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?

The other teacher got 7 years as there were 3 girls involved 2 of them who he was having sex with at the same time and he got a total of 7 years for for all the overall offences.

If you're a teaching professional you act in a professional manner. That includes doing the 'right thing' if you think you are attracted to one of your pupils (for whom you are in loco parentis while they are at school btw).

So he basically had two choices: i.e. wait until she was 16 so that having sex with her was legal. Then resign from his job and get another one elsewhere if she was still at the school. Alternatively he could have sex with her while she was underage and he was still her teacher. He made the second choice and therefore laid himself open to these consequences. It's not really a hard one to get your head around.

I am really saddened that this is even a discussion.

She is a child. He is an adult. To make it worse he was an adult in a position of power and trust.

She is a child therefore not able to give her consent. Therefore in law he has abducted her.

It's far more unacceptable because he was her teacher. It would be unacceptable anyway but this was a huge breach of trust. I don't think the sentence was excessive but it shown how lenient the Stuart hall sentence actually was.

However, I think the mother's speech today was completely OTT. How can shd possibly say she feels like her daughter has died and that she's grieving? her 15yr old gas had sex. Albeit non consensual in law. Talk to her and support her through her teenage angst whilst she thinks she's in love with this idiot. Feel angry by all means but don't say you feel she has died FFS. You have your daughter and she is well and healthy. Just help her to move on.

"She said Forrest was angry that her daughter was doing nothing to stop the rumours, adding: ?I offered my apologies for my daughter?s behaviour. He kept going over and over again about his career."

Now there speaks your true Romeo!

He left her to face her mother's wrath like he left her to face the barristers, because what he felt for her was Trueeee Looove.

He 15yo didn't just have sex, she was abducted/ran away. Her parents didn't have a clue where she was or whether she was dead or alive. That's very traumatic, especially as the girl is clearly still infatuated with the lying, abusive little creep.

I'm just catching up from last night and would like to address this notion of those of us who are calling this sexual offender a, well, a sexual offender have blinkers on.

It is, you, and those who share your vile views who are wearing said blinkers.

This man this man is only a few years younger than I am. His victim, for that, dear friends is what she is, is only a few months older than my own DD.

He is old enough to be her parent (just, but he is).

This man is a sexual deviant. He is a sex offender.

I am frightened for my DD in a world in which rape apologists and victim blaming is so openly expressed, and all because the victim is deemed attractive or buxom or any other shite that you may think up.

There is no shades of grey. This man is an abuser of children.

I wish the BBC wouldn't refer to it as a love affair like its some kind of office romance.

He's a manipulative lying shit bag.

Her poor mother, sending her to school every day believing she was being properly cared for.

They were not equals. In age, experience, intellect or power. He totally took advantage of her. He's got a thing for young teens and his family are in denial about it.

Yes, I'm sure it was traumatic. I'm not suggesting she gets over it. But to say you feel like she's died and you're grieving is OTT IMO. She's home and she's safe. So what your left with is that she was encouraged into a sexual relationship with an older man shd should have been able to trust.
I think it's totally and utterly vile but I actually don't think there's any need to claim that you feel you've lost her.

i wish they would stop saying the ran away together

no he took her to france

I'm glad there has been universal condemnation of AVR2's disgusting excuses for sexual exploitation. Clearly AVR2 would have fitted right in with the prevailing attitudes in light entertainment in the 70s.

I honestly think that texting is the devil in these situations. It's so easy to send a flirty text or cross a line in a text in a way you wouldn't with other forms of communication. For what it's worth I think as far as you can police it private communication between pupils and teachers should be illegal.

the summing up by the judge makes it pretty clear what he is and how he acted:

I have seen nothing in the evidence that shows at any stage you tried to provide proper boundaries. You encouraged her infatuation and provided opportunities to communicate with you and be alone with you. Soon after her 15th birthday you began a full sexual relationship with her. Texts show you drove that forward.

DF I was just going to say that... pretty damning from the judge.

Surely no one can defend this as a love affair now?

It is illegal for a teacher to have any kind of sexual relationship with a pupil in their care under the age of 18. It does not matter if the teacher does not teach that pupil, if they attend the same school/college it is against the law.

The law was changed in 2003, prior to this only the age of consent could be taken into account.

Whilst I agree that it is inappropriate to call this man a paedophile - he is a sex offender.

We all know what 15 yo girls are like and yes, they are totally obsessed with sex and romance - I was at that age. All teachers know this and should know how to deal with it.

30 yo men should have the maturity to understand that young girls will have a crush on them because they are so much more sophisticated than boys their own age.

What these men shouldn't do (especially in a position of power) is send that child text messages, twitter messages etc etc. There were many opportunities for him to say no.

As a maths teacher he would be in demand professionally and so also had the opportunity to remove himself from the situation completely (and no I'm not blaming the girl or her parents).

At no time did he do that. In fact he lied to the school, to the girl's mother and to his wife. This is not a behaviour of a reasonable adult.

If he loved her, if he still loves her (and I very much doubt love has got anything to do with it) then he should leave her alone to get on with her life.

I only hope now that the media frenzy around this case is quickly put to rest and the girl can resume her childhood in privacy (hopefully without her FB comments being published in the press).

"We all know what 15 yo girls are like and yes, they are totally obsessed with sex and romance"

I don't agree.

Ok, some 15 yo girls then. Sorry, I was generalising.

It is upsetting to see a few apologists for Forrest on this thread, but the vast majority of posters seem to agree that he was an abuser who got what he deserved.

Some of you may have seen me post on this subject before - this whole case has been massively triggering - but a similar thing happened to me when I was 15.

I was unhappy at home and I first became friends with this man [a lovely, 35 year old, divorced alcoholic, for anyone who's interested] when I was 14 and confided in him that I'd stolen a craft knife from his classroom supplies to try to kill myself. I was lonely, shy, unhappy and desperate for affection.

He gently pushed the boundaries (what we now call 'grooming') for a year or so, until by the time he finally kissed me, I was convinced I was already in love with him.

He waited until I was 16 to have sex with me because, in his words, he 'didn't want to go to jail' (this was 20 years ago, before it became illegal for teachers to have relationships with 16-17 year olds, although it was still against school regulations).

For those of you saying 'well, I know people it happened to and they're married with kids now, so that's okay' - Well, it's not.

I was engaged to be married to this teacher. We were together until I was 20 years old. I really had outgrown the relationship at least two years earlier, but I'd invested so much of my own identity in it, I had lied to everyone I loved, cut myself off from my family, lost almost all my friends and been horrifically bullied, so I HAD to believe that it had been worth it, that it really was true love.

But it wasn't. It was a teenage crush and, if he hadn't done everything he could to encourage it, it would have petered out like any other teenage crush. Maybe I would have dated boys my own age and had normal experiences of a first relationship.

As it is, here I am 20 years later, crying and shaking and screaming inside my head because he fucked up so much of my life and my formative experience.

And no, I don't think what he did was 'coldly calculating'. He didn't sit down one day in his evil lair, rub his hands together and go 'Ha ha ha, here are my plans for seducing 14 year old girls!'

I think it was immature and completely and absolutely selfish. And totally wrong. Because he was a selfish cunt who wanted to be Peter Pan and be hero-worshipped by a child-bride, I am still paying for it now.

That's why we have laws in place to protect children, and to provide clear boundaries/deterrent for those who can't behave decently without the threat of a jail term.

Also, from the Guardian, this:

"Forrest's defence was based almost entirely on an argument carefully put forward by the girl herself, questioned carefully by the defence and still clearly enraptured by a man with whom she exchanged occasional coy smiles. Going to France was entirely her idea, she said, and Forrest only came along to prevent her coming to harm, especially self-inflicted harm.

This version, however, was hard to tally with the narrative of Forrest, in Bordeaux, creating his false identity and looking urgently for work to support himself with his child partner.

That ties with what child protection experts say is the common profile of adults who groom children. Aside from their tendency to target more vulnerable young people, they tend to be emotionally immature themselves and deeply narcissistic, all too ready to convince themselves they are doing nothing wrong.

This notion was tackled in the closing speech of the prosecutor, Richard Barton QC: "She trusted him with all her vulnerabilities and he was the figure of authority. He won't be the first figure of authority who someone gets a crush on and he won't be the last, but part of the role of a figure of authority is that you do not take advantage of it." "

He is an adult and teacher, so it is not unreasonable for people to expect a element of responsibility from him, and she was a child who developed a crush on her teacher, nothing wrong with that, most teenage girls develop crushes on teachers ect, it's just a part of growing up. Okay granted she was dragged to France kicking and screaming we know that, but like I said he's an adult and he should have had more control. I also feel sorry for this wife. xxx

Why is it that in France the age of consent is 15, are French girls/boys able to make decisions of who to have sex with earlier? If they were French they would have not committed a crime. 16 seems a bit arbitrary in my opinion. 5 and a half years seems really harsh considering how short sentences some paedophiles get

Can someone legal explain how the length of prison terms are set and in this case was it the abduction or sex offences or both that determined the length of sentence? Is there an element of discretion for the judge or is the cps quite prescriptive?

berts from your post I understand where you are coming from. But that is with hindsight. That is what she feels like and all the wild horses will not stop her and he was stupid. But 5 1/2 years?