‘My son, 14, touched a girl’s leg. He was called a rapist.’ Sunday Times article (share token)

[EmmatheStageRat]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b698b306-af03-11ed-b94f-fc4969750d6e?shareToken=1876e207894ef2960e35de884ddb573d

But he touched several thighs of other children did he not? It wasn't a one off. Perhaps now there has been such a 'disproportionate' response he might think twice about unsolicited touching. I doubt it though.

I think if you grope people you deserve everything you get. What’s the alternative? Girls go to school and be polite if someone paws you? Fuck off!

The alternative is better education on the subject. He is 14,not 40..it is fixable at 14. Especially given there was a culture of touching legs in the school as he wasn't the only one doing it according to the article. Both parents and school should have stepped up

Yeah don’t go around sticking your hands on girls legs. It’s simple, I don’t think I ever put my hand on another girls leg at school. It would have been weird.

If we want girls and women to be able to move through life without being groped then it starts with schools and parents taking this shit seriously. I’m sure that school has in a small part experienced a cultural shift whereby it’s been made explicitly clear what behaviour is expected and that breeching those boundaries have very clear consequences. I’m sure the girls feel more able to report and more confident that they won’t be dismissed. That should be the norm not the exception.

I want my DD to be able to go through life without every tom dick and harry thinking he has a right to touch her and that she has to take responsibility for saying no and if she doesn’t it’s her fault. Had enough of society trying to shove the blame on girls and women. Keep your damn hands to yourself.

What I want to know is where this sudden agenda of boys are victims is coming from. Painting me too and everyone's invited as witchhunts with the poor poor boys as the front and centre of victimhood.

The token metoo and everyone's invited do good work comments sound exactly like "I'm not racist but...".

I'm not a misogynistic woman/girl abuser but.... what's a poor boy / man to do?

@Mummyoflittledragon I did and thought I was billy big bollocks. Until him and 6 of his mates caught me in a very vulnerable position on residential and it all went to shit. Definitely wouldn't recommend.

God, that made my stomach turn. I'm sorry, that's awful.

@CanofCant
I took this class after. I am so sorry you were sexually assaulted . It is NEVER the woman's fault! You were and are innocent.

The policeman was great telling women the above. And the class was filled with older women like me who'd been assaulted or in scary situations.

For me the most upsetting/exhausting reality of it is that if a man wants to rape and/or murder you he will.

I'm American and the policeman also mentioned stalking. A gun and a big dog he advised. He actually advised all of us to get guns and learn to shoot. Im fine with that.

Au contraire, there is everything to say he approves of it:

He explained that he had put his hand on two girls’ legs, just above the knee and on top of their clothes. In one instance, this was during a breaktime game involving several other pupils, male and female; in the other, it was during a conversation with a girl with whom he often talked on the phone at weekends and in the evenings. Neither had reacted in any way. They hadn’t told him to take his hand away, but another girl had seen both incidents and began telling others that he had been “touching up” girls.

His son had touched girls on their thighs without their consent and they didn't say anything. Somehow, it's another girl's fault that his son was called out for touching girls without consent.

he had caused girls that he thought of as his friends, with whom he thought he was innocently flirtingng_, to feel uncomfortable. He had clearly made a mistake, he was contrite and wanted to apologise and move on*

Now his behaviour is innocent. Sexual touching is a mistake and Dad and son think that he should just be allowed to say sorry and move on.

we were shocked to be told that there were allegations from other girls in addition to the two incidents our son had described. He denied there were any others and, in a Kafkaesque flourish, the school did not give us any further details.

These were not the first girls his son had sexually touched.

the two female officers read out the other accusations, which were that he had groped a girl’s bottom and touched another’s thigh. Having seen his horrified reaction to hearing this accusation for the first time, and his categorical denial that he had ever behaved in such a way,

So the police said that he'd touched two further girls and the kid was horrified. But why? He's already admitted he's touched two girls' thighs.

the school’s reaction was disproportionate, but in the current environment it’s easy to understand how its first response was to slip into a defensive mode, wanting to protect itself from any suggestion that it was not taking alleged sexual harassment of its female pupils seriously

I'm intrigued as to what daddy thought would have been appropriate reaction. If it has been his son who had been sexually assaulted. Or his daughter? What would be proportionate?

I very much suspect that this kid had a very very expensive lawyer who urged him to look horrified. And I also suspect these weren't the only four girls he groped.

I hope the other boys got the fear. Zero tolerance needs all the help it can get.

Thanks for saying that, it made me tear up. It was a while ago now and I just try to forget about it and be glad it wasn't any worse.

I've got two daughters and it makes me feel sick to think that statistically, one out of four women are assaulted.

Its not fixable if the Father endorses the view that his son was the victim. What message does that send to his son? Its interesting that the mothers views don't appear to have been articulated. I would love to know what they are.

Some shocking replies on this thread.

It is not the responsibility of girls to prevent sexual assault. Touching of a thigh is sexual.

Boys are generally taller and stronger than girls at that age. It's not unreasonable for girls to be scared of being angering a boy. There was a recent social media video of a girl being physically beaten outside of school and with knife crime at scary levels, it's not surprising that girls would do what adult women do and try and defuse men's moods as gently as possible. Tolerating an unwanted hand in thigh then hoping that it doesn't happen again is understandable.

Touching of bums and thighs isn't rape but is the action of a pervert at best.

I don't understand why these Times columnists can't teach their sons not to sexually touch others? As some commentator said at the time of #metoo , an easy rule is would you touch another man like that if you were in prison ? If not, why would you touch a woman there ?

The school did step up. The parents apparently did nothing but excuse him. Hopefully he has been educated by this - in that he has learned that there are severe consequences for sexual assault and he must never touch someone without consent again.

Absolutely! "with whom he thought he was innocently flirting" says a lot about father and son.

And I actually think it is great that he was socially shunned after his behaviour. (Threats of violence - no. Shaming - yes.) Social opprobrium is a very strong modifier of behaviour, particularly in teens. So I am sure ALL the boys in that school learnt a very good lesson about the consequences of sexually assaulting anyone.

Too often the shame has been heaped upon the victims. Let's put it back on the perpetrators, where it belongs. The perpetrators are the ones who need their behaviour to be modified.

Perhaps then we have a chance of solving the problem of male violence.

Just seen under the headline it says: MeToo-style accusations against a teen snowballed into exclusion from school, a police interview and a stabbing threat, reveals his father

Sounds very like the parents of the boy who touched me up in secondary school .all excuses for his behaviour and outage at the very expensive pair of glasses I broke when I hit him . Thankfully my parents told the school to jog on when they demanded they pay for the broken glasses and told the parents that if he looked sideways at me again that they'd file a report with the police.
It was frightening as a 14 year old girl that I was the one in trouble for just defending myself from a little pervert

According to the "What did we find out about the scale and nature of sexual abuse in schools? What existing research and data tell us" section of Ofsted's "Review of sexual abuse in schools and colleges" (10 June 2021):

In 2015, the police responded to an FOI request and reported that nearly 4,000 alleged physical sexual assaults and more than 600 rapes in schools had been reported in the preceding 3 years.
www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-sexual-abuse-in-schools-and-colleges/review-of-sexual-abuse-in-schools-and-colleges

Given that there are 190 school days in a year, that's more than one rape a day in school. FFS!

"in the meantime all we can do is teach our son's to be very very careful" wow! How is this mother so fuckn blind.. disgusting

It was the father who seemed to be doing the interview. Not mention or sign of the mother. Lets hope she is more of a guiding influence going forward.

I wonder how many boys he touched in this way. Oh yes, none. So he certainly knew what he was doing.

Ah I see that now, Thank you

And those are only the reported ones.

Heaven alone knows how many go unreported because the girls are to frightened or ashamed to say anything.

Indeed, Emotionalsupportviper - I should have added that proviso (which, of course, applies to all rape stats). The thought that it is just the tip of the iceberg is truly frightening.