The strange reaction to the death of a child rapist drag queen

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An article by James Esses on the funeral of Darren Moore -a drag queen who was murdered in Cardiff city centre.
Although Moore had a prior history of convictions for child sexual abuse the Council closed off roads in central Cardiff for the funeral and news coverage has been very positive about him.

t.co/cvxmcibFdz

James Esses, the author, is a former criminal barrister so it seems unlikely he’d make a sloppy mistake when discussing a convicted criminal.
Editing/sub editing can always cause unintended issues, of course.

You could tweet/email Esses or the speccie for clarification?

The child was under 14.

Don't particularly care which exact age group of children he liked to rape was personally.

Don't care if he was a child himself.

He didn't have the right to do what he did.

There was enough evidence to take it to trial and for him to be found guilty. Therefore it wasnt consensual.

He was a raper of children.

The whole reporting around the funeral has been really odd. I was on a local Facebook selling page last night and there was a huge post (diatribe) about this chap. It actually called him, his partner and others the ‘P’ word in full and capitals

I've seen similar on a different FB page.

There were a number of changes to rape laws about 5 years before Sewell’s conviction.

This included the reclassification of Sewell’s
later offence from ‘Nonconsenual buggery’ to ‘Rape’, same charge as already applied to the rape of a female victim.

It was also around that time that it became possible to charge rapists who committed their crimes while under the age of 14.

Seems to me to be a rather enlightened change in terms of gay equality and understanding of underage perpetrators of sex offences?

Sewell was convicted of 4 Counts of Rape of a boy under the age of 16.

He was sentenced to 36 months of youth offender detention time - if the judge was motivated by homophobia it could’ve been a much harsher sentence.

Same as his 2011 breach of conditions - that could’ve resulted in prison time but the judge chose to impose a sex offenders treatment programme, a curfew and 300 community service hours instead.

Homophobia is real and wrong but I’m not seeing any evidence of it in Sewell’s conviction and subsequent sentencing.

Screenshots from CPS: www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/rape-and-sexual-offences-chapter-7-key-legislation-and-offences

Well we're all free to hold different opinions on the situation and what happened. It may have been against the law. But the nuance is important too.

Thanks for posting. Yes, it is scary how this new religion washes away all sin. And offenders don't even have to repent or desist.

Ereshkigalangcleg · Today 13:07

The whole reporting around the funeral has been really odd. I was on a local Facebook selling page last night and there was a huge post (diatribe) about this chap. It actually called him, his partner and others the ‘P’ word in full and capitals

I've seen similar on a different FB page.

Do have the impression the people on FB were meaning the police been ignoring what everyone else knows full well?

Were they meaning the original crime? Or were they alleging even more afterwards?

Thanks for the link CryptoFascistMadameCholet

But the nuance is important too.

No it's not.. He made a choice. He broke the law.

I see reports from 25th Jan saying a man aged 50 was arrested in connection with the death. Is there follow-up on this?

Yes he broke the law. I still think the circumstances and nuance is important. Even if you don't. As I said, we all hold different opinions. Fortunately.

Do have the impression the people on FB were meaning the police been ignoring what everyone else knows full well?

On that page it was alleged by people claiming to be local to the area that the victims (plural) in the case in 1999 were known in the local area (gave details of where they claimed it was) and much younger than him.

Some clueless American man was weighing in at length about their "anti-drag" prejudice but he didn't seem to understand that there might not be a record accessible to the public due to all parties being underage so the absence of evidence wasn't proof that the local people were lying.

I don't think it was about the police or the original conviction which for all anyone knows fully reflected what happened, it's more about the OTT funeral and people saying that he hasn't done anything wrong.

Sewell's husband raised nearly £7,000 for his funeral. The gofundme he started is still open.

There is no way to know if there is any nuance unless a victim of Sewell’s comes forward.

I’m sure being able to handwave away 4 counts of rape as some sort of misunderstood consensual sexual relationship in a homophobic society was extremely convenient for Sewell and his ability to make money on the Cardiff LGBT scene.

Clearly not all community members were on board with such a palatable explanation as Sewell hit the tabloids in 2018 after bar patrons raised objections with the management:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6109327/Bar-hires-convicted-sex-offender-makes-Jimmy-Savile-jokes-drag-act.html

Sewell’s own barrister said that Sewell ‘no longer had any sexual interest in young children’ at the 2011 restrictions breach hearing, so there must be of been least some evidence that Sewell had a ‘sexual interest in young children’ in the 1999 case.

A 14 year old is a child, but I cannot see any reasonable person describing a 14 year old as a ‘young child’ - secondary school starts from the academic year in which they turn 12 so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that ‘young children’ refers to children no older that primary school age, ie, under 11.

Also, as you can see in my previous post with the CPS link, in 1999 a 14 year old was old enough to BE a rapist, so clearly ‘14’ was not a ‘young child’ in terms of sex offence laws.

it’s good to be rigorous and to think critically when considering these new stories but arguing for nuance in regards to a conviction for 4 counts of rape seems rather disrespectful to the victim.

It’s really fucking hard to secure a rape conviction and evidence in regards to the lack of consent is often a key part in securing a conviction.

it’s good to be rigorous and to think critically when considering these new stories but arguing for nuance in regards to a conviction for 4 counts of rape seems rather disrespectful to the victim

I'm not arguing for nuance. I'm considering the nuance. As clearly none of us know the full detail about it 🙄

As we don't know the nuance, but you can guarantee the judge did the fact stands he raped children. That's all the nuance I need to know.

The law distinguishes children under 13 from those 13 or over. A young child is under 13.

Also 4 counts of rape of a child is:
Charge 1: rape of a child
Charge 2: rape of a child
Charge 3: rape of a child
Charge 4: rape of a child

That is four children.

What DO you consider the nuance to be in 4 convictions for rape of a child under the age of 16?

Bearing in mind that in 1999 the homosexual age of consent was 18 and thus both Sewell and his victim could’ve been charged with a crime if the sex were consensual and the police and judiciary were being harsh and homophobic.

It seems to indicate that. My rapist had all the rapes of me under one specimen charge of rape.

He had six charges but all different parts of the law.

All charges done more than once but he was charged on a specimen charge of each.

There was a case here a decade or so back where a teacher had met a boy (14 maybe, or younger) on Grindr and and started a sexual relationship. The boy's mother went to the police after she found out. The man was convicted, and jailed after admitting that although the boy claimed to be over 17 (the age of consent) he had known that was unlikely.

The Judge wasn't particularly homophobic and expressed sympathy all round, but also said that it is the responsibility of adults to keep children safe, and sometimes that means protecting children from their own bad choices.

In the case discussed here the rapist seems to have been very young at the time of the known assaults, but the pattern of continuing to seek out work with child gymnasts suggests a long term unwillingness to put children's needs before his own. There has been too much of that pattern in sports and schools and churches not to feel deeply suspicious.

In 1999 and well before, most police treated situations of a gay underaged kid having sex with another kid very differently to the way they treated an adult man abusing a child. The law changed following this common sense. It's more comfortable to paint this as a possibly misunderstood teenaged thing, but the degree of care and seeking to excuse being shown to the perpetrator is not reflected equally in care or compassion for four children the perpetrator was convicted of raping. It was not that much easier to get a rape into court in 1999, never mind convicted.

Well we're all free to hold different opinions on the situation and what happened. It may have been against the law. But the nuance is important too.

I am sure the child victim who reported it to the Police and stood in Court to give evidence of the crimes perpetrated against him is absolutely heartened to hear that you @WiIson hold a different opinion on the situation and that nuance is so very important.

JFC can you hear yourself @Wilson?

I think there is some equivocation going on between the situation in the 90s, and pre-1967.

In the past, gay men did end up convicted of sexual offences for consensual relationships, because the police and the public prosecution, and the country thought it was right to interfere, whatever the other partner said about it. It was a paternalistic attitude, I suppose you could say.

That was ended in 1967, provided the men were over 21. Under John Major, an amendment was put forward to drop the age of consent for males with males to 16. It failed, and the age of consent was dropped to 18 in 1994 as a compromise.

Labour were elected in 1997, and the new government pressed to drop the age to 16 from basically the moment Tony Blair walked through the doors of number 10. Checking the records, the amendment got through the House of Commons in June 1998.

So, would you as a prosecutor in 1999 have been keen on prosecuting a teenage boy for willing sexual activity with another boy, to please the other boy's parents?

The fact is, we do not prosecute for willing sex between teenagers in this country, because
a) the age of consent is to protect children. Criminalising children themselves for underage sex would be abusing a law to protect them. This precedent was declared in Victorian times, when a court ruled the law against incest should not be used to pursue victims.

b) the logistics. To successfully prosecute, you need physical evidence that sexual activity happened, and for the victim to give evidence, that convinces the court that she or he was not consenting, and could not have been thought to be consenting. At this point, may I remind you that adult men successfully escape conviction with great frequency, because they convince the jurors that their underage victim did want to have sex?

Is it being claimed that another 14 year old boy was marched down to the police station by his homophobic parents, where the police forced him to have an intimate medical examination with a police surgeon, so evidence could be collected? Is it being claimed that a 14 year old boy was forced to take the stand against his boyfriend and he LIED to the court about it being mutual willing activity? Moore and his defence team would have, obviously contested that, wouldn't they?

But the court decided to disbelieve the defence, you think?

Weird, because in my experience, when teenage victims tell courtrooms that they were abused, and the defence says "nah, victim was totally up for it", the defence normally wins the day, due to burden of proof.