That really is horrific. Why was he even let out after just seven years?
Re the Bashir case, it's good at least that it looks like Leicestershire never had any intention of signing him, although it does paint his defence in a despicable light. But the ignorance on the part of the judge of the reality of abusive relationships, that is really scary. There are so many judges out there who clearly lack ANY training whatsoever in the field of abuse, both abusive adult relationships, and child abuse.
There was a judge I was reading about recently who's now retired but last year he said a music teacher should not only be spared jail despite having 3,500 images of child abuse and bestiality, including images of girls as young as three being abused, but should still be allowed to teach children as long as the parents were aware of his conviction and were happy to go ahead.
His rationale was that he hadn't directly abused any of his pupils thus far despite having ample opportunity, so he was unlikely to in the future; plus twelve sets of parents wrote to the court on his behalf. It's fucking mind boggling both on the part of the judge and the fucked up parents. Even if he never touched the children he was teaching, they have the right to be protected from him.
How would it feel for one of those children to subsequently learn that the music teacher they trusted, and spent time alone with, was in fact a paedophile? Not only that, but that their parents knew and a judge knew and they enabled it? Some people's values are just beyond belief.
I googled the judge - Christopher Ball his name is - and he had a few of these cases where he'd gone very lightly on sex offenders, often saying stuff like "you're basically a decent man who just got sucked into viewing this nasty stuff via the route of totally normal porn" (paraphrasing there), really, really questionable views.
And in the case of a 42 year old man who'd sexually abused three underage teenage girls, he COMPETELY blamed the victims and even said he'd thought about "naming and shaming" them - he presented this MIDDLE AGED man as the hapless victim of these scheming young hussies and again sent him off with a bit of a slap on the wrist.
There is so much disconnect in society re child abuse/abusive relationships. It frightens me that there are judges here in the UK who are demonstrably so ignorant/misinformed/in denial about the reality of abuse and no one is monitoring them. No one is holding them to account and making sure they get proper training to bust myths like the idea that "strong", educated women can't be vulnerable to abuse.
Sorry for the derail away from the original case, OP; I think it falls in a similar category of unbelievable though. You'd think there would be more awareness after Savile and Rotherham et al, but no. Denial reigns supreme.