British Judge, Prosecutor Call 13-Year-Old Teen Sex-Abuse Victim ‘Predatory.’
Child victims advocates, women’s rights campaigners, and pretty much anyone else even slightly like-minded are up in arms in Britain this week over a judge’s decision to hand out an eight-month suspended sentence to a man who had sex with a 13-year-old girl. As lenient as that punishment may sound, the real outrage appears centered on the rationale used by both the prosecuting lawyer and the presiding judge in the sentencing of 41-year-old Neil Wilson, who was also found to be in possession of images of child abuse and bestiality. The Independent with the offending quotes from the judge (emphasis mine):
Wilson was told by Judge Nigel Peters that he had taken account [of] the fact his child victim looked older during sentencing at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Monday.
He added: “You have come as close to prison as is imaginable. I have taken in to account that even though the girl was 13, the prosecution [says] she looked and behaved a little bit older…. On these facts, the girl was predatory and was egging you on…”
Sky News, meanwhile, has one of the original quotes from barrister Robert Colover, who was representing the Crown Prosecution Service, the government agency in charge of prosecuting crimes in England and Wales: “The girl is predatory in all her actions and she is sexually experienced,” he reportedly told the court.