to think the legal system should not place white victims of sex crimes below Asians

[oldshilling]

www.theguardian.com/law/2015/sep/17/asian-child-sex-victims-suffer-more-than-white-children-court-rules

There has been a lot of news about certain Muslim men choosing to sexually abuse white girls rather than members of their own community, because of cultural differences making white girls often easier targets, and perhaps because perceptions of about non-Muslim women.

In this case, however, a Muslim man chose to sexually abuse Muslim girls, and was given a longer sentence on the basis that Muslim/Asian girls will suffer more than white girls, a decision that the Court of Appeal has confirmed.

AIBU to think that this is disgusting, particularly given the targeting of tens of thousands (at a minimum) of white girls by Muslim men.

Abuse is abuse. Every abuser should get a bloody long sentence.

But i want to say something and i hope this comes across ok.

I grew up in a Catholic household and there is misogyny in that religion. More is expected of women than men.

When ppl call out the misogyny in the Catholic religion though the Irish, Italians and other predominantly Catholic countries dont immediately think the person doing the calling out is being racist.

There is a thread on another board where someone has said posters are being racist simply because they have pointed out her partner has a misogynistic mindset and it pretty much seems to have silenced posters. Hope ive explained this ok.

There's absolutely no excuse for the moron of a judge. Its impossible for any judge not to know that any ruling made by them will be adhered to by lower courts in similar cases. And as its the court of appeal, that means every other court that hears cases in the UK. Next time a similar case goes through crown court, unless the judge can find an extremely valid reason it differs in a fundamental way, he/she will have no choice but to follow this decision. Judicial precedent is a huge part of the legal system and there is no way the judge just forgot that rather major point in his decision. Twat.

Can I point out that what I feared is true - having read the article, the original judge is a woman, though the article is about a male appeal judge confirming the judgment.

This brings concepts of woman as chattel and rape as a property crime into a modern British court. I am going to read it again as I can't quite believe it.

So basically a British judge had endorsed the view that a females worth is related to virginity, and that any sexual acts whether forced or not reduces their value and thus makes then less of a victim.

Well this is add old as the hills isn't it, it's where ideas like prostitutes can't be raped comes from. I was hoping that we were moving away from these views.

Really disappointing. Too tired to get angry any more.

And yes annadale.

Questions such as
What if she never wants to get married?
What if she's a lesbian?
What if she wants to marry someone who does not adhere to these values?

Are not considered. The parents say, this is worse as we will not be able to marry her off so easily, she has lost value. Property crime.

It's really awful how can these things happen?

The justification is that the sentencing guidelines require judges to take into account the psychological effect on the victims. What seems to have been taken into account is in fact the psychological effect on the victims' fathers and their community at the 'damaging' of assets girls who might or might not have marriage prospects. The outrage of those who had had an asset stolen rather than a child exploited.

That woudl suggest that the argument was that in that community it is psychologically damaging in itself for a woman to remain unmarried.

I suppose that a judge is not supposed to try to make a society better than it is, they just apply law in the society as it is. That looks at girls as damaged or undamaged and worth more or less as a result. I feel sick.

It's a disgrace. It's endorsing the reduction of a girl's value to that of how 'marriageable' they are. These attitudes need to be called out as unacceptable as often as possible, not pandered to and excused. This should not be used as mitigation. It should be pointed out to the families that women are valuable for themselves, whoever they are and no matter how they choose to behave or dress.

It is awful that the race of the victim is taken into consideration when determining the sentence. Abuse is horrific and the child, no matter their race/religion, is going to need oodles of therapy to come to terms with the abuse, let alone overcome it.

I have always thought child abuse and rape is far worse than murder because the victim has to continue living with the abuse. Their life as they knew it is over. The sentencing doesn't reflect this though.

Yes Annandale, the judge should not be taking account the father's or the family's property rights, just the psychological damage to the girl, which would be the same no matter what the girls race.

Completely agree Fez.

I can't see how race can have any baring in the depth of suffering, or are they saying that all members of respective communities will respond in exactly the same way to such a crime?????I don't really get the 7 years though, there must be a big enough tank of hungry piranhas to stick him in.

He's effectively saying "it doesn't matter if you abuse white girls because they're seen to be loose anyway."

Of course he isn't. He's saying that the accused is causing greater harm to his victim because of her religion: that both a white and non-white victim will undoubtedly suffer a great deal from abuse, but the white victim is unlikely to find herself an outcast from society as a result and prevented by her society's rules from ever marrying or having children.

Look at this way: criminal A attacks victim X by hitting him, and criminal B attacks victim Y also by hitting him: they attack the same parts of their victims' bodies and use the same amount of force. However, B knows that victim Y has brittle bones. As a result, X has a few bruises whilst Y has broken bones. Should A's and B's sentences be exactly the same? If a judge sentences B to two years' prison and A to three years, does that mean that he is saying that A's offence doesn't matter because X is tougher?

So the judges have agreed that a man is more at fault for raping a Muslim child (or a female child in any culture where she is considered deficient for having been the victim of an attack) than for raping a white child. He is at lesser fault for raping a white child.

And in doing so the claim that the child is rendered deficient is legitimized . I do not understand how that can possibly fit within a justice system that has any relationship with freedom and equality . It is a disgrace .

that all may be true but it also sends out the message that abusing white children is not as bad as abusing asian or muslim children.

that's not good imo.

Groping my way on this one.

I don't think the judge thought they were taking into account property rights - they were looking at psychological damage. But to me that's the underlying implication of the judgment.

It is not really the judge's responsibility to tell victims or their families that females should be valued for themselves. If they are not, the judge considers how things actually are. It is for society to change this, not for a judge to consider how things should be.

" Property crime."
My blood ran cold reading that, it's so true.

That's bollocks.

It's a really sloppy report and I would question whether the Guardian's 'Legal Affairs correspondent' Owen Bowcott was in court to hear it.

I also wonder what his qualifications for being Legal Affairs Correspondent are.

I strongly suspect he sat in the office and slapped his name on an agency report when it came in. I'm a journalist. I've seen it happen.

The Guardian isn't the greatest. Neither is the BBC website. But people continue to think they are.

I suspect the aggravating factors in this case weren't that the victims were Asian but that their rapist was in a position of trust and they happened to be Asian.

Like a member of their family. An uncle maybe. His age seems to fit.

That would make more sense to me.

Judges aren't fools. No matter what people want to think.

Inimitable, isn't it more that criminal B thinks victim Y has brittle bones and hits him because he likes the sound of bones breaking; he doesn't hit victim X because he thinks victim X has strong bones. But in fact, both victims have brittle bones but there is a taboo in victim Y's community against fractures. Does that make criminal B's crime against victim Y worse than a similar crime woudl be against criminal X? i don't think so.

Our society deems some women to be of higher worth than others, girls too. This legitimises the idea of rapes being more or less severe based on the sexual history, attire and so forth. All of the victim blaming that exists that we have been working so hard to move away from. Is reversed here.

Well I dare say the judge's ruling is available online unfiltered by journalists of any kind.

The whole idea that she is damaged goods is disgraceful.

I can't believe our courts are supporting this.

It has nothing to do with the victim herself, does it. Maybe after this she doesn't even want to get married. Maybe she's gay. That is all irrelevant apparently as she has no agency, she was meant to be married off now that is more difficult.

He's been named but his relationship to his victims has not been specified.

I strongly suspect that he is known or related to them.

The appeal court judge specifically rejected the idea put forward by the girls' fathers that they were 'damaged goods'.

Therefore he and the original trial judge were not upholding the idea that Asian girls are any more special than any other group of girls.

If you really look at the report, piss-poor as it is, you can pick it apart.

That's if you want to take the time.

Personally, I feel that it is relevant to discuss the horrendous impact on these girls' lives and specifically the impact on them because of their own culture's attitude when sentencing. This should have been possible without stating/implying this somehow lessons similar crimes against girls from non-Muslim backgrounds. And, of course the sentence should be no different.

As an analogy when passing sentence on a murderer who has killed a young woman with you very young children, you would expect mention to be made that very young children have been robbed of their mother. It doesn't make a similar murder of an older woman with grown-up children less of a crime.

Unfortunately we do see some crimes as greater than others because of the impact on the victim, an elderly lady being mugged seems more abhorrent than a young man.

In a offence like this comparison is totally abhorrent and the judge was wrong and totally misguided to use the words she did.

No court has said they are 'damaged goods'.

Read the report.

It's shit. But it's in there.

Ininimitable, that's an interesting way of putting it and probably very accurate.

The only thing I would say about this case and every other case that gets reported is that 1) not all facts are released to the public so there may be other factors behind the scenes (eg things which ultimately affect sentencing but the public don't hear about); and 2) the press almost always misreport things which have been said or the facts of the case.