Lowering age of consett to 13 in Scotland?

[Lovelyricepudding]

The Scottish Government has produced guidelines to say schools and public officials should ignore 13, 14 and 15 year old children having sex, despite this being below the age at which it is agreed they are able to consent, if the professional assessing it thinks it is OK.

Reminds me of Rotherham - wasn't that the girls' fault they were groomed and repeatedly raped? Lots of professionals seemed to think that was OK?

(MN stipulates we mustn't question the motives of those pushing this)

It is not often we get posters on mumsnet quite so open in their advocacy of paedophilia.

@Lovelyricepudding

It is not often we get posters on mumsnet quite so open in their advocacy of paedophilia.

This. I can’t believe what I’ve just read!

Wow. Just wow.

I hope that post does not get deleted as I think it should be left up there for people to see that views like this really truly do exist.

That poster sounds very young him/herself to me.

There appears to be a nonce joining in the chat.

Age of consent should be raised. Any lowering of it would just result in the horrific ‘barely legal’ fetish targeting even younger children. As can be seen from the above poster, beware ANY who would want to lower or abolish it.

I’d go the whole hog and say raise it to 21. With a caveat that teenage relationships within 1 to 2 years difference is not punishable, good sex education provision and access to contraception/birth control/abortions when needed. Young girls need protecting from older predatory males, if we make it more socially unacceptable for them to target 16/18 year olds that can only be a good thing.

@felulageller

I think it should be made an offence if someone over 21 has sex with someone under 18.

That would be quite a change.

Right now it's an offence (likely to be prosecuted) if it's someone over 18 with someone 13-16, with strict liability for u13s.

Your suggestion would mean adding three years of age to the upper end of the propinquity clause. I'm not too keen on that idea.

At sixteen it's currently legal to leave school, leave home, marry (without parental consent in Scotland). 18 is adulthood in other senses (voting, ability to enter contracts etc). I'd leave age of consent alone, including current set up of propinquity

Introduce this and it is effectively legal and accepted.
The Scottish Govt is utterly tapped and just underlines what we will get more of in England with Labour if they become the govt . Kids having sex and no female spaces. I just despair....not that Boris is any sort of catch as PM

Almost a bit like Labour politicians in the 1980s defending the Paedophile Information Exchange group. You just cannot normalise this stuff

This isn't a new introduction.

Not necessarily prosecuting those age 13/14/15 when there is no sign of abuse, and there is propinquity in age of the partners (under 18) has been the case for nearly 20 years (the 2003 Act)

‘ Not necessarily prosecuting those age 13/14/15’

Does this mean ‘ Not necessarily prosecuting the partners of those age 13/14/15’? Or am I misreading the intent?

Both partners have to be 13/14/15.

13 + 13
14 + 14
15 + 15

13 + 14
14 + 15

13 + 15

I think that's how it works.

The suggestion that it is OK for a 13 year old girl with a 15 year old boy both ignores ability to deal with coercion. But much more than that it ignores the postiole impact of sex on the girl ie pregnancy. The point of my post was the guidance was not talking about prosecution - it was saying it doesn't even need flagging for safeguarding.

@Lovelyricepudding

The suggestion that it is OK for a 13 year old girl with a 15 year old boy both ignores ability to deal with coercion. But much more than that it ignores the postiole impact of sex on the girl ie pregnancy. The point of my post was the guidance was not talking about prosecution - it was saying it doesn't even need flagging for safeguarding.

I agree with you about the Safeguarding issue.

There should be concern about the risk of pregnancy whatever the age of the girl, although there is obviously increased risk the older the girl, whatever the age of the boy.

www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/scotlands-new-sentencing-guidelines-for-under-25s-recognise-that-it-takes-time-to-mature-karyn-mccluskey-3387139

And yet the Scottish Government recognises that when it comes to criminals the brain isn't properly mature until the age of 25 and sentencing must take this into account. Cognitive dissonance is unbelievable

@WelcomeMarch

‘ Not necessarily prosecuting those age 13/14/15’

Does this mean ‘ Not necessarily prosecuting the partners of those age 13/14/15’? Or am I misreading the intent?

I could be either - as many of those in question will be couples where both are 13/14/15. And as long as everyone is under 18, it's also very unlikely to be prosecuted.

(So all are under 25, so I don't see how other sentencing guidelines for other potential offences really impact on this one)

The suggestion that it is OK for a 13 year old girl with a 15 year old boy both ignores ability to deal with coercion

If there are any grounds to suspect coercion, then it should still be investigated and potentially prosecuted. These guidelines are more about handling enthusastically consenting 13-15 yos (and lets not fool ourself about his numerous they are)

There should be concern about the risk of pregnancy whatever the age of the girl, although there is obviously increased risk the older the girl, whatever the age of the boy.

I presume you meant the younger the girl, especially when she is a child who is not yet fully grown herself.

At sixteen it's currently legal to leave school, leave home, marry (without parental consent in Scotland). 18 is adulthood in other senses (voting, ability to enter contracts etc). I'd leave age of consent alone, including current set up of propinquity

Personally I'm not particularly convinced that 16 (or even 18) year olds are mature enough for some of the things listed. Here in Wales the WG have lowered the voting age to 16. What life experience does a 16 year old have? In my view, it should go back up to 21. Who even marries at 16 these days, anyway?

And a 17 year old with a 30 year old (threads about individual cases do appear on here every now and again) might be legal, but it's grim. It's never a well-adjusted 30 year old. The last thread I remember reading was a complete manchild.

@Lovelyricepudding

There should be concern about the risk of pregnancy whatever the age of the girl, although there is obviously increased risk the older the girl, whatever the age of the boy.

I presume you meant the younger the girl, especially when she is a child who is not yet fully grown herself.

Ah! That is a confusion of "risk" (ie. "chance" or "danger") and "risky", (ie. "hazardous" or "dangerous").

The risk (chance or danger) of becoming pregnant is greater the older one is within that age range. Which is what I meant.

However, you are quite right that pregnancy is more risky (hazardous or dangerous) the younger one is within that age range.

Whilst I understand the close in age aspect as one of a safeguarding con ern. I do recall in the case of rotherham it was 18/19year old males who served as a front to entice the girls and the serve them up to older males.
I understand there would be the investigation aspect of coercion, though it would have to be proven. With the cuts to services how thorough would these investigations be? The professionals involved in the rotherham cases branded those children as working girls - when the age of consent was in place.
So it's a no from me

While I wouldn't want two 15 year old having sex to be prosecuted, I do worry that just saying it's ok seems the wrong message. The message should be (IMO) that sex is an adult activity, because it has potential serious consequences (pregnancy, STIs, etc) that as a child you shouldn't have to deal with. That's true whether or not the other person involved is also too young.

I'm also not convinced by the "we wouldn't want to prosecute two 15 year olds," line of argument. I wouldn't want two 12 year olds prosecuted either. I'd want them safeguarded though (whatever that looks like in their particular circumstances). Same applies to the 15 year olds.

We need good education and to teach our girls about their bodies and masturbation and pleasure

No, our daughters don’t need more “sex-positive” messages from adults. They are sex-saturated now from a young age. They need adults around them to STOP talking about having sex and sexual pleasure and masturbation and whatever and talk about consent and boundaries.

In the UK the age of consent is linked to the age of marriage, we wouldn't give two 13 year olds permission to marry so we should not give them permission to have sex.

Underage sex happens, but just because it does doesn't mean it should be normalised and/or made legal.

Keep it at 16 or raise it to 18 and introduce a 'Romeo and Juliet' clause to give some protection but not an absolute one. Also start prosecuting those who are exploiting children.

I watched a 2 part documentary about the Soham murders last week, Ian Huntly had several complaints against him for having sex with children one of whom gave birth to his child.

Apparently she refused to give evidence, but that IMHO should not have stopped him being prosecuted.

As for 'barely legal' porn, in the 1980s the Sun had a circulation of about 3 million, it also frequently featured a 16 year old Samantha Fox, so 3 million people had no problem buying a newspaper in which a child posed mostly naked.

That says a lot about our society, and that is what we need to change, children should not be having sex, adults who do have sex with children should be punished, it should be unacceptable and historical cases should be prosecuted now.

Bill Wyman should be prosecuted, I'm not sure why he hasn't been.

I believe age of consent should be raised to 18. To bring in line with alcohol, smoking, tattoos etc.

Scotland's marriage age should change too.

Ideally I'd like to see our new knowledge about the brain brought to bare on all age limits and perhaps bring some of the ones mentioned above to age 21.

In my family 21 has always been considered the age to celebrate. Not 16, not 18. 21. Older, wiser me understands why now.

Age gaps in relationships should count. As in small gaps ie 2 x 15 year olds treated differently than a 16 year old and a 40 year old.

I was 17 and dated a man 23 years older than me. When I reached 40 (and indeed before then) I often wonder why no one stepped in and did something, anything about this situation. It should not have been allowed to happen. He outranked me at the time too. (Military)

However I like the person I am today so have to accept that part of my past.