Jeremy Forrest's sister's comments.

[Jayne3474]

Sorry mail link (!):

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2347879/My-brother-paedophile-loves-girl-abducted-Jeremy-Forrests-sister-says-family-support-couple-asked-looked-jailed.html

aibu to think she has a point about the paedophile bit?

Don't get me wrong, I think what Forrest did was immoral, and took advantage of a vulnerable young woman.

But surely a paedophile is one interested in pre-pubescent children.

AIBU to be annoyed at this term for truly sick perverts being thrown around so casually?

A man who has sex with a seemingly willing 15-year-old girl

A teacher who thinks it's OK to have sex with a 15 year old pupil (and start a relationship with a 14 year old) is deeply, deeply disturbed.

There is no grey area.

All this talk of provocative teenagers is far more worrying than the correct use of the word paedophile.

There is a difference between "minimising ... abuse" and saying that there are worse kinds of abuse flippinada

I'll give you an example that is less sensitive. A friend of mine was punched in the face whilst he was walking down the street in the middle of the day when he was 17. He still doesn't know who did it, or why - but he has a slightly wonky nose as a result. I think he got a few hundred quid from the criminal injuries compensation board.

It is not minimising that offence to say it would have been worse if the person who hit him had used a baseball bat. It's just saying that, of the two bad things, the one with the baseball bat would have been worse.

Do you not see that two things can be bad, but at the same time one can be worse?

I replied why I thought the family were keen NOT to have him deemed a paedophile.

It's pretty obviously an exercise in damage limitation.

flippinada At 15-years-old this girl may not feel she has been abused, indeed, she may not feel she has been abused in 25 years time.

THAT'S her decision to make, not yours or mine. As evidenced by this thread, lots of posters had sex at 15, chased older men and didn't feel abused by that.

If she says in 25 years time, 'It was all consensual and I don't feel that I've been abused as I was sexually mature and willing', I'd accept that. If they said they'd felt they had been abused, I'd accept that as well.

This is why Forrest should have received punishment because you never know how the victim will feel in x years time even if she was sexually mature and willing at the time

If, however, somebody who'd been molested in young childhood said that they were not abused, I'd think that they were, sadly, mistaken.

Oh jesus. Just shut up arthursixpence. That analogy is beyond offensive.

Having to spell out that talking about levels of seriousness in cases of sexual abuse is problematic is beyond frustrating.

This is going round and round in circles. The reason this girl could have been described as 'seemingly willing' is that he had groomed her.
How difficult a concept is that to grasp?

I'm no better-informed than general Joe Public but I do know that one of the reasons abuse victims often feel guilt subsequent to their abuse being found out/acknowledged, is that they feel they willingly went along with it.

And the reason they feel this is that their abuser deliberately sought them out and laid the ground for the victim to 'agree' to the unspeakable happening.

Do you see, Jayne? Please stop with the victim blaming and hair-splitting. There is no grey are here or in any other similar case.
The girl may one day wake up to what haplened to her, rather than what she did, or she might not - she might marry him - but it wouldn't change the circumstances of their original meeting.
He was looking for the right victim and he found it in her.

Ok, let's run with the idea of one form of abuse being worse than an another.

What, exactly, is the criteria on which you judge one episode of abuse to be worse than another?

If it's because it hurts more physically then that is only taking into account the physical effects. Whereas, the emotional impact can be far more long lasting and debilitating.

That is precisely why we can't label one form of abuse as worse than an another.

Shotgun , this is not victim blaming at all. Forrest was the one who behaved immorally, not her.

flippinada.

Seriously? You must realise that a man forcing himself upon a toddler is worse than one who has sex with a willing 15-year-old?

To be honest here, I'm sure the judiciary would deem the former to be on a much more serious level than the latter-as would any sane society

So there's your answer really.

The law does "label one form of abuse as worse than another" flippinada - that's why there are sentencing guidelines.

www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/sentencing_manual/s3_sexual_assault/

Actually, I don't think Jayne is victim-blaming or hair splitting.

For what it is worth I agree that abusing a 5 year old is worse than abusing a 15, generally. I don't think that is of all that much relevance though. We all know what Forrest did, whether it is being given the correct nomenclature or not. The 'label' is the least of it, really.

The Forrest family seems to be engaging in minimising, denial and blaming the wife. It's repellent. And that, plus the victim-blaming by many, is causing a lot of posters to react to the discussion of the right description for what Forrest did as just more in that vein.

And the number of people willing to regard their relationship continuing as any kind of happy ending or justification makes me despair.

I was expecting that accusation to be trotted out sooner or later. Needless to say it's ridiculous.

Is it really necessary to point out to people that emotional abuse exists and can have an equally (or more) harmful impact to physical abuse on its own?

In fact, the two often co-exist.

flippinada "we can't label one form of abuse as worse than an another."

flippinanda "emotional abuse exists and can have an equally (or more) harmful impact to physical abuse"

Make your mind up ...

This is not a subjective point. It is a fact that this man's behaviour was abusive.

I agree that, sadly, she may not come to realise that she has been abused and mistreated when she is an adult. However she will be wrong.

She won't be alone though as many abusers have difficulty attributing blame to their abuser.

FFS 'seemingly willing' DO you know how ridiculous that sounds. And 25 years down the line is meaningless as her definition of abuse is not the same as the courts the public/victims do not set the law. He is a sick sex offender who groomed a child and then took her abroad and continued the abuse. She may say she wasn't abused for whatever reason but she still was.

And if I was your friend and you kept going on about how it was important to note that although I was hit, I wasn't hit by a baseball bat, I'd feel very tempted to hit you.

(Except I wouldn't, because being an adult of sound mind I can tell the difference between feeling like doing something and actually doing it).

To be honest, noddyholder as it is the girl who matters in all of this, I'd be prepared to wait and see how she feels in 25 years time.

THIS is why it's correct to punish Forrest- because she may see things differently in the future and realise that she had been harmed

Then again as a thinking adult, she may conclude that she had not been abused. Who knows?

(Let us not forget, either, that people fall into age categories and that there may be no real developmental difference between 15 and 16 (i.e. age of consent) whereas there very much IS a difference between a 5-year-old and a 15-year-old)

HER decision to make. The important thing is that society signalled they believed it to be incorrect.

Unlike you, though, I wouldn't dream for one second of making her accept a label that she didn't feel applied to her.

Like I say, her decision to make about whether or not she was abused in retrospect, not yours.

Both are very wrong, but surely there is absolutely no way you can equate sex with a 5 year old to sex with a 15 year old? I strongly disagree with that. That DOES NOT MEAN I think sex with a 15 year old is in any way, shape or form acceptable before anyone decides to mis-interpret what I'm saying!

15 year old girls may want sex with an older man. It is up to the older man to say no however, no exceptions or excuses. There is NO WAY a 5 year old will want sex!

Her decision - based on what?

Oh the fact that she was seemingly willing.
Having been groomed in preparation.

If, as an adult, she honestly still thinks that its ok for somebody to knowingly break the law, lie to their colleagues, lie to a parent about how they have treated a child when in loco parentis, told staff and her parents that she'd been lying, disrupted her education, stolen his wife's passport, lied about his relationship with his wife, lied to his wife, taken her out of the country when it became clear he would be caught, and all for a shag, I'd she was an abuse victim.

I'd SAY she was an abuse victim

I was horrified by the woman's comments. It would be better all round if this man's family just shut up and stay away from the media.

The guy targeted a vulnerable young girl who, in the eyes of the law, is still a child.

I was preyed on by a man at school when I was the same age. He made me feel very 'special' and grown up. In fact, he was abusing me. He wasn't a teacher, he was a student teacher. We didn't have sex, although he did pressurise me to. It ended when another teacher saw us holding hands and the guy got fired.

merrymouse she may very well conclude that it was wrong to do all of those things, however, that is not the same as her feeling she'd been abused.

Up to her how she feels about it all in the future.

Whether or not she can recognise abuse is not relevant to whether abuse took place.

Exactly merrymouse if she does indeed mature and still think what he did was ok then it shows the damage this has done.

Well put Merrymouse.