Severe punishment for unknown underage sex.

Re social media interactions. Check out the type of language used in early teen magazines and websites. I had to do this in the line of work and was pretty horrified at the language these young girls used. She could very easily have convinced him online of her maturity. As I've said, there are some startlingly immature and naive young men around. I suppose that it's to the girls credit that she wouldn't co operate with the court.

Last year I took my GS 12 with me while I picked up younger GSs from a play date. The father of the child jumped up to greet my GS and offered him a drink. GS was 6ft, now 6’2” and while he does look much older than his age and is a mature boy and appears to some to be an older teenager, he is only twelve. I believe after talking with him for awhile it’s obvious that he is a lot younger than he looks.

I can’t believe this man didn’t for a minute wonder if this girl was under 16.

I can’t ever agree that girls are predators as a pp posted.. Girls are children and there is never any excuse for a man to have sex with a girl of twelve. His excuse is he didn’t know, he should have made sure. Being on the sex offenders list is a good thing. I would hope in the future he isn’t looking for other children on the internet to exploit.

He was 27, she was 12. The responsibility is his. Full stop.

Why was she on a dating website? Why did her mother have to sleep downstairs to try to stop her sneaking out at night? Much more to this story than the obvious.

Why do people spend so much time making excuses for men like this. He might be an alien from outer space for all we know. Yes, there are naive young men, there are incredibly mature 12 year olds, but very very few of either, even less do you get the two coming together.

I take cases like this at face value until I am given very solid evidence to the contrary. I do not think naive young men take lots of explicit pictures and send them to their friends.

This was an unpleasant and predatory man who has got what he deserved.

anja it is not about believing anything. It is just my opinion based on the information in the public domain and my experience with the young people I know... as most of us base our opinions on. I know there are GNers who have SW experience in the area of sexual exploitation..They will know better than me.

I can't understand the excuses either MOnica

He was 27. She was 12.

He was an adult. She was 12.

He is to blame. She is not.

So easy to judge without any actual knowledge. If only life was as simple as you lot seem to think it is. It must be lovely for you.

As far as I know all the information we have reached conclusions on is in the public domain.

It does sound as though he was rather a cad. Whatever the age of the girls he dated, distributing photographs to his friends is not an honourable way to behave. But I agree with Jane10 - there is more to this story than is being publicised, and given her age, it is likely to stay untold.

She seems to have genuinely appeared to be older - should he have asked to see a birth certificate? There are girls who are much more mature at 12 than others are at 19 and can appear to be that age if they wish to. Can talk as though they are older too - if they have an interest in the world their conversation may be as wide and as sensible as a twenty-year-old's.

However, without all the details I would assume that the judge knew more than we do and probably got it right. It also gives a precedent to others who are not deceived by the mere statement from a girl that she is old enough to consent, but the men go ahead anyway - they will think they can claim ignorance.

That should read "It would also give a precedent^ if he had been acquitted.

Just going by the same information that you have, in the article, I get a completely different impression MOnica.
You call him an unpleasant and predatory young man - I can see no evidence that he was either. They met through a normal adult dating site (not one advertising young girls), she said in her profile that she was 19 and experienced.
She suggested that they go back to his apartment. They had one alcoholic drink (he did not ply her with alcohol as has been suggested). They performed a consensual sexual act. Obviously if he had known her to be under age this would have been criminal. However, the prosecution lawyer said " 'He didn't believe he was talking to a child who was under 18. When they spent the night at his property, he believed she was over 18".

I just read the whole article, and they met on a dating app, where her profile stated she was 19.
Yes, he has behaved badly, taking a photo of her and so on, but perhaps he did think she was 19?
If 19 year olds want to meet up with men they barely know and go home with them, and allow them to take pics, well...

Crossed posts, grandmaKT, but it looks like we both drew the same conclusion from reading the article.

How could a 12 year old be out all night and no one notice

I refuse to believe that any 12 year old, no matter how mature, well developed etc etc could possibly pass herself off as 19, especially once her clothes were off.

I have a rising 12 year old GD, who is tall and well built for her age and very adept at dressing herself up and applying make-up and frankly there is no way that she could pass herself off as 16 let alone older, even if she dressed and made herself up with an intention of appearing as old as possible.

The girl is said to have s social worker. It may be she was sexually experienced at 12 because of abuse or sexual exploitation. He was a 27 year old adult, she a 12 year old girl. The court had all the information, found him guilty and sent him to hmp.

Helen Shapiro aged 14

What a sad, lost, precocious girl.....craving love and affection I guess.

I do believe that a 12 year old can have the figure of a 19 year old but their faces are likely to look 15 or 16 maximum. The main thing is that talking to a 12 year old it soon becomes obvious that they are still a child. There is a huge mental and emotional gap between 12 and 19 even if some 12 year olds are physically advanced.

Some of the 20 year olds and older who I have seen on reality tv programmes such as Big Brother don't seem particularly mature to me!

Do you think they actually did much talking though?

You are joking aren’t you, a 12 year old girl would look like a 12yeat old in the way they look, dress, talk and act.

This girl is obviously very vunerable with an extremely difficult life to be engaging in this behaviour.

The man on the other hand is a low down dirt bag who will have time to think about what a low life he is.

My daughter looked very mature at 12.
5ft 7 tall, big boobs, long blonde hair.
I was always having to shout at men "she's bloody 13!" when we were out an about.
It was just how she looked, not contrived, or trying to look older.

A lot of the attitudes on here explain why the sex trafficking scandals have
happened.

Also it’s insulting to men in general