crime of "statutory rape" in the UK.

We have sexual activity with a child, sexual activity with a child under 13

Rape is a term used specifically for penetration with a penis without consent

He pled not guilty to rape and was found not guilty

However it was a charge and one that the police felt appropriate to level and the CPS felt right to prosecute over and they only bring charges where there is a reasonable chance of winning

So I think that the report does not tell the full story>
A strong suspicion has come from the police etc that the sexual activity was non consensual

Just wanted to raise that as it jumped out at me

Also men have been saying "she looked older" forever
Society has also been saying "girls grow up so fast" forever

Girls who are of secondary school age but under 16 can and do have breasts bums curves. Grown up faces. Of course they will have makeup and so on.

This has always been.

It is NOT that girls "look older". They look what they are.
Society and men in particular need to adjust their ideas of what girls look like.
Of course we know that lots of men judge by the body - if a girl has breasts then she's "old enough". They don't even look at the face, on the high street they ignore the school uniform etc. This is what needs to change.

I hope the authorities are looking into the reason this girl is behaving this way, if she has been abused in the past, and hunting those men down.
This is what they say isn't it, men who abuse kids, the kids then start acting out sexually quite often, then they are deemed knowlegable temptresses etc seducing poor innocent grown men. So men abuse and set the scene up for the men who come after.

Spoke like

I have a 12 yr old.

I see alot of 11 and 12 and 13 year olds at pick up.

I've seen buses full of secondary school kids

Not one of them looked like or some like they were 19. Aged 12.

Its yet another way men get away or attempt to get away with being disgusting.

I didn't know she was 12 officer

She consented to being strangled it was an.accident officer.

Nah don't buy it.

If hes been using dating apps hes probably been catfished a hundred times and walked away when they weren't what they said they were.

Suddenly this ones ok?

Yeah whatever mate...

Exactly assassinated. People are so keen to blame the children in make up.

If you have sex with someone you don't know (and I have no problem with that) you take a number of risks. This is one of them. As an adult, you chose to take the risk and you live with the consequences. I'm sick of grown men dodging their responsibilities.

The details of what happened are in the article, and he did perform a sex act on the child, he photographed her in a sexual pose and then sent it to his friends. There are multiple offences there, the child was only 12, so I can see why the sentence was as it was.

The other cases you've linked to do seem to have very lenient sentences. I would support any efforts to review sentencing in this area and make the sentences much tougher. Especially when very young children are involved.

As for this case, the point is that this man didn't know the child's age because he didn't think he needed to check or worry about it at all. It's not some accident, it is a total lack of care or concern. The onus is clearly on adults to have a minimum level of responsibility and consider the age of any sexual partner. If you can't verify their age definitively then refrain from having sex with them until you can. It's not complicated.

Weird case. I guess with apps (guessing it was Tinder as the barrister described it as in widespread use) there is always the chance the person you meet is married, underage, mentally ill, re-enacting previous abuse, looking to rob or kill you, etc. It speeds up/cuts out the process of getting to know someone before you sleep with them.
It seems like this chap was a shallow guy, taking a pic to send to his friend was shitty behaviour too. And I guess legally speaking ignorance is no defence. She's still a child even if he didn't know. I believe that he didn't know, and it's unlucky for him, especially as his life is ruined (lost job, lost home, registered sex offender, custodial sentence, etc).
The sentencing for convicted sex offenders just varies so much, it doesn't make sense to me. Here's an example of sexual touching with a suspended sentence
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10707279/Koran-teacher-who-abused-girl-is-spared-jail-to-help-his-family.html
And a sex offender who abused a child and then downloaded child sex abuse images but no jail, he shows up to court in a hoodie www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/previously-convicted-sex-offender-avoids-12810153
Another ridiculous excuse www.wigantoday.net/news/crime/wigan-sex-offender-avoids-jail-as-porn-addiction-lands-him-back-in-the-dock-1-9570886

Sentencing Steele, Judge Hamill said he was "reluctant to impose imprisonment on someone who has the mental age of a nine-year-old".
He said that with a maximum sentence of six months available at magistrate's court level, allowing for discount for mitigating features, "I could give him four months and he will be out in two so what protection will that give the public?" That's this one: www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/serial-sex-offender-avoids-jail-after-groping-vulnerable-woman-in-flat-37499795.html

So I don't see how deliberate, prolific sex offenders can keep avoiding custodial sentences and some shallow dickhead who genuinely believed the person he was using was an adult gets two and a half years? The other cases are far more of a risk to the public.

If I took it at face value I’d feel sorry for him but struggle with the didn’t know defence as hell of a difference between 12 and being 19! But that’s what the judge said. And in the same breath he’s a horrible paedo signing the sex register for life. It doesn’t seem right but can’t sympathise as could never Imagine any decent bloke ending up in that position completely accidentally

I struggle to believe someone could mistake a 12 year old for 19 even if she lied but may have been pissed and lost some judgement. However it doesn’t seem they had actually had sex or anything hence the light sentence but everyone seems to be under the impression they did

His comments do make him sound vile, and I think people always have a duty to ensure their partner is of legal age, but he did have reason to believe she was, since she was on an adult dating site.
Years ago when out in a nightclub a male friend of mine was approached by a woman and they hit it off and ended up kissing in a corner.
After a while he came back to our group pale as a sheet.
Apparently she'd asked his age and when he said 26, she said "oh, only twice my age then".
She had us all fooled, we were a mixed group of women and men, all aged 22 to 26.
I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't been fooled myself.

@Owl247 that's a repugnant statement of support for this convicted sex offender.

No, not having that. He might not have realised she was only 12 but he would’ve been well aware that she wasn’t 19. Children lie and do dangerous, ill advised things, because they’re children. Adults should exercise the appropriate level of caution, especially where sex is involved.

Some men really do believe they can stick their cocks’ wherever they want with impunity, and unfortunately society reinforces this entitlement all the time.

Statutory rape is a criminal offence. Regardless of whether or not he knew, justice needs to have a deterrent effect. Pour encourager les autres.

Besides which he hardly comes out covered with glory. His comments about her were repulsive.

Even if he didn't, is ignorance an excuse