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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think BILL WYMAN should now be arrested & charged with statutory rape?

47 replies

Downdog · 23/04/2010 11:11

Mandy Smith has now publically confirmed that he had sex with her when she was 14 (and she went on to be quite mixed up, suffered from depression etc). He was and still is a 'rock star'.

AIBU to think he should be charged with statutory rape now? And if he's not charged are we giving out dangerous signals that this kind of behaviour is OK & statutory rape isn't to be taken seriously?

OP posts:
LeninGrad · 23/04/2010 11:12

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TheSmallClanger · 23/04/2010 11:13

I agree with your sentiments, but I can see him becoming a bit of a martyr for the "poor men seduced by underage slapper" posse if it does.
If Mandy decides to press charges, it'll have to be investigated.

BAFE · 23/04/2010 11:15

Yes I do and Mandy Smiths mother should also be prosecuted for pimping her child.

TheSmallClanger · 23/04/2010 11:16

Oh god, the mother, yes.

It was all a very nasty business.

MiladyDeWinter · 23/04/2010 11:18

I thought she confirmed it years ago in her book. It's ages since I read it but apparently when it all came out the Stones' legal machine tried to put the full force of blame onto her and her mother, terrified the poor child basically

2shoes · 23/04/2010 11:18

could never understand why he wasn't done years ago.

choosyfloosy · 23/04/2010 11:19

I thought statutory rape was an American legal term, and that it tended to cover people between e.g. 16 and 21 depending on the age of consent of the state involved? Wouldn't it be just plain sexual abuse?

yes, i think he should, martyrdom and all. But the fact that this appears to be starting via the papers, rather than via the police, is not encouraging. any chance of a news blackout on the whole thing? thought not.

ChocolatePants · 23/04/2010 11:21

I thought statutory rape was where a man had sex with a girl 13 or under. It is rape as she is deemed too young to give informed consent.

SawneyBeane · 23/04/2010 11:22

He should be arrested for the horror that is the Stones, if for nothing else.

Ick.

BAFE · 23/04/2010 11:23

He should be charged but he won't be. Her mother was complicit too, and as another person rightly said, wymans legal machine will drag her through the court too.

The mother had an affair with Wymans son by the way.

MiladyDeWinter · 23/04/2010 11:25

I remember now, her mother was very ill and Mandy and her sister were her carers, hard working but not really supervised as they should have been.

She found out that Bill and Mandy had been sleeping together because he rang her to complain that Mandy had given him pubic lice from buying second-hand jeans from Camden market. Lovely bloke

BAFE · 23/04/2010 11:27

Yeah her mother was very ill but as soon as Mandy married a rich man she seemed to recover her strength.

Rindercella · 23/04/2010 11:30

"The mother had an affair with Wymans son by the way" That is just beyond disgusting.

I think I'm about the same age as Mandy Smith and I remember them appearing on Wogan and it all being treated as funny. Yeah - I still split my sides thinking of a pervy old man having sex with a very vulnerable 14 year old girl.

It sickens me how she was effectively prostituted by her mother - a person who should have protected her.

Yes, Wyman should be charged - just like Polanski.

MiladyDeWinter · 23/04/2010 11:32

There is that, BAFE, makes you wonder...

Original poster
Downdog · 23/04/2010 11:33

sorry in UK it's 'unlawful sexual intercourse' - however it is a statutory offence, so if it happens then you are guilty. There is no defence - you can't say, but she wanted to, or I thought she was 18. Whatever the Mum said or did is not an issue with statutory crimes - he either did it & therefore should be charged, or he didn't.

There are 2 levels - that with a girl under 13, and another with a girl from 13-16. The premise is girls under 16 are not legally able to consent.

From my own experiences I think the law is correct - you may feel like you know what you are doing when you are 14/15, but actually you don't - older men can and do exploit this. And I do think it is damaging to the girl.

some notes from CPS here

OP posts:
Original poster
Downdog · 23/04/2010 11:36

AHHH - there is a time limit - that's why he's not been charged. He must be charged within 12 months of the offence.

So after she was 17 he was 'safe'.

What a prick.

OP posts:
TheSmallClanger · 23/04/2010 11:39

Would Mandy herself have to press charges, or can courts/police use other evidence? I don't know much about the law.

I remember the wedding pictures being in some magazine or other, and it all being celebrated as being very sweet and romantic. It made me feel a bit ill even then. If she was only just 16, she had blatantly been shagging him before that. Ugh.

boiledeggandsoldiers · 23/04/2010 11:42

YANBU but it sounds as though he cannot be prosecuted now.

abride · 23/04/2010 11:46

Polanksi and Wyman don't count because they're in the arts. No citizen's arrests on the tarmac for them.

Molesworth · 23/04/2010 11:48

Didn't know there was a time limit. How is it that child abusers can be prosecuted many years after the event then?

MyMamaToldMe · 23/04/2010 11:49

Sickening - read this:

AMumInScotland · 23/04/2010 11:53

He should be, but this long after the event it's not very likely, unless she goes to the police herself. It's different from the Roman Polanski one as there the girl did make a complaint at the time so it's not a "new" charge now. I believe that woman would now rather the whole business was dropped, so she could get on with her life.

TheCrackFox · 23/04/2010 11:56

He completely took advantage of her and was aware of her age. Yes, he should be charged.

I found it sickening at the time (I am roughly the same age as Mandy) and could not believe that their "relationship" was condoned by the media.

As an aside her mother should also be charged with neglect. She was far too busy dating Bill's grown up son IIRC.

yanbu.

MiladyDeWinter · 23/04/2010 11:59

It's a sickening story if she's to be believed, him telling her that her body made him want to do those things, that she was a naughty girl when she complied, isolating her in Spain and having legal heavies threaten her freedom and her family. Classic abuse.

The wedding was damage limitation.

TheCrackFox · 23/04/2010 12:04

FWIW I have never understood why social services never got involved with Polanski or Wyman since they became fathers.