To think that being Italian is no excuse for gang rape? (distressing details)

[Clymene]

There two revolting men grabbed a drunk woman in a club, took her to a service room and passed her back and forth between them like a doll, filming as they raped her. They left her comatose body in the loo with severe injuries, and high fived as they left the club. Then they left the country.

They were given 7 years each and their defence argued that because they're Italian, they don't really understand consent.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/anger-as-nightclub-rapists-ferdinando-orlando-and-lorenzo-costanzo-jailed-for-seven-years-pjxkwgh05?shareToken=0fe877148f90c60b5ba52481bf33c196

So in Italy is it legal to have sex with women who are so incapacitated they can’t consent?

I believe so - it was also perfectly legal in the UK too until the Sexual Offences Act 2003 received Royal Assent. .

Italy does have a chauvanistic culture that is still intact to some extent.

Women are divided into good, respectable girls .. and slappers. A girl out clubbing, drunk, not sticking like glue to whoever she's there with would be categorised as the latter; hence the father's stance.

I've actually encountered similar attitudes in rural Ireland.

Within that of course is the assumption that slappers are always up for sex, and even if they weren't ... It doesn't matter.

Not unlike the attitude of the gang rapists and murdered who killed the Indian young woman, who thought he'd being out after dark drinking in a bar with a male/makes meant she was fair game for rape (and apparently a brutal death as well).

In that case, the victim, Jyoti Singh, hadn't even been drinking. She was just on a bus with a male friend having been to the cinema. Just being in public after dark was enough for those men (and plenty of others, including politicians) to justify it to themselves.

The cctv from the club showing them with the victim before and after the assault and then running away and high-fiving has made me absolutely sick to my stomach. I wish I hadn’t seen it. That poor woman.

Of course it isn't. Italy is a macho country - I had a mate who lived there and she was constantly sexually harassed - but plenty of Italians are lovely people. WTF. It's no more an excuse than 'the rapist has legs', it's bullshit.

Young men do not do this

I'm sorry, what??

I honestly don't know why this is in AIBU? Are you seriously expecting someone to say YABU and it's a valid defence? Of course you're not. Why you would even post this is beyond me and quite worrying

The defence team have to come up with something - that’s their job - and this is what they came up with.

darkcloudsandrainstorms Sat 23-Nov-19 13:02:12
Young men do not do this. The vast majority of people are good and decent.

-----

You are a rape apologist, and probably male.

These are dark times for women.

The never ending access to porn as facilitated by the Internet is now showing up in the culture of everyday interactions between men and women.

These men would have grown up being accustomed to porn from the age where their sexual ‘blueprint’ was being formed.

Add in the Madonna/Whore culture of Catholic thinking and you have a perfect storm where seemingly respectable young men feel entitled to treat a young woman like this.

It is so depressing.

What a week. Everyone who can read now knows the intimate details of Grace Millane’s sexual proclivities before she was murdered.

It is so deeply shocking that strangulation is viewed as an everyday part of sex and that young women are submitting to this as part of the currency of a relationship. Porn again, no doubt.

What would help would be the Times saying they raped a woman in a nightclub not a drunken woman in a nightclub in their opening paragraphs.

The media seriously need to consider their wording.
Victim blaming from the off, as with most sexual assaults.
I commend the lady for her bravery, as a pp mentioned I doubt it was the first ti e tbry done this.
How does this even come up with men? A split decision? Preplanned assault? Do men discuss taken a vuberable woman to rape.

The sentence is by far the worst part of this, given the nature of the attack, the consequences and injuries for the victim, and the fact that they fled the country. They should be serving double that and they'll probably do half of it. It utterly stinks. Vile bastards.

Well they're young and pretty so I'm sure they'll learn about consent in prison or more likely lack of it.

@Angie6868 - well the judge obviously thought that an appropriate sentence. I'm confused why you think it's worrying that I posted in AIBU

The defence will put forward the defence their client asks them to put forward. A good barrister will suggest the appropriate course (plead guilt/ not guilty / what defence to use if pleading not guilty) but they must do what their client tells them to in court.

Horrifically unpleasant, but this defence sounds like something this assholes cames up with.

Emerald- I agree. There was a case on the Italian news a week or so back which (loosely translated) said that a British girl from Manchester, of Indian origin, after going to a nightclub then catching a cab for which she didn't have enough money was attacked by the taxi driver.
I used the article in one of my lessons to show that the most salient "news" was added almost as an afterthought, when the woman's nationality, ethnicity, provenance and habits had no relevance to the fact that "man rapes woman"
(she didn't have the money for the fare because seeing a non white foreign woman get in his cab he also thought he'd fleece her and when she didn't have the extortionate amount of money he wanted, he raped her)

36% of Italian women have suffered violence at the hands of their partner.
A violent crime against a woman is reported every 15 minutes, or 88 times a day

This morning, the news had yet another case of a woman being murdered by her partner.
Cases of women being killed by partners is high. Usually because the woman wants to end the relationship.
I have female students who boast that their boyfriends would kill them if they wore leggings etc.
My whole school is taking part, on Monday in an initiative raising awareness of violence against women here.
Over the years it's receiving more awareness but the numbers are still rising.

A woman represented one of them as well and said those things! Why as a society do we let solicitors off with representing scum and making excuses for them just because they're a solicitor? I know everyone is entitled to legal representation but surely morally, you can't go making excuses for people and say it's ok because that's how you make your living? So wrong and sick

Everyone is entitled to defend themselves in court in our legal system. Barristers do not get to pick and choose who they defend.

When will people understand this? Defending a client is not condoning their actions, it is making the best you can of the facts while the prosecution makes the worst.

The 'Italian defence' practically screams that they are guilty. If that was all that could be said, the bottom of the barrel had been thoroughly scraped and come up empty!

@TheCanterburyWhales
Awful. Remembering the poor woman enjoying a peaceful drink at her hotel bar in Sorrento.
Drugged by staff members and raped by 5 of them.
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/woman-gang-raped-drugged-italy-hotel-staff-arrested-meta-di-sorrento-naples-a8352436.html

Disgusting.

I also think that any lawyer who can use such arguments is also a revolting human being.

Poor young women

I’ve seen the video of then taking her to the room she can’t walk or stand by herself and then after they hug each other in celebration it’s really disturbing to watch

There are some cultures that do celebrate male masculinity in a toxic misogynistic way I think many countries do Italy being one of them (and it’s not prevalent in all of Italian society)

That’s not to say more women are sexually assaulted/raped or more men commit sexual assault women but the line of flirting and harassment is in my experience is more often ignored

I thought it Amanda Knox and her treatment by the Italian police and press too

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, they know right from wrong. And even if they don't it should not be a defence.

They should have got a lot longer

God that's awful @TheCanterburyWhales. Italy has such a lovely reputation. I had no idea there was so much violence again women