Severe punishment for unknown underage sex.

I have yet to meet a 12 year old that could seriously pass themselves off as 19, other that in the dusk with the light behind them.

Certainly it would be clear she wasn't 19 in close up and undressed.

The man concerned must have had his suspicions at some point but decided to chance it.

It all sounds very odd. I know some 12yr old children mature physically but there is still a difference in an adolescent body and a 19 yr olds. Just because she was playing at being a grown up does not mean there were not tell tale hints that she was really just a child.
He was 27.. men of that age should be able to make better judements. There is no suggestion that he had any cognitive delay or difficulty.

Agree with the last two posters. There is no way that a naked 12 year old could look like a 19 year old.

That poor girl, why wasn't she being looked after better than this. Is that the best sort of life she should have been leading?

A 27 year old man certainly should have known better.

I do feel sorry for men these days who end up in this situation, as girl are often the predators and make themselves look older, but surely she looked a lot younger than 19 bodywise,
Who encouraged her to say she was 19.[what is MO]
i think he should appeal,, and have learned his lesson about meeting girls off facebook etc
I think her parents, should have checked her facebook profile, as she seems to have form for disappearing and who knows, maybe this has happened before with her
How was this discovered? i dont think it says?

My insides are turning over at the thought of this 12 year old child, the same age as one of my GGD's whose 12 year frame is just that------a 12 year old ! Anyone with half an eye can make a distinction between a 12 year old and a 19 year old, it's not just a couple of years difference, it's 7 years.

The CPS were right for once !

Not having seen the girl in question I cannot comment, but I have seen a 12 year old boy who looked like an adult.

anja;there are children who mature earlier or later than their peers..often caused by some hormonal imbalance.
There is no suggestion that this is the case in this situation. My DGD1 is 13..same year group at school as the girl concerned.. DGD2 is taller than me but deffo 13 yrs old... physically and in other ways. She plays football eith girls same age but bigger...they are still obviously 13!

I taught a Year 6 girl who insisted on wearing a bikini for swimming lessons, She was tall and well-developed; I saw her undressed and she would certainly have passed for a fifteen year old then, so I do believe it is possible.

I haven’t seen the girl or a photo of her, have you then?

That was to PECS

Really she insisted?? Was this school swimming or private lessons?
If school she would not have been in the water but back at school researching the health benefits of swimming. She is not in charge!

I saw the article in Mail online and if you read the comments, there are lots of mothers saying that their 12 year olds could easily pass for 19. The girl posed as a 19 year old and said she was "experienced" on her profile. The man has lost his job and his home and now has a prison sentence and needs to sign the sex register for life. I do think it is unfair.

My almost 13 year old DGD looks exactly her age although she is very small and typically wears aged 8-9 clothes . She is perfect but just very petite . Her best friend however ....... could easily pass for 16-17 (maybe older even if she tried ) she is quite tall and “very fully formed” it would only be her typically silly 13 year old girl chat, that might give away her real age .
My soon to be 34 year old DD still gets asked for ID in supermarkets . Some people really can’t judge ages . Not saying this man was in the right or wrong just saying it’s sometimes difficult to tell .

Not particularly sympathetic towards a man of almost thirty who is trawling the internet to pick up teenagers, no.

Another scenario is that this 12 year old could well have felt " inadequate " against her peers of the same/similar age so was trying to make herself look older than her years ?
Some 12 year old girls appear/are to be immature for their age in comparison to others, they're all different.
All the more reason for the prosecution if this too was the case.

The fact that the male was trawling the internet and apparently not looking on " dating " sites where it gives the ages of the clients is enough to tell me what it was he was looking for.

Hoping that you are the only one outraged at CPS. How is any of this severe punishment? His actions come across as a predator anyway - meet girl online, lure her in, take her to your apartment on the VERY FIRST DATE, get her intoxicated (praying he didn't spike her drink), have sex with her then take explicit videos and pics of her to publish to his friends. Yuck!

Irrespective of her age, some other girl would probably have been a victim of his predatory actions. The fact that the 12 year old refused to speak questions if she even remembers that night too well. Had she cooperated this may have turned out to be a rape case. The real question is how many girls has he done this to and got away with it? He abused her rights by taking explicit videos of her and sharing them with his friends. He deserves all that he got, cause even if she was 19, his actions towards hr are gross and wrong and no one should justify them.

I can just about accept that a 12 year old girl with a well developed bosom and body hair might look like a 19 year old, but she as sure as h**l didn't sound like one, if the man took the trouble to talk to her!

A tall girl flat as a board might be able to pass herself off as over the age of consent when actually under it, but there again, if the 27 year old man took the trouble to talk to her, he might just have realised that she was younger than she said.

Even if she looked 19, would she have sounded 19?

If she'd been almost 16, but not quite, it would be difficult to tell.

I daresay he'll think twice before he sleeps with someone he hardly knows but perhaps other Gransnetters will tell me I'm old-fashioned.

I’ve known plenty of 19 years olds who act and sound like little kids.

There are some desperately inexperienced 27 year old men. I've met some very sadly naive ones who have got into trouble with just such girls. Very difficult and sad situation all round. I suppose the courts have to obey the letter of the law though.

Good point Jane

Nothing in the reports suggest he was an immature or naive 27yr old.
Really sad for all concerned. The bottom line is she was a child of 12 he was a 27yr old adult at the time of the offence.
There is a developing view that social media sites etc. need to be held more responsible for actions that result from interacting with the site.

I suppose the moral of the story is either don't have casual sex, or if you are going to, be very, very sure about the person you're having it with.

Believe what you want to believe then PECS

I prefer to think that this young man thought this girl was of age. There is nothing to suggest that he is in the habit of having sex with underage girls previous to this.

I knew someone, a very silly woman, who boasted that her 13-year old daughter managed to gain entrance to a nightclub, no questions asked. Seriously! It does beggar believe.