Jeremy Forrest verdict - aibu to be confused?

[noddyboulder]

Yep, I don't think even his own parents could deny he's a massive, hideous scumbag with no impulse control - but how can he have been found guilty of abduction when the girl he had an affair with said it was her idea to go to France and she went willingly?

Can somebody legal shed some light?

She is now 16 and i cant see how you could bar her contacting him.

If you read the link just posted others convicted of having sex with a pupil each got less than 18 months so why give him 5 and a half years?

And why should you bar her from seeing him?

His poor family giving their statement. His BIL looked so devastated over everything. Not just Forrests POV.

She has left her mothers home and is living with her step father so i cant see how the mother could get an injunction.

I read somewhere that they've been allowed to write to each other while he was on remand and that his family told him in court that she said she'd wait for him (why are they encouraging this??) and that she's intending to visit him in prison.

So there's been ongoing contact that will continue. I just hope that the romantic shine of the whole "lovers against the world" thing wears off before he's released and can marry her and get her pregnant or move abroad with her. He will probably propose to her while he's serving his sentence.

He's been sentenced for the rest of her childhood and when he gets out there will be nothing to stop them resuming.

I wonder what happens when he's out on licence until the remaining portion of his sentence is expired? Will he be under restriction or will they have no choice but to allow contact because she will, by then, be 18 and he is not her teacher?

I really need to stop reading this thread as it is making me ragey.

Very glad about the sentence, hope she sees the light and doesn't have any further contact with him.

She can't give her permission until she's 16 though. Yeah it is unfortunately a case of 15 and 364 days they can't consent, and 24 hours later they can because there HAS to be a line!! Maybe she was mature for her age (which I doubt if she thought running off to France was a good idea), she still can't consent.

I'm astonished by posters who have children of a similar age and think this is romantic/understandable/not a big deal or anything along those lines.

Not sure what to say to that, to be honest.

Sky news are saying he was sentenced to 4½ years for sexual activity with a child and 1 year for child abduction.

I have never said what he did wasn't wrong. Just the sentence is excessive and a waste of public funds.
The girl clearly comes from a troubled home and he handled everything wrong but i dont see him as some sort of sexual predator. More weak and lacking in common sense. He put himself in a situation that he should never have allowed to develope.

As she'll be over 18 I don't think there's anything they'll be able to do once he's out on license.

If they let her see him in jail though, what exactly would be the point in jailing him?

FFS had unprotected sex with a 15 year old pupil, who had a history of self harming herself, in his car.

How can you just put it down to weakness?!?
He deserves everything he gets.

"I just do not think he is a predatory old man"

Just a predatory teacher?