Marcus Fakana gets prison sentence in Dubai.

[Ohnonotmeagain]

This is the 18 year old lad who had a holiday romance with a 17 year old girl in Dubai. She was just short of 18.

her parents found out and reported him to the Dubai authorities before he returned home.

his poor parents aren’t well off and had to return home to work leaving him there.

he’s now been sentenced to 1 year in prison.

aibu to think this poor boy should never have been brought before court.

If you visit a country you must abide by its laws. He should not have embarked on a romance with an under age girl and must take the consequences. His parents could ask the Foreign Office to request the young man's return to serve his sentence in the UK - though I am not sure that would be any better.
What happened, however, is also a warning about visiting countries with retarded laws - never visit Dubai, or anywhere like it.

"his poor parents aren’t well off"

He's a lot better off than he was, considering £35,000 has been raised for him, so far.

Imagine being so wicked

This is my view too - I cannot imagine doing something so evil.

I also read that at first she wanted to make a false rape allegation - but when she realised that would not work and learned what the laws on age of consent were - she reported him for that instead.

I think I would prefer my freedom.

I am sure he would too.

Are you really going to do this as an 18 year old boy going on holiday with your family?

Come on now.

An 18 year old probably didn’t appreciate that strict meant they had what would be seen as an extremely outdated view in Europe and could result in a custodial sentence- to European eyes it’s so fucking ludicrous I wouldn’t anticipate any 18 year old would think that this would be the consequence.

Why anyone chooses to holiday in these places where a slight misstep can get all manner of medieval sentences (by European standards) god only knows.

I dont imagine she'll be going back.

In 10 states of the US the age of consent, as long as the other person is a similar age, is 13. Only 5 states have an age of consent as 18 with no other factors (such as other person being in a position of power).

Is that how local men get away with having sex with minors? They marry them first.

Literally!! Do you think there would even be charges pressed let alone a whole prison sentence. I really don’t know why that poster used the UK as a comparison as it makes no sense

UK does. A 16 year old having sex with a 14 year old is not likely to be prosecuted or put on the sex offenders' register. It's just not codified.

a) Both the girl and the guy are UK nationals.
b) It would really depend on the “crime”.

These were two teens months apart who had sex.

To use your example if a 16 year old boy from Germany had sex with a German girl who was 15 and 9 months in the UK, I really don’t think there would be an “outcry” if he got off.

I live in Ireland.
Homosexual acts —by men— were a crime here until 1993.

Do you really think that a visiting British couple should have been prosecuted (never mind imprisoned) here for gay sex ?

Even in the states where you can marry at 14?

Maybe if laws were so well enforced in the UK it would address some of the social problems we have here

I don't think there could be much worse than a young black boy in prison in Dubai. The racism and classism there is off the scale. Just look at who they use for slave labour.

She committed no offence. She was the victim.

The UK has a convention of generally not prosecuting children close in age, but no actual law preventing it.

In Dubai they arrest women who are raped. Look it up. This girl would definitely have gone to prison too if it had been reported while she was still in the country.

Dubai laws are so archaic

Nothing but pure racism! I hope that the vindictive mother one day has the same experience of someone going out of their way to be vindictive to her in the future when she makes a mistake

What goes around one day will come around

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly2zq1yl0ko

This says girl and him are from London - not seen any article saying she or that her mother is Dubai only seen that stated on here on previous thread it was stated she was from a strict Indian family - so I've no idea what the girls background is - and if she being raised in London as is apparently UK citizen how much that make any of this understandable.

Radha Stirling, the founder and chief executive of Detained in Dubai, said Fakana, who has been unable to leave the country since September, was "desperately hoping" to return home this week.
"But prosecutorial mishandling in the first stages of the case meant it wasn't heard as a misdemeanour when it should have been," she said.
"The family have issued a plea to Dubai ruler HH Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum to spare Marcus for consensual sex with another British citizen."

Sounds like he was very unlucky to get reported and the support group think he was unlucky in it's handling and it could have been treated more leniently.

Extra-marital sex, I imagine.

Yes but in Dubai there's cases of them imprisoning women who are raped, victims of sexual assault etc. They would still have arrested and sentenced her in this instance

Let’s be clear what we mean by “under the age of consent”.

He was 18, she was 17 but 3 months younger. Context matters. You are writing it as if he had sex with a 12 year old.

(and these were both young Brits so likely did not even research to see that what they were doing was illegal)