*TW* Pedophile found guilty of raping 5 year old given a SUSPENDED SENTENCE

He was also given a 35 day rehabilitation order. Again if learning difficulties are the issue why does the judge think he's capable of benefitting from this particularly as he doesn't even know what it will consist of. These kinds of intervention have no track record for sex offenders.

'The Rehabilitation Activity Requirement (RAR) was introduced by the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014. It is a single new requirement that the court can include as part of a participants Community Sentence. The court when allocating a RAR is not prescriptive in what the participant must do but will specify a maximum number of activity days the participant must complete. The participants Responsible Officer will decide the activities the participant is required to attend based on individual need and creating a safer community.'

'The RAR is designed to allow flexibility of what services/interventions we can choose to deliver to participants. Using innovative and rehabilitative approaches we can address the individuals needs and change the pattern of offending behaviour and issues that lead to this. Engaging with partnership agencies, volunteers and their Reponsible Officer activities in the RAR can include, addressing Housing issues, Finances, Health and Wellbeing, engaging with the local community through Social Action projects and many more.'

Do you think @mumsnetHQ would replace the tw in the title with the words trigger warning? Its causing confusion?

Thank you @NiceGerbil exactly!

@DirtyDeeds you say People are looking at this to try to understand the legal reasons why ‘mitigation’ would apply
Several pps including myself have clarified that there is no mitigation in sentencing guidelines of this crime on the basis that the penetration of the victim’s body with the penis was ‘accidental’ or in some way ‘less serious than normal rape‘. It’s actually quite disturbing that you think there might be. So it is a form a rape apology to speculate reasons on this basis. One might equally ask what she was wearing or what the weather was like that day as both have equal relevance to any mitigation in law. To be clear, none.

The sentence may have been mitigated by his alleged learning difficulties. Although, as many pps have commented, if he committed the crime because of these difficulties, there needs to be some kind of provision to protect the public from his actions. And that does not appear to have been put in place. And this is where the judgment appears to be lacking. Either he is capable of controlling his actions and therefore the sentencing is unduly lenient. Or he is incapable of controlling his actions and needs to be kept securely away from the public for their protection and his own. Until the judgment is made available we will be in the dark on what has gone wrong here.

Apologies.

He lives right by several schools one if the locals said his garden is right by the playground its no wonder he has been hounded out

Thank you for the address and template.

NOBODY IS SAYING THAT IT IS OKAY! Nobody is being a rape apologist.
This is truly appalling
People are looking at this to try to understand the legal reasons why ‘mitigation’ would apply - not because THEY think that it would actually mitigate the horror of what’s happened to that wee girl! Very little useful information has been published - people are wondering what legal justification there could be for this disgusting excuse of a sentence.
Just because some people are asking questions or making statements from that angle does not make them any less angry. If there is legal mitigation to enable such a lenient sentence then the law is an ass and a disgrace and needs tackling at the root cause to change

I wonder if a failure in his care plan or the care around him was a major contributer to the incident. If he doesn’t have capacity a strategy and support should have been in place to prevent raping a 5 year old. The rape incident wouldn’t have come out of the blue. Social services, LA, carers, family would have been aware of his attraction to minors and should have been managing him through an agreed care plan. Secure supported accommodation or consistent 1:1 support with immediate police intervention should have been in place to prevent the rape of a 5 year old.

I wonder if perhaps there are other cases still being investigated or heard in relation to this one. Might explain why almost no pertinent information is being released and why so few media outlets are covering this.

Does he understand that this is a terrible thing and that this ‘fine’ doesn’t just mean that he can do it again?

This is beyond horrifying, where are the judges closing statements or summary? I would like to see him/her have to explain how he values this 5 year old girls trauma as £2,500.

@Etinox - i had been going to post What you did but didn’t because I had a sense of what the reaction would be .

His FB suggests he has capacity to buy and sell models, go banger racing, etc. There are also several posts saying "i need a girlfrend' [sic]

He also has changed his FB first name, which suggests that he understands what he has done is wrong.

I'm not on board with listening to posters who talk as if they are law experts and use the term 'dick slapped'.

The system is supposed to

Rehabilitate
Show justice is done
Protect the public

I would say.

The amount of people hazarding guesses as to why it's a perfectly reasonable thing to get no jail time for raping a 5yo.. why?

Oh maybe it happened years ago
Oh maybe it was a dick slap (???)
Oh maybe he lacks capacity (so why on trial???)

Or maybe. It's an unduly lenient sentence.

If the guy lacks capacity to understand why raping a 5yo is wrong then he is dangerous.

If he doesn't and he raped a 5yo then he is dangerous.

Prison or mental health place. Protect the public. Where is that.

5 yo fgs. People saying oh maybe it was 10 years ago. So he was... 11. And raped a 5 yo. That is still very very much not ok.

Depressing thread.

This case is just heartbreaking.

@Handsoffisback

I’m sorry for your experience.

And no I do understand mitigation. There is no mitigation in the sentencing guidelines based on the guilty party using a different orifice (nor should there be) so speculation about exactly how this little girl was raped is at best distasteful.

@Etinox thanks for the explanation. But as I’m sure you are aware we get some interesting visitors in these parts. And this case is not one of a 16 year old boy and his 15 year old girlfriend, far from it.

How is someone with severe enough LDs to 'excuse' raping a little girl expected to pay £2500 in fines? That (amongst the ridiculousness of it all) seems bizarre? Is it £1 a week for years and years?
Either he has capacity to pay the fine, stand trial and be imprisoned or he needs to be in a secure unit.