Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

Original poster

Teen accused of being a paedophile advice needed!

214 replies

Stuckinarut23 · 07/11/2023 21:13

I've been sent messages from his ex gf of screen shots of my son messaging a 14/15 year old girl, apparently they were messaging on snap chat he wrote some sexual stuff and chatting her up
He said he didn't know she was 15 at first
They haven't met or had sex. I am devastated. I dorn think he realises the consequences of hia actions, screen shots have been posted on FB on groups and what do I do?

OP posts:
prh47bridge · 08/11/2023 19:49

uckedfaypuay · 08/11/2023 19:44

Not my specialisation, but I'm fairly certain this isn't quite right - omits the reasonable belief in age requirement which was precisely @kaka79's point

Show quote history

You are correct that I skipped that bit. Trying not to overcomplicate things! However, in full, if the child is over 13:

  • If someone has sex with the child without the child's consent, that is rape
  • If someone under 18 has sex with the child and the child consents, no offence has been committed
  • If someone aged 18 or over has sex with the child, they reasonably believe that the child is aged 16 or over and the child consents, no offence has been committed
  • If someone aged 18 or over has sex with the child and the child consents, the offence is sexual activity with a child (which is less serious than rape)
porridgeisbae · 09/11/2023 01:05

The whole idea that a child can legally consent to sex and so it's ok for a 17 year old to shag a 13 year old, is really disappointing and disgusting. We have an age of consent because it's supposed to be the age when people can consent, before that they can't.

alchemisty · 09/11/2023 01:30

porridgeisbae · 08/11/2023 13:00

When I was 15 I was sexually abused or something by a 16 year old boy. The age of consent and someone over it doing or saying sexual stuff to someone under it (a child) should be taken seriously and enforced.

Sorry to read about your experience, but imo a single anecdote is really quite arbitrary. What if you have been 13 and 14? What if you were both 15 just before the other party turned 16?

It's not like a cartoon animation. Your brain doesn't magically mushroom and go BOINGGGG!, from Innocent Protected Child to Adult Manipulator at 00:00 AM on your birthday. Yes, some kind of threshold needs to be drawn, but intelligence and flexibility is thankfully practised by the law.

You also said "It's still a crime whether it's a 15 year old or a 5 year old"... Frankly I think that's reductive and insulting because a 16 year old shagging someone who could be in their same school year is clearly different from them shagging a baby.

alchemisty · 09/11/2023 01:33

To add to the above, I think lack of mutual consent is absolutely an issue, but it's not necessarily related to age (or the perpetrator being born 3 days before you or whatever). It's just lack of consent full stop, and the prosecution might milk the 3 day age difference to get a harsher sentence, but that's just tactical.

It is, obviously, related to age if there is a massive power imbalance, like with the example of a 16 year old and a 5 (!) year old above. But let's not pretend there's an age-related magical mushrooming brain power imbalance between 2 peers. Teens all mature at different speeds anyway, so a 16 year old might not be more mature than a 15 year old (whereas a 20+ year old is almost always going to be more worldly wise and powerful than a teen).

OnedayIwilldrive · 09/11/2023 02:52

@Angrymum22 Wow you are lovely aren't you? I hope you don't have daughters, I really do. Nice bit of internalised misogyny there. Ffs. Did you run laundries in a past life?

Thisistyresome · 09/11/2023 08:11

porridgeisbae · 09/11/2023 01:05

The whole idea that a child can legally consent to sex and so it's ok for a 17 year old to shag a 13 year old, is really disappointing and disgusting. We have an age of consent because it's supposed to be the age when people can consent, before that they can't.

No one is saying that there is legal consent with a 13 year old. However, there can be practical consent. The practical consent is not legal consent but it matters when I comes to identifying if a crime has occurred.

This is really just law 101. Crimes have two components the AR and the MR. It is a basic element of justice you do not just judge the outcome but also the intentions of the person accused.

If you are caught speeding but you can prove the speed limit sign was not visible (imagine a speed reduction area on a dule carriageway) you have committed the AR but lacked the MR due to a reasonable person would be unable to know the speed limit.

In sexual offences you have to consider the situation of the accused MR, what they knew. As you struggle with this, by your approach if a 15 year old created a social media account using the images of a 30 year old while claiming to be 30 and then elicited sexual messaging from another 30 year old, is the 30 year old guilty of responding despite having a reasonable belief that they were messaging a 30 your old?

The 13 age matter is a useful cut off for an age of consent of 16 because it is possible to for someone to be mislead about the age of a partner. A 17 year old being told by a 15 year old that they are 16 (or even 17) can have the defence they had a reasonable belief that the other person was above the age of consent. However, you need to have a line where you say that there can be no reasonable belief, below 13 you cannot have any reasonable belief. A 15 year old giving practical consent is not legal, however a 16 year old having sex with them may reasonably believe it is legal consent if they believe they are also 16.

prh47bridge · 09/11/2023 13:20

porridgeisbae · 09/11/2023 01:05

The whole idea that a child can legally consent to sex and so it's ok for a 17 year old to shag a 13 year old, is really disappointing and disgusting. We have an age of consent because it's supposed to be the age when people can consent, before that they can't.

I'm sorry to hear that you were sexually abused. Sexual abuse is, of course, always an offence regardless of the ages of the victim and the abuser.

However, as I set out above, as the law stands if a 17-year-old has sex with a 13-year-old and the 13-year-old consents, no offence has been committed.

Any sexual activity with a child under 13 is always an offence. Once the child reaches their 13th birthday, whether an offence has been committed depends on their consent and the age of the other party. Teenagers have sex. It happened when I was in secondary school, and it still happens today. Roughly one in five girls lose their virginity before they reach 16. It wouldn't help anyone to criminalise teenagers for having consensual sex with each other.

verdantverdure · 09/11/2023 13:23

LifeIsHardAlways · 07/11/2023 22:02

He’s hardly a paedophile, she wasn’t a young child. He was 18 and her 15? It’s being seriously blown up

She's legally a child.

He's legally an adult.

verdantverdure · 09/11/2023 13:35

AmazingSnakeHead · 07/11/2023 22:02

Is a 15 year old with a 19 year old THAT bad? Hardly makes someone a peadophile does it? I had a 19 year old boyfriend at that age, it didn't feel like a big age gap (although no sex until I was almost 17).

It's called sexual communication with a child in section 67 of The Serious Crime Act, 2017.

It has a maximum sentence of two years but most first offenders get a community order or a suspended sentence.

They will likely be placed on the Sex Offenders Register and have a Sexual Harm Prevention Order placed on them.

verdantverdure · 09/11/2023 13:44

curaçao · 07/11/2023 22:27

A 15 and 19 year old sexting? Police wouldnt care!

Since he's over 18 and she's under 16 it's potentially sexual communication with a child which is part of the grooming laws brought in in 2017. The maximum sentence is two years in prison so it is considered fairly serious under the law.

verdantverdure · 09/11/2023 13:45

Prawnofthedead · 07/11/2023 22:24

I think almost all people will think it is just 2 teen-agers texting. I would think nothing of a 19 and a 17 year old texting. I know she wasn't 17 but he thought she was. He should be careful in the future and I would see a solicitor about the accusations on the internet. It seems people think they can say whatever they want about others on the internet without consequences. It should be taken down.

Under the law it is potentially sexual communication with a child which carries a two year maximum prison sentence.

verdantverdure · 09/11/2023 13:55

Dotcheck · 07/11/2023 22:13

OP
Go to a lawyer.
Also most people have common sense and understand that 15 & 18 is not the same as 8 & 32

He, a legal adult, "wrote some sexual stuff" to a legal child.

That's potentially sexual communication with a child which has carried a two year maximum sentence since 2017 when they brought in section 67 of the Serious Crimes Act.

verdantverdure · 09/11/2023 13:57

DeadbeatYoda · 07/11/2023 22:14

Sounds like the ex gf is being malicious. I went out with a 21 year old when I was 16. I was quite grown up at the time though ( moved out of home six months later).
As long as he hasn't knowingly encouraged a minor to send explicit photos or had any sexual contact then he's not done anything wrong.

The girl in question is under 16 and he is legally an adult so he has potentially committed the offence of sexual communication with a child which carries a maximum prison sentence of two years.

verdantverdure · 09/11/2023 14:02

@tescocreditcard since you have a son and seem to think the offence of sexual communication with a child is nothing to be concerned about it might be a god idea to look up the government's crackdown on child grooming in 2017, particularly Section 67 of the Serious Crimes Act.

verdantverdure · 09/11/2023 14:07

@babyproblems

It may not be the definition of a paedophile but it is potentially sexual communication with a child which has been an offence since 2017.

AmazingSnakeHead · 09/11/2023 14:41

verdantverdure · 09/11/2023 13:35

It's called sexual communication with a child in section 67 of The Serious Crime Act, 2017.

It has a maximum sentence of two years but most first offenders get a community order or a suspended sentence.

They will likely be placed on the Sex Offenders Register and have a Sexual Harm Prevention Order placed on them.

Show quote history

Jesus Christ. Luckily I was 15 a lot longer ago than 2017.

This is of course not to excuse 'sexual communication with a child' that is unwanted, or where there is a problematic social imablance. But especially when you consider differences in maturity and development it seems a bit much to criminalise wanted sexual communication between a 15 year old an an 18 year old? There might be as little as just over two years in it.

verdantverdure · 09/11/2023 14:49

One is legally a child, still at school, and under the age of consent, and the other is legally an adult.

kaka79 · 09/11/2023 21:54

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

verdantverdure · 10/11/2023 09:12

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

@kaka79

I was astonished that many people on this thread didn't seem to have heard of sexual communication with a child or think it was something the police would take seriously so I was giving some context.

LarkspurLane · 10/11/2023 13:26

verdantverdure · 09/11/2023 20:56

The 18 year old man was released without charge in the articles above.
In most of them, the man is a lot older and/or the child is a lot younger and there was sexual assault/physical contract involved.
It is right that these cases are all taken seriously, but do you have an example of a man being sentenced (or arrested) for sexual communication this close in age?

kaka79 · 10/11/2023 13:53

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

verdantverdure · 10/11/2023 14:13

@LarkspurLane

I just posted the first few on Google to demonstrate that the police do take the law seriously and there have been prosecutions.

I can think of three or four 19 year olds I remember being prosecuted but I don't recall the age of the children involved.

The child must have been under 16 at the time of the offence for charges of sexual communication with a child to be brought.

verdantverdure · 10/11/2023 14:18

Yes @kaka79

That's the main defence. The joy of written communication is that the evidence that the man did know is often right there in black and white.

Swipe left for the next trending thread