A kiss is just a kiss? Depends who you are!
The ‘outrage bus’ is doing wheelies round the Sunderland Football Club car park as it awaits its ritualistic joy-ride through Twitter when Adam Johnson’s sentence is deemed too soft… as it will be if just one week short of a death sentence.
Collateral victims – i.e. not including his actual unnamed victim – of his criminal stupidity in kissing a 15 year old teenager so far include:
The Chief Executive of Sunderland Football Club – she ‘knew’, ‘he admitted’ kissing the girl, how could she let him kick a ball round the park before he was found guilty?….off with her paedo-enabling head!
The former editor of the Sun Newspaper, David Dinsmore – he published a picture of the victim taken from her Facebook page, with ‘no facial features identifiable from the photo, the hair colour has been disguised, the hair length has been changed, and the background to the photograph has been altered and indeed there have been other changes relating to, for example, clothing’. But no matter that the only people capable of recognising her from this pixellated pic were those who already knew her, to whom she had boasted of her conquest – Dinsmore now has a conviction under the Sexual Offences Act. Not even the more usual Contempt of Court.
Johnson’s girlfriend; Stacey Flounders; now a single mother with a baby to bring up – difficult to go back to her previous life as an air hostess with a broken heart and huge humiliation.
Most of all, his young daughter, Ayla, just learning to walk – but not to totter round the multi-million pound mansion with loving parents that should have been her birthright, but with occasional supervised visits with the sex-offender that she is burdened with for life as ‘Dad’.
We are told that it is only right that all these people should pay the price for being associated with a paedophile who kissed a 15 year old girl – in addition to the 4 – 10 year prison sentence he has been told to expect.
Am I defending Adam Johnson? NO, not a bit of it. He was the adult; however besotted this teenage season-ticket holder was with footballing stars (and who paid for her season-ticket? and the clothes she would need to dress the part to ensure that one of the stars of the club was prepared to overlook the law in order to accept her proffered kiss? – No chance of any parental responsibility here I suppose?) Nope – no matter how young and stupid she was – it was always his responsibility to obey the law, not hers. These girls were not nicknamed ‘jailbait’ for nothing.
What does concern me is the ‘4 – 10 years’.
For on the other side of the country, another man was also kissing a 15 year old.
This wasn’t a besotted fan, who however misguidedly was ‘up for it’ and tempting – this was a perfectly innocent 15 year old schoolgirl on her way home.
Nor was the man concerned a ‘delectable’ (in some eyes) athletic young man that you might, if daft enough, be proud to boast to your friends that you had kissed….
Nor was his boss fired for knowing about it, we don’t even know if he was employed. Nor was his face plastered all over the papers. There doesn’t appear to be a single picture of him.
If he has a girlfriend or wife, we haven’t been told about her, and she hasn’t had the humiliation of every detail of her man’s sexual habits exposed on the front pages.
There will be no outrage bus circling round the second man demanding that he be banned from ever doing his job again, nor was there at the length of his sentence.
Nor was the victim his sole victim.
Both men pleaded guilty to the kiss.
In fact the only difference I can find between the two offences is that I’ll wager the girl in Johnson’s case was considerably less traumatised by kissing someone she wanted to kiss, however wrongly, than the second girl who was neither groomed nor warned, but kissed by a total stranger, not a particularly edifying stranger by all accounts.
So how come Ali Abdullahi’s punishment was considered just and proper at a ‘community order and a sex offender course’ and Adam Johnson is being told to expect ‘years in prison’?
Before you suggest it – the judge specifically rejected Abdullahi’s defence plea for mitigation on the grounds of ‘misunderstanding cultural differences’….
Seems to me that if Adam Johnson receives any harsher sentence than Ali Abdullahi did last week then I shall be campaigning on Johnson’s behalf – and I believe he was guilty and should be punished.
Either we are equals before the law, or we aren’t – there shouldn’t be special treatment for those the media have singled out as ‘VIPs’ and treated to additional punishment.
Particularly not when the media only do it to boost their own circulation. They were not remotely interested in the young victim in Torquay. No clickbait in someone kissing that 15 year old.
- David
March 9, 2016 at 10:09 am -
Perhaps because footballers are hero-worshiped by thousands of young men, not just women? Footballers are role models, and should set a good example to other young men. Most sentences are ‘deterrent sentences’, and deterring hundreds of thousands of young football fans, might work.
- Ho Hum
March 9, 2016 at 10:33 am -
David, leaving aside the precise details of the cases involved here, when the creation and implementation of the law becomes partial, in the way it deals with; the creation of laws to specifically target ‘harm’ attributed to those deemed to be ‘unacceptable’ miscreants; due process; and the dispensation of punishment; it’s just become another political tool, and is really then no longer anything to do dispensing justice
If you don’t want them coming for you one day, just make sure that you’re a good enough creep to stay on the right side of those in charge, or at least parrot whatever whoever’s in power believes. You’ll go far.
- David
March 9, 2016 at 10:43 am -
I have never believed in prisons, except for violent offenders, who are a danger to others. A better sentence would be that a footballer is banned from playing professional football ever again, but that is probably not possible. ‘They’, may well come for me, as my head is well above the parapet.
- windsock
March 9, 2016 at 12:28 pm -
And should a child sex offending accountant be banned from accounting for the rest of his life?
Why differentiate?
A footballer’s career is naturally truncated by age anyway, but why would you deny them their way to earn a living? Should they be punished for life? They are going to end up with a criminal record anyway, and on the sex offenders’ register so that will automatically limit their future career choices. So much for rehabilitation.
- Bandini
March 9, 2016 at 12:48 pm -
Indeed, and where on earth does the notion that footballers are ‘role models’ for youngsters come from anyway?
Even the best of ’em lie & cheat, throwing themselves on the floor like blubbering babies whenever the opportunity arises for ‘stealing’ a free-kick or penalty – their shameful play-acting there for all to see thanks to the the slow-motion replays.
When a decision goes against them they shout & scream at those responsible for maintaining discipline on the pitch, and if not playing are generally to be found driving flash sports cars or copping off with ‘models’ in nightclubs.They are not role models but fantasy figures, filling the gap as today’s rock stars increasingly bore us with their worthiness.
- DtP
March 9, 2016 at 1:19 pm -
I live in Yorkshire and on the day of Johnson’s conviction (which had saturated coverage on the BBC’s Look North programme) the 2nd news story was 6 perpetual gang rapists being convicted too! A bit of balance would be preferable than overkill on something which, whilst ofcourse criminal, is akin to comparing shoplifting to armed robbery with violence.
I do feel a bit sorry for the blethering ejeet – apparently when he was at Man City he was known as a tool but 4 years is a blinkin’ piss take, frankly.
- DtP
- Bandini
- windsock
- David
- Ho Hum
- Eccentric
March 9, 2016 at 10:23 am -
Before and since Swingin ’68 when the UK young child-Bells Mary & Norma (unrelated) killed 2 small boys not far from the ‘Makems’ home turf.
THOUSANDS of young Brit so called ‘Children’, many well below UK AOC, have been convicted and caged for morally, mentally and emotionally knowing Right from Wrong in CONSENTING to commit CRIMES!
Go figger…
And quote learned Brit, Saint Hewson Q.C. (paraphrased), “Return the UK AOC to a sensible ’13’ where it was long before the first Right wing tabloid fake pedo panic in 1885. Also for circulation & profit deviously masked by Mass Deception as so called ‘Child Protection’.”
Plus Brit victim visionary gay Wilde, 1891,”We are dominated by (Right wing) journalism.”
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/section/C302
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DR6EEl0H64 - David S
March 9, 2016 at 10:37 am -
Anna, the press are reporting that he was found guilty of digital penetration. If correct, this goes along way to explaining the disparity of sentencing. The kiss he had pleaded guilty to, as I understand it, but he disputed the more serious charge.
- Alcibiades
March 9, 2016 at 3:44 pm -
I was trying to read between the lines and got the impression she gave him a blowjob. Can’t dig up exactly where I got that now.
- Bandini
March 9, 2016 at 3:55 pm -
He was found ‘not guilty’ on that charge. The judge, after previously stating that “12-0 is the only possible score”, changed his mind and accepted a 10-2 majority verdict on the ‘digital penetration’. An appeal is in the offing.
- Bandini
- Alcibiades
- Bandini
March 9, 2016 at 10:48 am -
Not particularly relevant, but regarding Dinsmore at The Sun I was astonished at the effort expended in manipulating the girl’s image, as to create the composite they not only edited the original photograph:
“Then a photograph of the Irish president, Michael D Higgins, attending a tree-planting ceremony in a Dublin park, was photoshopped and used as fake background.”
Why?!? Don’t they have stock images to use? Anyway, Dinsmore’s dreadful rag have been at the front of the queue to give Johnson a kicking:
“Football paedophile Adam Johnson will be locked up in the same jail as child killers Levi Bellfield and Ian Huntley.”
And an MP whose name escapes me was adamant that he MUST NEVER AGAIN be allowed to play football…What on earth is wrong with people? Where is the sense of perspective?
Viewing from afar I’m amazed that there haven’t been more questioning in the press over the sense in jailing a man for UP TO 14 YEARS over what was clearly consensual ‘heavy petting’ (more than just a kiss, though). The guy is obviously a sleazeball – not a particularly bright one by the sounds of things – who foolishly thought that a pay packet of £60,000 a week exempted him from the norms of society.He’s not a paedophile, despite the rampant misuse of the word by the press, and I doubt very much whether he’ll be much of a ‘danger’ to anyone after this experience. I see no benefit in jailing him for 4-days, let alone 4-years (supposedly the minimum he can expect to receive). A suspended sentence hanging over him, the inevitable massive payment to the ‘victim’, a bit of education & a chance to rebuild his life – particularly with regards to his young family who he might now realise were more worthy of his attention – ought to suffice.
(I also wonder what effect a jail term will have on his ‘victim’ in the future when she gets to look back on things with the benefit of hindsight.) - Eccentric
March 9, 2016 at 10:59 am -
Rabid self Righteous wrong-uns – Spiked!
- Alcibiades
March 9, 2016 at 3:43 pm -
Good analysis: “It is surprising, then, to look back at the actual record of the Conservative Party in power in the 1980s and early 1990s. From the accounts today, one would imagine that the government was indifferent to all allegations of child abuse. But that is not so. In fact, no government before or since did more or legislated as much as Thatcher’s on the presumed epidemic of child abuse.”
- Alcibiades
- Jonathan King
March 9, 2016 at 12:41 pm -
Kissing a 15 year old is now a serious sex offence, warranting jail or other sentence. Let’s hope they don’t go historical on this, as opposed to historic or even hysterical, or grand mothers who sexually assaulted babies will be clogging up our prison system until death. I just saw a white rabbit run past, examining his watch.
- DtP
March 9, 2016 at 1:23 pm -
It’s the ‘serious’ part of ‘sex offence’ that makes the whole thing a mockery – we’re not in Bill Clinton territory here, either kissing has now been defined as a sex act or i’ve been getting more action than I realise!!
- The Blocked Dwarf
March 9, 2016 at 1:40 pm -
I just saw a white rabbit run past, examining his watch.
*oggles price tag & tries to do the math…what is 10/6 in real money?*
- Mudplugger
March 9, 2016 at 3:40 pm -
To some of us on the older side of average, 10/6 still is real money, we regard 52.5p as a trendy aberration.
- Mudplugger
- Johnnydub
March 10, 2016 at 3:45 pm -
Exactly – is there an arrest warrant out there for Bill Wyman?
- DtP
- English Pensioner
March 9, 2016 at 1:17 pm -
This was no innocent 15 year old, she knew exactly what she was getting into judging by her text messages. There was certainly no ‘grooming’ of a trusting, unsuspecting child, more the other way round. No sex took place, so what is all the fuss about? Judging by the reaction of my wife and daughters, I suspect that she will get little real support from women other than the feminist brigade and those trying to make a name on Twitter and the like.
- DtP
March 9, 2016 at 1:34 pm -
Helps the compo claim tho – happy days!
- DtP
- Alcibiades
March 9, 2016 at 3:30 pm -
What happened is illegal in this country and has to be punished under the law. There is a good play by Tom Stoppard called ‘The Invention of Love’ about how we came to have an age of consent of sixteen. You will all be very surprised to learn it involves yellow press sensationalism.
But why a four to ten year sentence? Is that proportional to the crime? One way of looking at this is to note that in most of the other states of the EU the age of consent is fourteen or fifteen. If Adam Johnston had received the attentions of the girl almost anywhere else in Europe there would be no crime. Our age is, of course, higher so there is a crime and there must be a penalty. I would have though a slap on the wrist would do. After all, I seriously doubt he poses a risk to anyone but himself. Judges shouldn’t be sending to prison anyone they are very unlikely to be seeing before them again.
- Moor Larkin
March 9, 2016 at 4:09 pm -
Johnson is more morally culpable. The law is now a moral guardian, so the crimes are different.
Stranger Rape is less serious than Groomed Rape – just as “coercive control” is worse than being beaten up.
https://twitter.com/moor_facts
“it was not so much the physical violence but the sense of entrapment that was so devastating”The march of the Matriarchy, and they do not see the world of crime in the same way the Patriarchy have brainwashed you to view it in the past Madame; if I may make so bold as to point this out to you.
- Moor Larkin
March 9, 2016 at 4:11 pm -
Dumb Ox that I am.. wrong linky… again…. https://twitter.com/moor_facts/status/707577817400254464
- Moor Larkin
- Oi you
March 9, 2016 at 4:44 pm -
We’ve gone from elderly, white entertainers now to young, white footballers. Who’s going to be next?
- Jonathan King
March 9, 2016 at 5:50 pm -
I resent the word “elderly”, Oi. I’m a mere stripling of 71.
- Mudplugger
March 9, 2016 at 7:31 pm -
At least he claimed you were entertaining ! That could spark a whole new debate.
(No offence meant JK, couldn’t resist)
- Mudplugger
- Jonathan King
- Robert Edwards
March 9, 2016 at 6:07 pm -
There is a whopping inconsistency, of course. Mr. Abdullah apparently has a wife in Somalia, and should be deported back there to take care of his responsibilities as opposed to pressing his Mars bar up against the nearest vulnerable-looking female. Adam Johnson is another example of the spoiled ‘celebrity’ (although, not being a follower of football (except the proper kind), I’d never heard of him before now.
Footballers are, I suppose, role models in some shape or form. but I don’t get it. Most seems to be simple oiks.
- Binao
March 9, 2016 at 6:24 pm -
Very easy to be outraged by the behaviour of this stupid young man.
Especially thinking protectively (and not always with sufficient respect) of our sisters & daughters.
But it’s all nonsense even if the law says a crime was committed.
Where’s the proportionality when this offence is compared with the routine corruption and exploitation numbers of vulnerable young women over a period of years?
I also don’t follow the logic of treating this offender differently because he’s richer or more of a public figure.
It’s an inevitable outcome that he will have sacrificed his career, family, and social life; he chose to take that risk and lost, but it’s not part of the justice procedure.
Some decades ago, training staff in disciplinary procedures, the point had to be made that making examples of people is an unfair practice. It isn’t fair to change the rules for past offences; new sanctions are introduced for future offences only. And again, all offenders are equal, except where there’s previous.
Just how I see it.- Mudplugger
March 9, 2016 at 7:37 pm -
But ‘treating an offender differently because he’s richer’ happens all the time when level of fines are calculated, taking into account the offender’s apparent ability to pay, so the principle is well-established.
That would be fairer if the value of the standard fine was either paid in cash or in an equivalent number of community service hours at the minimum wage, or a mixture of the two. But no, rich folk just pay more for the same offence.- Binao
March 9, 2016 at 10:02 pm -
As I said Mudplugger, just how I see it.
Two points though, first paying a fine isn’t likely to be an option for this fool; second there has to be some lunacy in a system that places a cash value on an offence depending on the ability to pay – seems more like taxation of antisocial behaviour than justice.
Again just a view.
- windsock
March 10, 2016 at 7:14 am -
Maybe fines should be set as a percentage of income as declared in the most recent tax return… a fine of £100 is almost 140 per cent of weekly income for someone on JSA – but loose change to someone in the higher tax bracket. If justice is equitable to all, surely those sort of circumstances should be taken into account?
- windsock
- Snook
March 10, 2016 at 8:42 am -
What use would uniform fines be in terms if punishment?
Fining an unemployed or low paid offender £200 probably makes them think twice about repeating the crime but wouldn’t have the slightest punitive affect on someone earning say 50k or more per annum.
Financial punishment needs to be of an amount where it will make the offender ‘feel’ the consequences.
- Binao
- Mudplugger
- Bill Sticker
March 9, 2016 at 7:31 pm -
4-10 years for snogging, not even having sex with, a besotted 14 year old! I shudder to think what would have happened if I hadn’t brushed off a horny 13 year old girl at a party some thirty seven years ago. She had me, a muscular nineteen year old six footer in motorcycle leathers, pinned up against the kitchen units, one arm around my waist pressing her burgeoning cleavage into my chest with a certain uncompromising look in her eye. Her intent was clear, she didn’t want to lose her virginity, she was dead set on giving it away a.s.a.p. Right then and there. With me. In front of everyone. With the lights on. I was cringing in embarrassment because because I really fancied her older sister. Who was of legal age and willing. It was that kind of party.
I was rescued from committing a ‘historic sex crime’ when one of my mates fell down the stairs (he was miraculously unhurt), causing a diversion during which we greasy biker types left for another party with far fewer predatory underage girls. One of my other friends, a grinning witness to my discomfiture, did ask me later “Why didn’t you?” I can’t remember my reply.
- Penseivat
March 9, 2016 at 9:15 pm -
Johnson may be an idiot but, unless the 15 year old had never had a period and was therefore pre-pubescent, he is not a paedophile. The correct term may be ephebophile but then when has the red top press and the scandal rags ever been interested in grammar or the truth. As a, some would say, callow youth of 16 , I was often terrified by the actions of females several years younger then me, and this was in the 60’s when it was thought that funny looks could cause pregnancies. I would suggest that in this day and age, a 15 year old girl would have the same knowledge and desires as a 20+ would in my early days. That doesn’t absolve Johnson of his actions but when Rotherham Muslims are raping 13 year olds without any protests from social services or the police all things should be taken in context. No doubt the young lady will live in constant trauma until, at least, the point when the compensation cheque clears.
- IlovetheBBC
March 9, 2016 at 9:38 pm -
To understand why the sentence being talked about in the footballer’s case is utterly ridiculous to some of us, compare and contrast :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-32781117Sexually assault women in the street while guests in a country providing you with military training and the most you get is a year.
In other news today from the same county, a man found with 12,300 images of child sex abuse got 3 years. I agree with Anna that punishment is in order, but it must be commensurate with the crime and stand comparison with sentencing for other offences.
- martin
March 9, 2016 at 10:02 pm -
“the only difference I can find between the two offences is that I’ll wager the girl in Johnson’s case was considerably less traumatised by kissing someone she wanted to kiss”
I’m afraid you seem not to have followed the case and are drawing a totally fallacious analogy.
Adam Johnson was not convicted of kissing a girl. He was convicted by a jury of grooming her over a period of months, initiating sexual conversation and sticking his fingers in her vagina – not some harmless ‘kiss’ as you seem to believe! Did you do any research? I’m not excusing the crime you are trying to use to stoke up racial and religious tensions (which is how your article comes across) but they are not comparable in terms of what crime was committed and the basis for sentencing.
Frankly you should be ashamed of yourself for perpetuating the ‘she was up for it’ narrative. You should be even more ashamed that you believe grooming a girl just turned 15 to engage in sexual activity is not worthy of prison time. It is also worrying that you are pontificating about sentencing policy when you clearly have no idea how it is determined i.e. the standard tariff for the crime HE WAS FOUND GUILT OF is a custodial sentence of at least 4 years. It may be longer than the minimum because of the ‘abuse of trust’ element added to the crime (in the same way a teacher would be). This seems proportionate and entirely in keeping with the law and sentencing guidelines.
- The Blocked Dwarf
March 10, 2016 at 12:38 am -
Martin, There seems to have been some confused reporting, Certainly I, and I know others, were under the impression he had been convicted of kissing the girl and (I assume) ‘touching’ her but not penetrating. Of course he should get a custodial sentence, even if it were ‘just’ kissing, but even if he inserted finger(s) 4-10 seems excessive, especially when compared with the oral ‘rape’ of the other case.
- Alcibiades
March 10, 2016 at 7:11 am -
Why ‘of course’ a custodial sentence? This seems to be a very marginal breach of age of consent laws. In any sensible jurisdiction he would get a caution and told to mind how he goes.
- Alcibiades
- Bandini
March 10, 2016 at 12:50 am -
In what way is a teacher comparable to a footballer when it comes to an ‘abuse of trust’? And what trust would you or any sane person place in a footballer anyway, and why? A teacher – or social worker in a closed environment such as a children’s home – has day to day contact with & influence over a ‘captive’ child who can go nowhere. That was not the case here.
The “sticking his fingers in her vagina” verdict came with a majority of 10-2 after the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict; if the judge had stuck to his previous call for an ‘all or nothing’ verdict Johnson would likely have been found ‘not guilty’. You are mistaken when you state that he “was convicted by a jury of grooming her over a period of months…” No, he wasn’t; he admitted the ‘grooming’ charge.
And what is this ‘grooming’ anyway? Pretending to be someone you are not (different age, different sex, even) so as to win someone’s confidence, extracting incriminating photographs that can then be used to blackmail the victim into performing acts against their wishes? Or giving away a signed shirt (handing over a nice piece of proof of having met the victim!) followed by modern-day flirting-by-text leading up to heavy petting with the girl who was already ‘besotted’ with him? The guy’s a fool and a creep, but jailing him will achieve nothing tangible except satisfy those who no doubt would have been jostling for a a front-row seat at the foot of the Tyburn Tree…
- The Blocked Dwarf
- James E Shaw
March 9, 2016 at 10:33 pm -
Sorry Anna but for once you’ve got it wrong. I point this out only for the sake of not wanting to give the Child Scare Industry a propaganda victory; I’m sure you are perfectly well aware of the fact that you are top of the hate list of people like Liz Dux and Mark Williams Thomas.
Not that I’m suggesting that that isn’t a good thing but I suspect that contributors like Martin will seize on your mistakes and attack you for them; Johnson was convicted of digital penetration in this case and I’m afraid does deserve a prison sentence.
I do agree with the gist of the article however. It’s quite wrong that there is no question of Johnson never being allowed to resume his career again once his sentence is over while Luke McCormick, then a goalkeeper at Plymouth Argyle, was imprisoned for a drink drive incident that killed two young brothers and was then allowed to carry on in football. I suspect the lesson to be learned from this regrettable incident is that football has a problem with young professionals with a lot of money struggling to cope with keeping a straight head when being exposed to the fame that comes with it. In an ideal world he should go to prison for at most a year, attend a rehabilitation course that teaches the dangers of allowing underage girls to be exposed to sexual situations, and then resume his career. If Luke McCormick can be allowed to resume his career after killing two children through drink driving, so should Johnson.
- The Blocked Dwarf
March 10, 2016 at 12:44 am -
James, having replied to Martin above I thought to check the BBC’s account of the AJ’s verdicts.
cleared Johnson over the oral sex claim but convicted him by a 10-2 majority on the sexual touching charge.
Is ‘touching’ ‘penetration’? I have a feeling it isn’t legally-but will stand correction by those who know more about this. I was under the impression he had put his hand down her jeans and felt how wet she was -as he , apparently, referenced her obvious desire in a text afterwards.
- Alcibiades
March 10, 2016 at 7:15 am -
I think James and Martin are right though. Something more happened, specifically involving the genitals, and you can’t compare the case to some over the top station platform chatup much as Anna would like an angle where our coloured brothers are being treated less harshly. She doesn’t do her formidable reputation justice with this story.
- Alcibiades
- Jonathan Mason
March 11, 2016 at 12:52 pm -
I don’t see how you can ever prove digital penetration unless there is some kind of injury or DNA evidence.
- The Blocked Dwarf
- Eccentric
March 10, 2016 at 9:48 am -
If Dux-the-point, MWTwat & all the usual Pratts had offences (SeXual or not) committed against them or theirs.
By Under AOC so called ‘CHILDREN’ morally, mentally, emotionally, able to CONSENT to committing CRIMES.
They’d damn soon change their mindless mainstream monotone tune as to who really are – so called ‘Victim-Survivors’.
- Ms Mildred
March 10, 2016 at 11:45 am -
It takes courage to speak about the temptress angle of this sad tale. He is ‘grooming’ and she is indulging in a form of stalking. He carries the responsibility to behave himself and reign in his sexual urges. Because she is the magic under sixteen she is not doing anything but chasing a fit young bloke she fancies like crazy. If she was a littler over 16 and contacting the object of her desire in a persistent way, it could be construed as a form of stalking and pestering the object of her desire and engineering connection with him. If he gives into a bombardment of adoration from an over age ardent young girl, he could still wreck his relationship. Parting from his child may still happen but supervised visits and imprisonment would possibly not happen. It would be the ex who might play the game of keeping him away from the child and bad mouthing him to his child. Men like young girls. They look tasty and attractive. Often the partner has been pregnant and now there is a babe taking her attention. Along comes nubile young female of the species and hangs around him and bingo, she may be quids in and innocent mum and babe lose out, and so does silly man, big time. It all seems most unfair to me for an artificial legal construct and a ‘finger trap’ recently set to catch an eager lover. Safe sex, called rape now, all very handy, when it comes in handy.
- windsock
March 10, 2016 at 11:55 am -
Sorry, disagree heartily. You have to define what a child is legally to be able to protect them. We have set that limit as a person under the age of 16. This may be arbitrary and we could argue about how to better define it, but it is what we are stuck with.
She was a child, who was behaving badly.
He was the adult, who should have told her this.
- David
March 10, 2016 at 2:04 pm -
‘Men like young girls’. ‘They look tasty and attractive’. ‘Often the partner has been pregnant and now there is a babe taking her attention’ !!
Are you saying that men are so weak that they ‘cannot control themselves’ ? Men are not weak creatures, unable to control their desires, lusting after young girls, because their wives have lost their youthful glow. That sounds like something out od a Barbra Cartland novel !!!
- windsock
- Crankybleeder
March 10, 2016 at 3:46 pm -
When did it become illegal to kiss a 15-year-old?
Sexual intercourse, sexual assault, I can understand. But a consensual kiss?
Does it have to be on the lips to be illegal? Do tongues have to touch? What about an affectionate peck on the cheek? Is the forehead OK?Best not even risk air kissing!
- Moor Larkin
March 11, 2016 at 1:53 pm -
2003-ish
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3672591.stm
“Sexual touching, the Act says, includes doing it “with any part of the body”, “with anything else”, and “through anything”. Depending on one’s definition, that could technically include snogging as well as the gamut of sexual activities that teenagers often get up to. The guidance notes from the government say it could include “where a person rubs up against someone’s private parts through the person’s clothes for sexual gratification”.”
- Moor Larkin
- Fred Karno
March 10, 2016 at 4:03 pm -
One law for the rich, and one for the poor? Or one for the indigenous and another for those from other cultures?
A distasteful point to raise, perhaps, but how many babies has the NHS helped deliver of under-age, but married, girls from the Indian sub-continent? Thousands, maybe. I was briefly acquainted with a consultant gynaecologist around 2001 who told horrific stories about the child brides which arrived on the Lagos Express, to be treated (mostly for free) for pregnancy complications, often including HIV for both mother and child. Since then the immigration numbers have risen log scale.
How many of these mothers were taken into child-protection care, and their husbands prosecuted as paedophile rapists? None, I hope. A relatively high age of consent – sixteen is on average three years past puberty – seems to be a Protestant thing and in many countries (including EU member states, as you point out) consensual intercourse with fifteen year old girls and boys is a commonplace, not a crime. And any prosecution would result in the couple, plus their child, being a burden on the state which they would not have been otherwise.
It would serve no useful purpose to prosecute the nurses, midwives and doctors for their failure to report an obvious crime; we’d just lose their skills and knowledge while they eat porridge. But to prosecute Mr Johnson whilst turning a blind eye to many thousands of similar cases of underage sexual congress smacks of nothing less than a PC witch hunt.
(I mention the NHS because their gynaecologists can judge a girl’s age to within a few months based upon bone and tissue growth and development without needing to rely upon possibly forged documents and lies about lost passports – see Cologne childrens’ homes for details of immigrants in their twenties claiming to be children of seventeen – not pleasant reading)
- Jonathan Mason
March 11, 2016 at 12:49 pm -
It is only a matter of time before retired politicians are imprisoned for kissing babies in the 60’s.
- Wayne Andrews
March 29, 2016 at 5:59 am -
A bit late to this discussion, but has everyone noticed how the Daily Mail have dropped the “paedo” references to Johnson? I was one (of many, I trust) who wrote to them pointing out that, to meet the definition of paedophilia agreed by the police, the medical profession and the psychiatric profession, the child or children involved must be ‘pre-pubescent’. Johnson committed a crime, but he is not a paedophile, as the girl in this incident was not pre-pubescent. I suppose the Mail originally thought that “Footballer in sex act with underage girl who knew what she was doing” wasn’t much of a headline…………
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