To think the result of this rape trial is disgusting

[joystir59]

Man gets off completely Scot=free for raping a 12 year old girl, and that this result gives such a wrong message to men, in a world in which girls are never considered too young anyway. I'm enraged!
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-39305042

No one is saying he had a 'right' just that it's understandable why he thought he was having consensual sex.

It's not normal to demand ID from people before you have sex with them. Having sex is not a commercial transaction in the way that selling cigarettes is. And it's not regulated, per se. Cigarettes need to be taxed, not to contain too much tar, etc. There are no similar rules about sex.

You could insist on seeing ID, but then maybe he actually did? He's still equally 100% guilty of the offence if the girl had shown him fake ID, or her sister's driving licence or whatever.

So what's the point of that?!?

Also you CAN legally sell cigarettes or alcohol to a 12-year-old IF you took " all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid the commission of the offence.”

In other words if you demand ID but said ID is fake/borrowed/etc., then you can be found not guilty.

The same is NOT true of the statutory rape offence.

Dicktophone exactly, loose loose situation.
Best thing to just not have sex with people you've only just met. Unfortunately this guy did and has to live with that mistake forever and for that, I feel sorry for him.

Dick I'm not sure what your point is...

If there is no defence in law sureky men should be totally certain they aren't commuting statutory rape?

Good point DickToPhone

6 yr old

This shit happens everywhere and men (and clearly from this thread, and this judge, women too) find excuses for it. What age does a girl have to be for men to be held accountable?

Think the judge was right.
He shouldn't have his life ruined be ause she lied about her age.
Everyone that night believed she was much older.
I've never asked a bf for id when i've first met them and i don't know anyone that has!
Ofcourse teenage girls ( ofcourse boys too) can be manipulative, i remember lying and dollying myself at 16 to get into pubs.
I do wonder where her parents thought she was at that time though ( unless she lied to them too).

And still people assume she has parents!

Yep, blame the lying 12 year old for ruining a man's life. He couldn't possibly be responsible for his decisions, could he, poor chap.

No I don't think he's a rapist, he didn't go looking for an underage girl. He had what he believed to be consensual sex with a person over the legal age. He didn't force her into sex.

All of the witnesses to the case were of the opinion that the girl certainly looked to be an age that she could have given full consent.

It says in the article that he went with her to a party, you have no idea how well he did or didn't try to get to know her, you don't know what was said (she could have possibly spun a whole web of lies to fabricate her 16 year old life). By your way of thinking anyone who is about to have sex should be carrying full identification showing their birth date that should be checked before getting intimate.

This will have completely ruined his life without imprisonment, his face is splashed across the media - he will never be able to get away from this.

I think it should stand as a stark warning for parents to thoroughly check where their children are and who they are with when they are out.

Again with the blaming of the 12 year old child for an adult man's decisions.

It won't ruin his life. Look how much sympathy he's getting just on this thread alone. It'll be old news soon and he'll be absolutely fine I'm sure.

Agreed. It won't ruin his life.

How about some empathy for a 12 yr old being sexually abused by adult men?

12 yrs old.

I don't believe him.

I'm willing to believe he got it wrong.

I'm not willing to believe it absolves him of guilt.

"Rape laws, which were strengthened in 2009, do not allow any child under the age of 13 to give informed consent about sexual intercourse. So if it happens, in the eyes of the law, it is rape; there is no defence of consent."... except it seems if the girl could pass for 16, which many girls under 13 do.

no, there is no defence, even if the girl passes for 16. The man is guilty, he has just not been punished.

I'm not willing to believe it absolves him of guilt.

He pleaded guilty, he was found guilty, he was convicted of rape. He is now a sex offender.

Not rtft but read the news reports and thread in feminism and some comments here.

Absolutely DISGUSTED by this judges actions.

He has been convicted but NO sentence, NO record NO consequences for RAPING a TWELVE year old.

I am utterly astonished and bewildered that anyone can think this is in any way acceptable ever!

It was the right decision.

In what world is it the right decision to let a child rapist not have ANY consequences?

I don't know why people don't believe him. She spoke at length with two police officers who were specifically looking for people who were too young to be out drinking and even they had no concerns.

The consent issue is nuanced too, because whilst consent wasn't an element in deciding whether-or-not he was guilty, the judge found that she did actually consent.

I obviously feel sorry for her, but I do feel sorry for him too.

Perhaps the culture of it being ok to have casual sex is to blame.

But it is okay. That's the wonderful thing about bodily autonomy.

Technically he raped her because of her age. Statutory rape. However, sometimes the law is wrong. She obtained rape by deception which in many circumstances is illegal. He should have kept his anonymity.

So, how would you change the law? Would you remove the age limit below which a child cannot be deemed to consent? Lower it?

You keep it as it is but give the judges some discretion ie.what has happened here. It got the right result.

The need to have sex is much more important than checking the person you're having sex with is able to consent...

He didn't need to, he wanted to. The same as she did. Should men really ID women before sex? What if the ID's fake? Do women need to check ID too?

men should be totally certain they aren't commuting statutory rape?

and women too (yes, I know women can't rape men...). The issue is, you would need DNA testing matched to a database. A saliva swab could really kill the mood.

I don't feel sorry for him.remotely. All my sympathy is with the child.

Legally at 12 she was not able to consent. It has nothing to do with whether she was willing or not. There is no ambiguity about her age. She was under 13. It doesn't matter that he thought she was 16, or that other people thought so to. She wasn't. It is also illegal to have sex with an under 16 year old. The 'I thought she was older hones guv' line is a defense, it doesn't mean it's legal to have sex with an under 16 year old, it's just that there is an all too readily believed excuse. Which is supposed to be dismissed when the child is 12 or younger. But clearly not in this case.

At 19 I would have thought that the man in question would have been well aware that sometimes girls look older than you might at first imagine, and that someone saying they are 16 should be taken with a very large pinch of salt. So sleeping with them is highly risky. Both that you might be committing a crime and more importantly that you might be abusing someone.

I have a 17 and 16 year old. They both interact with older and younger teens and it tends to be pretty obvious. Three or four years at this age is a pretty massive gap.

Given the little I know of this case, it was the right result. If he knew her age then obviously the result would be a disgrace. But if she genuinely looked older (which it seems she does, given others also thought she was 16+) then no.