What Happened To The Age Of Consent?
A TWENTY YEAR OLD MAN pleads guilty to meeting a child (she was 11 years of age) following sexual grooming, sexual assault of a child and attempted rape; the probation report read out in court assessed the accused as being "manipulative and predatory" and poses a "high risk of serious harm" to children by the probation service. Cue Judge Robert Atherton, who allowed the accused to walk free because the girl 'welcomed sex':
But Judge Robert Atherton rejected the probation report findings - saying the girl "welcomed" sexual activity which was not forced, was "inappropriately aware" of sex, and Dixon had not specifically sought out a child on the internet.
Lock up your daughters. If paedophiles can now cite the sexual awareness level of their targets, they'll all be walking. All of which anyway sweeps aside a perfectly simple legal concept. As the dumb one says:
Not to hammer the point home, but the whole point of the age of consent is that below that age, the victim can't consent (the law isn't as complex as libs would have you believe). Judge Atherton hasn't conjured up a wacky interpretation of the law, he's completely ignored it.
Pete Moore
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This is the judiciary as the Gramscians need it to be. This 'judge' knows what his political masters expect of him, and he will be well rewarded for his part in undermining the UK's civil norms. Add to this the police farce as it is now, and the trough-embedded political clique, can anyone here really claim that replacing Blair/Brown with Cameron is going to make any difference? It won't, and that is the whole point and greatest triumph to-date of the Gramscians. Get rid of Brown, and up pops Balls or Miliband - marxists. The entire LibLabCon is treasonous to its core hence my support for the BNP.
"Where TF are we going? And why are we sitting in this silly handcart?"
Squarespace is really acting up today. Cloned post deleted.
What has this got to do with "liberals", other than a knee jerk reaction to attribute any ill to liberals?
It sounds rather like the Tory approach to the issue, except that he didn't suggest he buy her a bicycle to make up for it.
Allan's explanation above is absolutely irrelevent - but as Frank says it's just a typical and lazy automatic response based on political obsession.
The truth is this decision was almost certainly rooted in personal attitudes to sexual crime by the individual judge. The judiciary have far too much freedom to make maverick decisions which mock the law. As Pete correctly points out above, the girls attitude and 'maturity' about sex are irrelevent in law and should not be allowed to be cited by the judge to allow the criminal to get away with it.
Well Colm, such 'irrelevance' appears to be a daily/hourly occurrence with the UK's Gramscian judiciary and police 'authorities'. Indeed, this site serves to highlight this deliberately targetted malice against the British people and the foundation morality formerly known as 'common sense'.
This happening once or twice can be described as 'maverick decisions'. When it happens with increasing frequency, I would call it a policy. Interestingly, not one of the points made in my previous post was challenged.
Allan
Why should anyone challenge utterly irrelevent points. Whether certain members of the cabinet are marxists or not is nothing to do with this judge showing leneiency to a child molester. These sorts of decisions by judges particularly relating to sexual cases have always occured and are more to do with personal attitudes by particular judges (regardless of political leanings) than any political philosophy laid down by govt. In fact Laws relating to sexual crimes specifically on rape and child sex offences have been made tougher in recent decades precisely by the 'Gramscian' govts you blame, but the fault lies with the authorities unwillingness to rein in the vast leeway giving in senetencing powers to individual judges, which has been part of our judicial process for centuries, and cannot be laid at the door of one government or political culture.
Well argued Frank and Colm. It is irrelevant the politics here since just as many right leaning judges have made rubbish judgments. Remember the Ealing Vicarage judge? Tory.
The way we have perverted societies attitudes and as a consequence 11 year old girls attitudes to sex is also irrelevant. The law states what is and is not consent clearly in these cases (for once) and should not be put aside because some judge probably likes barely legal teen watching at night.
Colm, this excuse of a judge made his decision in the knowledge that there would be no come-back from the Gramscian clique which is supposed to be a government. Such 'judges' are given free rein to undermine decent norms and they know exactly what is expected of them. There is no delineation between judiciary and government when it comes to matters such as that described in this post.
Allan
How do you know what the judge was thinking re; govt. interference. If you search you will find decisions like this going back as far as records allow. There have always been certain judges who make allowances for men's sexual behaviour, particularly if they think he was led on by a 'slut' of whatever age. If anything it's an attitude rooted in traditional old fashioned right wing 'men can't help themselves' sexism , which modern day 'gramscian' feminism has tried to defeat. So if you really want to put political blame on this sort of decision , look on the other side of the political spectrum
Why would the judiciary wish to undermine the simple and reasonable concept of 'age of consent'? One man who really couldn't 'help himself' was muhammad, the paedo-prophet of islam. He helped himself to a 9-year-old girl: the paedophile who was allowed to walk free after sexual abuse of an 11-year-old girl would have understood where mo was coming from. As for traditional old-fashioned right-wing sexism endorsing paedophilia, that is total BS. Here's a right-wing statement from a right-winger (me): the bastard should have been jailed for a full year for each year which the victim was below the age of consent i.e. 5 years. Nice, simple, fair equation easily understood even by the products of Blair's education system.
Allan
Not all right wingers have the same view about sexual crime, just as not all lefties do. For every Right wing minded person who would let this man rot in jail , there will be another who will take the 'blame the temptress' attitude as I explained above. Plus for every leftie with a soft liberal, let's give him a chance viewpoint there will be a feminist champion willing to string him up by his balls. The point I am making is that it is too simplistic to just regard this as the fault of a specific political ideology.
I was wondering if you'd bring Muslims into this, and there you go...
Colm - the equation: fair, understandable etc?
If a man abuses an 11-year-old girl, 5 years jail. 16 - 11 = 5 years in jail. He won't "rot" in jail: he will be there for 5 years.
Allan, a 16 year old wouldn't meet most people's definition of a man. Your example would put 16 year olds in jail for about 1/3 their lives thus far. It would also put a 16 year old who had sex with a 15 year old in jail for a year.
Incidentally it seems that the perpetrator in this story was also a teenager (albeit 19) at the time of the crime. Hardly blameless but not quite the same as a mature adult either.
Lastly all your examples are of female victims. Would you apply it the same way if the victim was a 13-15 year old male and the perpetrator were female? That kind of thing is usually met with a nod and a wink and in the US at least, child support obligations have resulted from such rapes.
Frank, why are judges who are supposed to apply the letter of the law coming away with all sorts of reasons for not applying the law. If they demonstrate their irresponsibility, and this is one such example, then the scope for sentencing should be reduced and mandatory sentencing should be applied. Clearly, sexual abuse of an 11-year-old girl should require a jail sentence. This is about an 11-year-old girl.
Allan, I agree this guy should have been jailed. However if you have mandatory sentencing of the sort you described then why have the judge there at all. All you need is a jury to decide guilt and the judge could be replaced with a computer.
Perhaps what should happen is that any grounds for leniency should be much more narrowly defined. Certainly the behavior of the victim should not enter into it. In fact I thought the law was already like that.
Frank, you may well be correct when you write that "perhaps what should happen is that any grounds for leniency should be much more narrowly defined. Certainly the behavior of the victim should not enter into it. In fact I thought the law was already like that. "
It is almost certain that the law is INTENDED to function in such a manner, but clearly something is wrong and I believe that the problem lies with judges as in this case who go way beyond their intended remit and let child molestors walk free. I don't want to remove judges because they are arbiters who are supposed to provide balance and measure to cases, but this goes too far - and there have been many other cases highlighted on ATW.