The three boys accused of taking it in turns to rape a girl have been found not guilty

[Lougle]

The three boys accused of taking it in turns to rape a girl have been found not guilty on all counts despite some of the incident being filmed. How could that be? That poor girl. I believe in justice, I wasn't in court. I just can't understand it though.

Rape is practically legal in this shitty country.

People will start taking matters into their own hands before long rather than wasting their time and energy reporting rape to a police force and CPS who won't protect women and girls only for the victim to be branded a liar by the courts and the attackers just go free.

Yet our Governments just do nothing.

That poor girl.

Im not sure how or why you are reading that into my post. My point is, its a problem that we dont know what juries judge something on and we cannot make sense of it because we dont know

Its a discussion, its inappropriate to call questions 'nit picking'.

Posters are making big assumptions about how this verdict came about.

I do not have confidence that to see someone struggling would result in a guilty verdict, other posters seem more sure that it would do.

Isn't this always the narrative with rape cases unfortunately?

Skirt too short? Asking for it.

Too much alcohol? Unreliable testimony/ asking for it.

Multiple partners/ one night stands? Slag/ asking for it.

Flirting? Asking for it.

And increasingly: didn't scream? Wanted it.

Basically, this girl likely had some kind of a behavioural reputation, or background, that cast suspicion on her version of events. Sadly, this happens all too often as defence lawyers seek to exploit prevailing societal perceptions of sexual stereotypes of girls and women. Her word against his, no 'smoking gun'. It's why grooming gangs succeed even to this day, despite the outcry following Rorherham, and it's little wonder that rape convictions are woefully low.

Apart from anything else, how many 12 year old girls do you know who would be prepared to take this all the way to court, knowing exactly how the justice system treats victims and survivors of rape, just because two strangers called her a slag and she was 'embarrassed'?!

And we really do have to put an end to the narrative that the only two responses to trauma are fight or flight. Freeze is absolutely a valid, and widely recognised, response.

Fucking disgusting.

The girl was 13. She couldn’t legally consent to sex. How the hell can you even try to justify this?

The justice system isn't about what we feel, or a gut reaction, or a feeling of societal unfairness. It needs to meet the standards laid down in law for a guilty verdict from an impartial jury. It may be a bitter pill to swallow, but he said/she said cases are hard to prove to the adequacy of the law. And that isn't a failing of the judicial system. It has to be stringent. People have gone to prison for things they didn't do. People have been executed for things they didn't do back when that was still an option. There's a reason for the strictness of the standards.

@carla786
Yes, I thought about that aspect but the boys should have declined. They did the penetrating. She did not force their boyhoods into herself.

Based on this, I cannot see how they are not guilty.
She could at worse be guilty of attempting to seduce but they should have acted differently.

I think the prosecution was dreadful and how can the prosecutor sleep at night.

By thar logic the boys couldn't consent either. It's awful but they needed more evidence to convict than that. What I'm suspicious of is the jury...

Mine also.

We deliberated for a week - it was extremely hard to find the defendant legally guilty, even though many of us believed he was.

I don't think that would be an apology that I would be able to accept.
I remember Jill granted forgiveness to one of the attackers who apologised for his actions (so I presume she did the same for the judge too).
She was a better woman than me.

. If both really had been consenting, imo it would be unfair & arguably sexist to say the boys were assailants because they penetrated.

The point is that it clearly WAS forced, she was not consenting. What were the jury thinking? What are the chances she was consenting to thus?

I don’t know this case but it sounds horrendous.

The mothers will think they are little princes, the fathers will think they are "lads". Thats part of the problem.

I agree Carla786.
I cannot see how those boys were found not guilty

“Basically, this girl likely had some kind of a behavioural reputation, or background, that cast suspicion on her version of events”

this is what I think.

because even if we agree with the vile post “some girls do this” just think for even a second about the 12 year old girl who would agree to go into the bushes in a public place and have 3 boys take turns having sex with her whilst they cheered jeered and called her a slag.

• a victim of CSA?
• a victim of neglect?
• a victim of domestic violence?

so even if she did say yes and wanted it, that’s not ok is it? It’s never that simple.

I would be really interested to know what would happen if a parent started a thread about how their child was involved in this, the boys mum, and what should she do

Would she be advised to put him in care, not support him, not engage with legal defense for him?

I dont think parents would automatically think their kids were blameless, they could be sitting there horrified and disgusted.

Yes its very likely and that was my first thought but the jury wouldnt know this about her possible reputation?

It’s funny that adolescence was only released about a year ago, about a family experiencing this exact thing. People seemed to have a more nuanced understanding when it was the hot topic, all forgotten now

I disagree. One is an active behaviour, one is passive (in this case because nobody is disputing that she had been bent over before penetration). Boys who are under age may not be able to fully appreciate the nature of their sexual activity, but they can't be deemed not to have consented to freely inserting their penis into someone in the same way as a female isn't consenting to having a penis inserted in her.

'The court heard the now 14-year-old has a diagnosis of ADHD and a learning difficulty with ASD traits and was found unfit to stand trial. Instead jurors were asked to find 'whether he did the act' and whether he 'encouraged' it to happen without the girl's consent.'

• so he was unfit to stand trial? I feel uncomfortable about this...

The boy that was 12 at the incident then, is that not considered that he was groomed by the older boys to be engaging in sexual activity?

I agree. And if it is allowed, it should be debunked by the prosecution as it is a recognised trauma response.

I wonder how many prosecuting counsel are even aware of it? Or if there is funding for expert witnesses to give evidence on trauma response?

I suppose maybe the jury thought the video showed her being active rather than passive,,somehow? Seems unlikely though.

And why couldn't the boys be convicted for filming it, at least?

Stop going on about the "standards for a guilty verdict". The only defences in law to having sex with a child under 16 are (i) they didn't have sex with her, (ii) [if she was 13] they believed her to be 16 or over. That they had sex with her appears to be undisputed and I very much doubt they could reasonably claim (ii). There is no comparison to an adult case where consent is disputed because consent is irrelevant to the statute. I struggle to see how the jury are not simply failing to apply the law properly here, led on by a highly misleading defence case focusing on irrelevant details.

You think you know where your kids are.
I know kids who's parents though they were in the local park, who jumped on a bus, went to a town miles away, bought stuff. Were home for dinner.
They got caught because a Mum found the bus ticket in a pocket doing the washing.

Someone else was trying to track down on social media the person who paid their kids dinner in a nice restaurant. They thought kids with out playing football!

I also know teens who've disappeared off to music festivals. While both sets of parents thought they were staying at the others!

Never under estimate what kids can get up to.

One thing the jury will have focused on is how did the boys get the girl in to the woods. Where did she think she was going?
Why did she think she was going there?