Thirteen - Lucky for some.

Beast beds girl of 13... but it’s not rape

 

 

 

 

An old story, from November last year, but one where the underlying theme of this story is just as applicable today as it was then. As far as I am aware, nothing has changed.

 

Under UK Law as defined by CPS "A boy or girl under the age of 16 cannot consent in law, (Archbold 2004, 20-152)".

 

Easily done, I know, but I get very confused regarding the issue of consent. On one hand, wherever you look, it is stated "The age of consent to any form of sexual activity is 16 for both men and women" (taken from Law On Sex), however, taken from the same article - "Specific laws protect children under 13, who cannot legally give their consent to any form of sexual activity"

 

I find this very contradictory - If the legal age of consent is sixteen years old, where does does the second part come from? Surely, the second part is obvious & does not need to be in there - if sixteen is the age on consent, then obviously thirteen year olds cannot "legally give consent to any form of sexual activity" (and nor can fourteen or fifteen year olds) either?

 

However, going back to the article from November 2012, it states "Fury erupted last night after prosecutors scrapped a rape charge amid claims the girl consented"

 

How does this work then?

 

How can a thirteen year old have consented in the eye of the law, when "A boy or girl under the age of 16 cannot consent in law"?

 

There have been other articles I have read, that also refer to sexual consent by under sixteen year olds.

 

According to Weightlifting champion Dylan Scott, 21, jailed for rape, from May this year, "It is plain that the jury must have proceeded on the basis there was consent". This was a 14 year old child.

 

And from the Peterborough Telegraph from June this year - Appeal rejected for teen who got 12-year-old pregnant - "The 17-year-old youth, who cannot be named, said he thought his victim was 13 and had consented to sex" If the legal age of consent is 16, why would someone think this?

Why does the 2003 Sexual Offences act, split offences between Children Under Thirteen and Thirteen to Sixteen if a child of sixteen cannot give consent?

Why are children still made to argue "consent or not consent" in courts when they are thirteen to fifteen years old and have been raped / sexually abused, if the legal age of consent is sixteen?

Is it really a case of "Thirteen - Lucky for Some" if you are a paedophile, have been caught, and have sexually assaulted / raped a child between thirteen to sixteen.

Then, at least, you can argue that the child consented, somehow.

Any answers gratefully received - please feel free to leave a comment below and let me know where I have misinterpreted this.

AVP 5 - "Rent Boys"

Rent Boy Scandal Rocks The Vatican

 

"THE Vatican is bracing itself for a rent boy scandal after a convicted paedophile priest apparently sought vengeance by informing on other child abusers in the Roman clergy.

            

Don Patrizio Poggi, who served a five-year sentence for abusing five 14 and 15-year-old boys at his parish on the outskirts of the Italian capital, has reportedly handed names to police. So far, four people have formally been placed under investigation by Rome magistrates"

Definition of Rent Boy, Wiki - the act or practice of men providing sexual services to either men or women in return for payment

Similarly to my previous post Child Prostitute , it seems that society seems totally incapable of distinguishing between children and adults when it comes down to prostitution. Girls under 16 who are sexually exploited and prostituted out are wrongly and prejudicially called "child prostitutes", and boys under 16 who are in the same position are wrongly and prejudicially referred to as "Rent Boys".

What is wrong with the correct definition for both sexes? Why is it so hard - for the media in particular - to use the term "prostituted child"?

As can be seen by the definition of Rent Boy, it explicitly refers to "Men", not "Boys". Boys of under 16, like girls under 16, do not "provide sexual services in return for payment" - they do not and cannot consent to this - they are prostituted out by child abusers to other child abusers to be sexually abused and raped. Where is the difficulty in understanding this?

I have nothing against this term being used in it's correct capacity, just not in instances where it describes child sexual exploitation. Just because this is a crime against male children, does not mean that it is less of a crime, and it should be referred to with the same seriousness as sexual crimes against female children should be referred to.

Please stop using this term to describe the sexual abuse of boys - by doing this, yet again you are both trivialising and legitimising this crime.

Carole Malone - Missing The Point

Oh dear

 

Jeremy Forrest's jail sentence was too harsh 

 

 

 

 

I feel deeply uneasy saying this but I think teacher Jeremy Forrest's five-and-a-half-year sentence is too harsh.
Was the so-called abduction (that wasn’t actually an abduction [Yes it is - Child abduction or Child theft is the unauthorized removal of a minor (a child under the age of legal adulthood) from the custody of the child's natural parents or legally appointed guardians.]) of the 15-year-old pupil with whom he was having a relationship so much worse than Stuart Hall’s offences?

He got a piddling 15 months for ­assaulting 14 girls – one of them as young as nine. [agree. Hopefully the AG's office will agree to review and increase Stuart Halls sentence to a more appropriate one]

Hall’s victims were terrified of him. They tried to resist his attentions. For some, what he did to them ruined their lives.

Forrest’s girlfriend was in love with him. Still is. And she willingly ran away with him to France, a country where the legal age of consent is 15. [and?? does this make a difference?? If he had abducted her and gone to other countries where the age of consent is 14 at the time he started grooming her when she was 14, would you have mentioned this in your article?]

And yes, I know Forrest abused the trust that went with his job, which is why he absolutely should spend time behind bars – if only as a warning to any teachers who think it’s OK to have sex with their pupils. [YES]

And of course he should have ­discouraged the girl’s attentions. [YES]

But FIVE-AND-A-HALF YEARS? [again YES]

Thugs who cave old ladies’ heads in get less than that. Rapists who brutalise and terrorise their victims get less. The woman who threw her newborn baby down a 40ft high garbage chute last week causing brain damage got half of that. [Agreed. The law is FAR TOO LENIENT on a lot of crimes. Does that mean that society should diminish other crimes solely on the basis that it does not treat these ones as it should?]

And is Jeremy Forrest really a paedophile? Is a girl who’s nearly 16 a child? Are we pretending 15-year-olds don’t have sex?  [not in the absolute definition is he a paedophile. But, reading Teen girl: Jeremy Forrest tried to groom me as well , (Chloe, now 17, is one of a string of girls Forrest, 30, allegedly tried to groom before he ran away to France with a 15-year-old pupil last September) I would call him 100% a predator of schoolgirls.
 
He didn’t hurt this girl. He believed – and still believes – he’s in love with her. And yes, that’s foolish and stupid and irresponsible.

But then what we know about him is that he was as immature and childlike as some of his pupils. He behaved like a lovesick teenager when he should have known better. [Or alternatively, the other school girls he tried to groom previously all rejected his advances, whereas this particular one didn't?]

But Forrest isn’t a sexual predator [really? Read the "Chloe" link above]. He’s a teacher who crossed a line. Who ignored the responsibilities of his job. And for that he needs to be punished – but surely not as a paedophile. [how then?]

And what about the teachers at Bishop Bell C of E School who did nothing to stop this relationship, even though it had been an open secret for months? If they didn’t think it was immoral you can see why Forrest might not have. [ Lack of proper safeguarding, not taking child protection seriously, turning a blind eye, there should be a full enquiry into what happened since these teachers first had their suspicions]

What about the police who were tipped off about what was happening – but did nothing till they’d run away? [Snap to my above comment]

And what were this girl’s parents doing while she was at her teacher’s house having sex?
The school warned her mum about the rumours of an affair but said there was nothing to worry about.
Did Mum just accept that? Why wasn’t she keeping a closer eye on what her daughter was doing?
Parents have a duty to know what their kids are up to and shouldn’t blame everyone else for what happens to them. [YES]

Yes we need tough rules so that teachers know not to overstep the mark. And it goes without saying that children need to be protected. [YES]

But this girl was just a few months away from NOT being a child. Had Forrest waited, what he did wouldn’t have been a crime. He’d have just been sacked. [This started in Feb 2012. Also, see my above comments regarding Chloe]

None of this makes what he did right. [No]

 But there needs to be perspective. [There has been]

Our justice system has to be able to distinguish between blokes like Jeremy Forrest who did something horribly inappropriate and wrong [and Illegal, and predatory] – and evil and persistent sex predators like Stuart Hall and Jimmy Savile. [Agreed. Justice needs to be fair and equal. No more "undue leniency for any sex-offenders]
Because, as ­unpalatable as this all is, there IS a difference

[suppose this school girl had also rejected his grooming.
Suppose this story had come out in 10, 20 years time.
How many other 13 and 14 year olds may he have tried to groom?
Would this have ended up far worse?

There is NO difference when it comes to adults taking advantage (sexually or otherwise) of children!

Be Offended.....be really offended

BROWN: BABY PORN PERVERT FACES JAIL

 

 

 

Believe it or not, the headline in the link above is the actual headline that appears in the article that this posting is about.

 

Believe it or not, the article appears in a UK publication.

 

Believe it or not, the publication in question describes itself as "the only specialist courts and tribunals agency operating within the UK. - we have been supplying the national, regional and local press for more than 20 years and have built a hard fought reputation as one of the country's best news agencies"

 

If indeed they supply the nationals and locals, no wonder it is so hard to change the language that the UK media use!

 

Unfortunately, having spotted this disgusting headline, and pointed out the offense that this causes , Court News UK seem not able to grasp that images of "one-year-old babies being sexually abused" (from the article) are not pornography.

 

Their argument to me, was that they were merely quoting the dictionary definition, namely

 

"Printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity' (involving babies)".

 

Really? I have never seen this in any dictionary I have seen.

 

Surely a publication that reports on court cases in the UK would (or should) know that the correct legal definition is "Indecent Photographs of Children" (UK Sexual Offences Act 2003)?

 

Surely a publication like "Court news UK" would (or should) realise the offense, the trivialisation, the paedo-friendly language that "porn" implies to when referring to images of children (and babies) being sexually abused?

 

Apparently not.

 

Am I to think that, by their reasoning, they would refer to black people using the "n****r" term, as this also appears in the dictionary? Would they refer to gypsies as "p*k*ys" as that too is in the dictionary?

 

Would they be happy, if hypothetically one of them had a young child, that was raped, abused, and filmed, seeing this being reported in the media as "pornography"? Looking through their site, there does seem to be a large amount of stories, all using the "child porn" or "baby porn" headlines, so maybe being offensive to victims of this dreadful crime means nothing to them?

 

So Court News UK, you take the honours of being my first Name and Shame

 

If you have any comment to make, please feel free to comment (anonymously if you wish).

 

Media AVP (Anti Victim Prejudice) 4 - "Child Sex"

The more you look at how the media reports on child abuse, the more you realise just how prejudicial and "dumbing down" their reporting is. As well as calling child abuse images "Porn", children who are prostituted out to paedophiles "child prostitutes" and the devious activities of paedophiles as merely "having an affair", the other thing that really bugs me is the repetitive way that abuse is referred to a "child sex".

Child Sex

 

Child Sex

 

 

Why cannot they report the act as it is, namely "child rape", or "child abuse"?

 

In the above stories, for example, the children were nine years old & one year old. Quite obviously neither cannot consent to any type of sexual activity, so why refer to this as "child sex" in the headlines?

 

Rape is what it is - "Rape - wiki - "Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent, such as one who is unconscious, incapacitated, or below the legal age of consent."

 

Child abuse is what it is "Child Abuse - Wiki - "Child abuse is the physical, sexual or emotional maltreatment or neglect of a child or children"

 

Call it by what it is."having sex" is a consensual adult activity. Rape isn't. So please, call it either Child Rape or Child Abuse, not Child Sex.

 

"Singer Denies Child Rape Charges"

 

 

Colne man 22 faces child Abuse charges

 

Get your language right!

Media AVP (Anti Victim Prejudice) 3 - "Affairs"

A brief posting tonight, on another way the media downplays the crime of child abuse.

Definition of affair by The Free Dictionary

"A romantic and sexual relationship, sometimes one of brief duration, between two people who are not married to each other."

 

Teacher jailed for affair with schoolgirl

 

 

 

The age of consent in the UK is 16 (Age of consent).

 

Call me picky, but when I think of the word "affair", I think of an extra-marital sexual relationship between 2 adults who are not married to each other (one or both being married to other people).

 

The key word here, being adults.

 

Not children.

 

If someone has unlawful sex (rape) with a child, it is classed as "sexual assault - it's a criminal offence".

 

Not an affair.

 

In the above story, the "affair" began when the girl was 14.

 

So still a child.

 

This way of reporting is another inaccurate and prejudicial term that is extensively used by media worldwide.

 

Why is this so often described as an "affair" by the media, instead of what it actually is - "Sexual Assault"?

 

What do victims think when their lives have been ruined by sexual assaults by adults, seeing their abuse being downplayed and trivialised in the media, by having it described as merely "having an affair"?

 

"Accuracy of language is one of the bulwarks of truth" - Anna Jameson.

We are far too lenient with online sex offenders (JEP 11/06/2013)

Whilst reading through todays online edition of the JEP, I happened on an excellent article by Richard Heath, that impressed me so much I thought I'd include this in my newly started blog.

We are far too lenient with online sex offenders

 

 

In this piece Richard refers to the link between viewing child abuse images/videos, and the sexually motivated murders of children, following the convictions of Stuart Hazel and Mark Bridger.

 

To any normal person, it seems perfectly plausible that someone who has a sexual "fetish" (for want of a better word) for children and looks at such images online, will, quite probably, eventually get bored of merely viewing these vile images or films, and go to the next step of actual sexual abuse of children.

 

Indeed, this seems to be further corroborated by Sunday's article in The Sun, by Jim Gamble, former Chied Executive of CEOP, who writes "a study was carried out on 155 US prisoners jailed for viewing child abuse images. At the beginning, 26 per cent admitted a physical contact offence with 75 children. By the end of the study, which used a lie detector test, 85 per cent had admitted to contact offences with 1,777 children."

 

These stats have been taken from page thirteen of The Butner study from 2005.

 

If such a link is there, it really does offer the question, why are we so lenient with offenders who make, download and share such images? It seems far to often, in the UK at least, that no matter how many images are amassed by paedophiles, all they get is a suspended sentence for a matter of months.

 

One case springs to mind to support this (in amongst the thousands that have escaped jail over the years), and that is the case of Toren Smith who had downloaded 94,000 (yes, ninety four thousand!!) images and videos of child abuse, and ended up with a 2 year suspended sentence, believe it or not.

 

Unfortunately, as well, this was also the time when I discovered that you cannot appeal against this crime as "Unduly Lenient" as per one of my previous posts, as the AGs office will not look into this crime (Although in certain circumstances the Attorney General does have the power to refer a sentence to the Court of Appeal if he considers that it is unduly lenient, the power only applies to a limited number of offences.  It does not apply to  the  offences  in this case which, we understand, concern making indecent images of children.  This means that it is not possible for the Attorney General to ask the Court of Appeal to look at the sentence in  this  case)

 

It really is time that this crime is taken more seriously than it is currently. The only people who would search for and download these images are people who are inclined towards children, i.e. paedophiles. Once a paedo, always a paedo, there is no cure, and in my opinion, sentences should be the same for downloading child abuse images as actual child abuse. Just because they may not have sexually abused a child (yet) before being caught, does not mean they won't once released. The real crime here, is not taking this seriously enough!!

 

"In times of trouble leniency becomes crime." - proverb

 

 

 

 

Media and Legal AVP (Anti Victim Prejudice) - "Child Prostitutes"

child prostitute ring groomed and then raped vulnerable girls

 

 

 

'Child' (Wiki) - "The legal definition of child generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority"

"Prostitute" (Wiki) - "Prostitution is the business or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute or sex worker"



Continuing my "AVP" theme, another inaccurate and offensive term that is in regular use is "child prostitute", as detailed in the above recent report.

Do readers think:

a) Children can voluntarily plaster themselves with make up, dress themselves up with skimpy clothes and tout themselves around red light districts looking to provide sexual services for money?

b) Some children get ensnared in paedophile gangs, get drugged, raped, and passed around other child sex offenders and paedophiles to be raped and abused, for the "pleasure" of these paedophiles and child sex offenders, and for the profit of whoever is leading these gangs.

If you answered a), get off this blog - there are others more 'appropriate' for you elsewhere!

If you answered b), ask yourselves then, after reading the definitions above, why not only the media, but UK legislation itself, calls victims of paedophile gangs "child prostitutes" and not "prostituted children"?

Just two words, swapped around, but a whole heap of difference in their meaning.

Why is it so hard for the media to see this?

Why the hell is legislation itself in the UK still referring to "child prostitutes"?

Reading through the Sexual Offenses Act 2003 , anyone under the age of 18 is considered a "child prostitute" (as opposed to the legal age of consent, 16)!

Would it not be infinitely more accurate, to rename victims of this crime who are under sixteen as a "prostituted child", and other victims who are either sixteen or seventeen (over the legal age of consent) as "underage prostitutes"?

Of course it would - so why again does the media, legislation, and society generally as a whole still call children who are exploited, abused and raped in this way "child prostitutes"?

As a society, we really need to start watching our language

'Language is very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes - Desmond Tutu'

Unduly Lenient sentences in the UK

Graham Ovenden gets suspended sentence for child sexual offences

 

I was going to continue with my "Media AVP" posts, but following the above story thought I would do a small posting regarding 'unduly lenient sentences' in the UK.

How many of you read the above story with a feeling of disgust - that someone who was found guilty of sex offences against young children could walk out of court a free man (albeit with a 12 month suspended sentence?)

What was the judge thinking? How can this be allowed? What a smack in the face for his victims who have had to a) live with this all these past years and b) have had to live through the ordeal of a full trial due to him pleading not guilty?

A lot of people judging by the comments on twitter and other sites.

How many of you realise that there is a way that you can appeal against sentences that are 'unduly lenient' like this one certainly is?

Anyone can appeal against a sentence that you consider Unduly Lenient!

As long as the sentencing is in the previous twenty-eight days, was passed in a Crown Court, and is a crime contained in the link I will include at the bottom of this posting - anyone can appeal to the AGs office against the sentence.

If you do appeal, all you need to do is make sure your e-mail is short, sharp and to the point (bullet-pointed is helpful). I personally find it beneficial to include the offenders name, date of sentence and court the trial and sentence was passed in the subject field. There are probably numerous sites you can refer to regarding sentencing policies and what conditions have not been met which have made it (in your view) 'unduly lenient', but the one I use is What Sentences Are For.

This link Unduly Lenient Sentences gives further details on how the process works. For England and Wales, the e-mail address to send them to is correspondenceunit@attorneygeneral.gsi.gov.uk and for Scotland, the e-mail address is correspondenceunit@scotland.gsi.gov.uk.

A lot of the time, sentences will not be reviewed, but there are times they will be, as below.

Thank you for your email below about the sentence given to Graham Ovenden.

 

This Office has asked for further details of the cases from the Crown Prosecution Service so that the Law Officers can decide whether or not to refer the sentences to the Court of Appeal as being unduly lenient.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Correspondence Unit

So next time, instead of joining the twitter/facebook army of moaners, do something constructive about it.

You never know, yours could be the one appeal that gets a sentence increased to what it should be..............

 

"I'd probably watch child abuse films/pics, admits former Crimewatch presenter Nick Ross"

                                                  Nick Ross - I'd probably watch child rape

Where to start?

Nick Ross - former presenter of Crimewatch, would "want to see what all the "fuss" was about, if someone came to him and asked him if he wanted to view "child pornography" (his words, not mine - Its NOT Pornography Nick!).

A question for Mr Ross. What exactly do you think "child pornography" is? Do you think this is some 16 year old in a slightly risqué pose? Some old 1980's Sam Fox page 3 spread? No Nick Ross, this is child abuse and child rape, captured on screen for the "enjoyment" of paedophiles. These are films of babies being sexually abused, of young children being gang-raped - a life of misery and suffering for children exploited by disgusting, vile people who fornicate to this wretchedness that has been shared online.

And you would click on and watch it?

And you call child abuse a "fuss"?

As if this story couldn't get any worse, (Nick Ross Wiki), your wife happens to be the secondary founder of Childline.

Unbelievable. Seriously unbelievable!

I must admit, I am totally lost for words, someone of your status - someone who has potentially been in the position of speaking to victims of this hideous crime during your stint as Crimewatch presenter (how must any victims who have appeared on your show feel now?) - admitting that he would view these out of curiosity if asked to?

Please show us the "study" that showed most people would view them if they "stumbled across them".

I will leave you with the normal reaction of anyone who would happen to chance across this.

Disgusted!!