Shah - underage girls are 'out to have a good time'

[poachedeggs]

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/10/eddy-shah-operation-yewtree-sexual-abuse

I work with teenagers. A higher percentage than you probably think are sexually active at 14/15/16. Some even younger. This is with boys from 13 - adults. Some girls meet them in clubs and openly joke about fake ID and lying about their ages. This is the case now and certainly was a few years ago ( my 15 year old friend collected band members like I collected thimbles!!).

In no way do I condone abuse or rape in any way, but there is a grey area in some cases. Imagine the scenario (this is a true one) 15 year old meets 20 year old in a club, she tells him she is 18. They date, no sex yet, go to a pub, she is asked for ID and can provide it. Why would he question her? They have sex, dad finds out and goes ballistic .....

Is this rape? Has the man knowingly committed statutory rape?

The child that Eddie abuse was only 13 though wasn't she? That she wanted to appear adult or do adult things is just typical teenage behaviour - I have a 13 and a 14 year old, and my dd is generally described as mature and could easily pass for a year or two older but she is still emphatically a child.

He would have been in his forties perhaps? so old enough easily to have been her father. Even if she had been 16 and therefore 'legal' it would still have been abusive and wrong for him to have sex with her, and I cannot believe that he wasn't perfectly aware of that. she was just an easy conquest, noting more, basically like a prostitute he didn't have to pay for.

I'd really like to see the law tightened up on the 13-16 grey area, perhaps making it explicit that where the age gap is 2 years or less there will not be a prosecution, but over that where the older person is well aware that there is a high risk of the child being underage and a significant power imbalance they shodul not be allowed to get away with the 'oh I thought she was 16 and well up for it, all grown up and able to consent' crap.

If I discovered that some old fucker was screwing my dd and making out it was all her fault for being older looking it would not cross my mind to think 'oh poor man, how could you possibly know that she was a child, take your pleasure and don't worry about the damage you leave behind!'. No, I would be straight down to the police station and pressing for the full weight of the law to be applied. I would suspect that every other parent here would be doing exactly the same thing too.

No, he has a fairly clear defence that he reasonably believed she was at least 16 yo. (and statutory rape is an Americanism) with that evidence.

no, columngollum - it isn't a screwup - its a mechanism to work evidentially as in purplegirly's case. It marks it out from other evidences eg wearing a school uniform, a family member known etc. where a defendant should reasonably be aware of the child's age.

If some dirty old man was screwing my daughter the last place I'd go would be a police station. But I kind of suspect we'd be seeing less of him in the future.

Oh, and the same thing would go for ds, except it's not so likely as it's more obvious that he is a young teenager (although he is the older one) so I doubt very much that anyone would really try the same line.

Wouldn't most 20 year olds know that fake IDs are not exactly unusual? I'll be telling my son to be very careful when having casual sexual relationships with younger people he doesn't know very well. The rules about sexual consent are (or should be) about protecting the young person, not the older one who'd just like a bit of sex.

Yes I suspect there might be some people who end up getting the rough end of the stick, but isn't that better than the large number of men who quite clearly were at the very least taking advantage and most probably forcing themselves on young people who were unable to protect themselves getting off completely scott free, able to take their 'poor me' stories to the media with impunity. Right now we know this is a serious problem.

In that case it would be up to the prosecution to show that the man's belief in the girl's unduly high age was not reasonable. The argument would then centre around what is reasonable and what is not.

I'd suggest an ID card to get into a bar is not reasonable enough. It might suffice for a bar owner, (if the concentration of underage drinkers was low.) If the bar starts to get a reputation for underage drinking then fake IDs aren't going to be much of a defence for either him or his liquor license.

If I discovered that some old fucker was screwing my dd and making out it was all her fault for being older looking it would not cross my mind to think 'oh poor man, how could you possibly know that she was a child, take your pleasure and don't worry about the damage you leave behind!'. No, I would be straight down to the police station and pressing for the full weight of the law to be applied. I would suspect that every other parent here would be doing exactly the same thing too

Or, assume it's your 19 yo son who thought he'd got lucky at a club, and the next day the cops are hauling him in for underage sex, and he says she said she was 18, was buying him drinks, told him she fancied him, etc etc....

Yes I suspect there might be some people who end up getting the rough end of the stick

Yeah, tough shit for your son there, but hey it's all for the greater good.

A 40 yo Shah is an outlier, the most likely scenario is what I have just written above, under age girls as Groupies or pulling "young" older guys.

Happened when I was at school and I doubt it's any different now.

I don't know what schoolgirls are doing these days, but when I was at school it was normal for girls to go out with much older men because they had cars and money. Celebrity had nothing to do with it. I don't know what those couples did but I suspect it was more than just holding hands and that was decades ago.

If my 19 year old son picked up a 15 year old at a club and had sex with her (or him) I would be furious with him. I don't believe all the crap that is thrown around about regarding young girls looking as if they are four-five years older than they really are. It seems to me this is just a really easy excuse. When I was an older teenager/student there is just no way I would have hung around socially with younger children. One of my friends dated a 16 year old and we certainly gave him shit for it. He (and she for that matter) thought she was very 'mature' but it was bullshit, she was very obviously a great deal younger than us and it really showed.

In any case we currently live in Canada where the age of consent is still 16 but there are age band rules in place. 12/13 years olds can consent to have sex with other youths two years or less older than them, and 14/15 years olds can consent to sex with partners who are no more than 5 years older than themselves. Personally I think 5 years is too much of a difference, but in general I think these rules are about right. So when my ds is 19 if he picked a 15 year old up it would be on the borderline of OK legally. However some like Shah would automatically be in the wrong, as he bloody well should have been. He woudl have been very aware that thegirl he picked up was very young, and presumably that was the appeal.

Blistory, know you are joking when you say "of course underage girls are to blame" but don't even say it.

it is a criminal activity to perform sexual activities with a child.

FULL STOP>

We might as well live in the middle east and we need to either
(a) get used to it and dress and behave accordingly (i.e. scared and defensive at all times, and keep four males nearby who will vouch for our character and behaviour) or
(b) fight it.

When I was young it was quite normal to see 20 yo men outside schools at lunch times and the end of the school day trying to pick up 14/15 yo.

They always seamed to be driving off white metros.

I was always quite surprised that the blokes were looked at like they were cool or grown ups. But it was not the girls fault that they didn't get that they were sad users who were hanging around the schools because they had something off about them that women there own age would pick up on and not be interested in, the men did it because the girls were vulnerable in some way and its why they got away with it.

sorry skimmed some of the arguing posts but...

as to making it illegal full stop to have sex under 16 meaning 15 year olds end up in jail - well no clearly that wouldn't have to happen. you could have one law but differing levels of sentencing, punishment. we already do given cases with only a couple of years difference rarely make it to court as they decide they won't get a prosecution or because the 15yo in question isn't willing to give evidence because she isn't unhappy about what happened.

we already have laws where being tried as a minor or as an adult has different punishments and in fact a minor being prosecuted would call in the parents and them to be fined or forced onto a parenting course or it be discovered their children are at risk etc. so your two 15yos would not end up in prison obviously as they are minors.

however the adult male is tried and punished differently as an adult with full self responsibility and awareness of the law.

I 'lost' my virginity on my 14th birthday, to my boyfriend at the time who was 16.

In the eyes of today's law, he raped me.

But he did not rape me. I was not raped, I have never been raped.

I had sex with quite a few boys/young men in the following two years. I was fairly promiscuous. I was never raped. I was fully consensual and yes, at times I was predatory. I enjoyed those new, unusual feelings of sexual power over men. And if I'd had the 'chance' of a night with a celebrity I'd have been delighted.

I am not saying that these men are blameless, and yes of course they should obey the law and know when to walk away.

But I feel that there has to be some other definition of the crime that is committed when someone who should know better takes advantage of the vulnerability of a young woman going through the hormonal stages of development.

And to be frank, I feel that to call consensual sex between two people, whether legally consensual or not, 'rape', is belittling to those who have had sex forced on them against their will.

"Yeah, tough shit for your son there, but hey it's all for the greater good."

Behind that statement is the assumption that it is deeply unfair to expect men and boys to take responsibility for what they do sexually.

In no other area of life do we so consistently argue that people shouldn't have to held responsible for their own behaviour - except perhaps motoring offences, where people whinge that it wasn't their fault they caused that accident, the car driver in front of them was being annoying and forced them to overtake at a place where the highway code states clearly they're not allowed to.

My son has been taught that he is responsible for his actions. When he learns to drive, he will understand that when he's behind the wheel, he and only he, is responsible for how he drives - when he puts his foot on that accelerator or brake, he's responsible for that decision. When he has a row with his sister, however irritating she is, if he hits her it's his decision and his responsibility - he's been taught that he can't control her behaviour, but he can control his response to it. When he is in nightclubs, if he chooses to pick up a girl and put his penis in her without being absolutely certain that a) she wants him to and b) it's legal to, then he knows he's responsible for that.

I'm pretty sure that "knowing" Nooka as a poster, her DS also knows this.

Those of you who aren't bringing your sons up to take personal responsibility for their own behaviour, do the rest of us a favour will you - keep them away from our daughters.

Flouncy, under the current law your boyf wouldn't be prosecuted because the CPS take a commonsense approach.

Also, I am someone who has experienced rape and I don't feel at all belittled by it being used for where it legally applies.

Well said basil.

the last guy i was seeing was once chatted up by a drunk girl who he estimated at ten years our junior - make her mid twenties. he was briefly tempted when she tried to get him to go home with her and then thought nah, i don't want to be that man and don't want any man to be that man with my daughter so didn't, told her she'd regret it in the morning and put her in a taxi.

if someone can get that about a woman in her 20's and have that kind of decency and self control are we really saying that a man in his 40's can't do so with a dubiously aged teenager?

if everyone understands that sex with a minor is illegal and will be prosecuted every time (albeit with different punishments for different aged offenders) then they will have to take responsibility for who they choose to have sex with. clearly the 17 who has sex with a 15yo who is not complaining and admits she said she was sixteen is still going to be treated differently in terms of consequences than the 30 year old man shagging a girl in school uniform because he likes 'em young. but both will have broken the law and be fully aware of it.

in reality that 17yo with 15yo will never make it to court because she isn't going to make a complaint if she felt she 'consented' and if her parents find out and make a complaint and upon investigation it is clear that the girl is not willing to testify against him and their chances of a conviction are slim it won't get to court. likewise the two 15yos won't make it to court though their parents might do if they are knowingly allowing underage sex to happen and therefore not safeguarding minors.

if it is illegal to have sex with a minor then it is illegal. those that aren't going to make it to conviction for reasons such as above should be given a caution and have it made very clear that if they do it again it will lead to a criminal record. those who are clearly, willfully flouting the law and doing so as an adult who was fully aware of the age of the child of course need convicting and putting on the sex offenders register so that they can't be employed to work with children.

also i don't find the use of the word 'rape' belittling at all.

there isn't rape and rape, rape. there can be rape plus kidnapping, plus gbh. rape is the rape bit you know? the rest isn't what makes it 'proper' rape but a set of other offenses that they can be charged and prosecuted for at the same time.

Exactly - the idea that rape can only be used as a term, if there are other aggravating offences, is buying into rape myths - that rape is something that happens in a dark alley with a monster.

It isn't and we need to get away from that idea. Rape as defined by the law (which was made by men) is the penetration of someone's body without their consent. It doesn't have to be in a dark alley, it doesn't have to be by a stranger and if you can't consent (because you are asleep or under the age of consent, for example) then it is rape and it is not belittling to the minority of rape victims who are raped in the stereotyped stranger rape scenario, to say so.

What's depressing for me is that some men seem to think that as soon as they become sexually aroused, they are not responsible for their actions. Consequently, their default position is "she did it to me". THEY become the victim in their own mind. It's insane. Any child who is sexually provocative, is a child who has been failed in some way, any adult should know that. The sooner we start putting across the message that an erect penis does not absolve a man from using his reason and intelligence we may begin to have a safer environment for vulnerable people. To hear that a judge has used this language shows us how much we have to do as a society.

But the point is that although you cannot legally consent, you can still be very willing. I believe that the term 'rape' should be applied to cases where one person was unwilling. I did not comment regarding any other aggravating offences. I don't believe there needs to be physical force for rape to take place.

nope and those perpetrators will not just be charged with rape as they have committed several other illegal offences into the bargain.

rape is rape. assault is assault. kidnapping is kidnapping. use of a lethal weapon.... etc etc. the absence of the other crimes doesn't undo the fact that a rape was committed.

saying a woman who calls her rape a rape is being offensive to women who were raped, kidnapped and beaten is ridiculous. it's like saying people who were mugged but not at knife point are insulting to people who were mugged at knifepoint and belittling their experience.

it is a madness applied only to this area of criminal activity.