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Rapist coddled because his victim “didn’t look 10”

The judge thinks she looked 16 and she was wearing a frilly bra and a thong, so raping her ain’t no big thing. This is the same judge who apparently ordered a pedophile to buy his victim a new bicycle. The article, in its entirety:

A JUDGE spared a man who raped a girl of ten in a park — because she wore a “provocative” frilly bra and thong.

Window cleaner Keith Fenn, 25 — who could have got life in jail — will be free in just FOUR MONTHS after admitting twice having sex with the child.

Judge Julian Hall decided to be lenient because the girl “didn’t look 10”.

He caused fury earlier this year by freeing another paedophile, telling him to buy his six-year-old victim a new bicycle.

The judge referred to the 10-year-old as a “young woman”, and called her “very disturbed, very needy and sexually precocious”.

He told Oxford Crown Court: “She liked to dress provocatively. She was 10. She’d been in care since she was four.

“Did she look 10? Certainly not. She looked 16.”

Fenn, of Oxford, got two years’ jail but will soon be free because of time spent awaiting sentence. Accomplice Darren Wright, 34, of Henley-on-Thames walked free after getting just nine months.

Last night, campaigner Dr Michele Elliott of children’s charity Kidscape called the sentences “beyond pathetic”.

The NSPCC added: “There’s no excuse.”

Perhaps Emperor Misha is his alter-ego?

The good news is that there’s an investigation into the leniency of this sentence. Disturbingly, this isn’t the first time a sexual predator has gotten off lightly:

In 113 cases, the sentence was judged to be unduly lenient and in 108 cases it was increased. This number was the highest in the last six years.

Sentences were increased in seven murder cases, seven manslaughters, 24 cases involving sex abuse, 20 robberies, seven firearms crimes, 18 drugs offences and six deaths by dangerous driving.

Judges dealing with sexual offenders were most likely to let offenders off too lightly, the figures revealed.

Shocking.


21 thoughts on Rapist coddled because his victim “didn’t look 10”

  1. The judge referred to the 10-year-old as a “young woman”, and called her “very disturbed, very needy and sexually precocious”.

    He told Oxford Crown Court: “She liked to dress provocatively. She was 10. She’d been in care since she was four.

    “Did she look 10? Certainly not. She looked 16.”

    Sooooo, what, that means she’s perfect for sexual abuse??

  2. Because what’s better for a disturbed, needy child separated from her parents who may well have been abusive, if she’s in care, who dresses “provocatively” (and I wouldn’t be shocked if she does so in order to get the attention that she can’t get from her parents/other caretakers) than to be raped? That completely ameliorates these guys’ crime!

    (That’s sarcasm)

  3. UK feminists, what’s up with this? What’s the process to get a judge thrown off the bench?

  4. because she wore a “provocative” frilly bra and thong

    So she was just wandering around in nothing more than a bra and thong? (Not that that would in any way make it ok, even if she were) Or is it that raping her is retroactively OK, since once he got her clothes off, it turned out she was wearing frilly underwear?

  5. Oh. My. Fucking. God. When in doubt, blame the victim AGAIN. This shit gets OLD.

    Just yesterday at the local beach, our 12 year old daughter experienced her first grope while wearing a new 2 piece suit. One 11 year old boy kept trying underwater to grab at her crotch, even though she moved away, slapped at his hands, and told him to cut it out. When he wouldn’t stop, she came out of the water and came over to wrap up in a towel.

    She was clearly upset and embarrasses, so I asked why- when she told me, I went over to tell my husband, who was fishing nearby. Together, they went over to speak with the lifeguards, who were hearing complaints about some of the other kids in the same group. 2 of the boys have now been kicked off of the beach for a week with the understanding that if they repeat this sort of behavior, they will be permanently banned.

    I think she handled it all as well as she could and told her so- her father added that if we hadn’t have been around, she should have slugged him in the face!

  6. Disguting. I bet this is the same judge that let Ben Bree off on appeal . This was a guy that got a woman so drunk she spent the night vomiting, then went into her room after she’d gone to bed and had sex with her. He was convicted of rape by a jury of his peers, but was acquitted on appeal by a single judge because, apparently, being completely unable to give consent isn’t enough to make it rape. And then the bastard publicly forgives his victim for taking him to court in the local paper.

  7. Crap like this is why people demand zero-tolerance laws.

    And zero-tolerance laws, in turn, lead to cases like this, in which a 17-year-old boy got 10 years for getting a (voluntary) BJ from a 15-year-old girl.

    You just can’t win. Unless you get judges with a little common sense, which seems to be too much to hope for.

    (And lest anyone think I’m being snooty about UK judges, we have plenty of doofus judges in the USA. I’ll never forget one case, in Wisconsin, where a judge let a guy off because the victim was a “promiscuous young lady.” The victim was five years old.)

  8. “Did she look 10? Certainly not. She looked 16.”

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t raping sixteen-year-olds also illlegal?

  9. I would respond, but I’m too busy cleaning the vomit off the keyboard from the thought of that poor little girl. No matter how long she looked, or what she was wearing, a 10 year old is A LITTLE GIRL!!!

  10. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t raping sixteen-year-olds also illlegal?

    He (basically) got done for statutory rape; they just had to prove her age and that they had sex to get a conviction. She also gave apparent consent, so if she were 16 the sex would have been legal.

    The judges issue was that the defendant appeared to have had an honestly held and reasonable belief that she was 16. It’s not just the judge who thought that either: the doctors who examined her seemed to have suffered the same misapprehension about her age as the defendant, and the defence accepted that she looked 16. The problem is whether mistaken belief should act as mitigation for a strict liability crime with a long maximum jail term.

  11. This was a forcible rape, to hell with the mere statutory rape charge. Maybe I am naive but how many 4th-grade 10 year-old girls are even interested in sexual intercourse? Illegal either way but this was an undercharge. This grown-ass man raped a 10 year-old less than an hour after meeting her.

    Justice would be that inmate Hank the Hairy Highlander gives him a Highlander Special less than an hour after their acquaintance in prison.

  12. And zero-tolerance laws, in turn, lead to cases like this, in which a 17-year-old boy got 10 years for getting a (voluntary) BJ from a 15-year-old girl.

    There’s more to that story that most of the media are ignoring. They went after him for the statutory charge because they couldn’t get a conviction on the other case against him, in which a 17 year old girl accused him of raping her while she was intoxiacted to the point of semi-consciousness. (That incident occurred at the same party on the same night)

  13. This is a horrible story!

    But I’m just kind of wondering…who let’s their ten year old daughter wear a thong? Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way WHATSOEVER blaming the victim. I’m just a little confused as to why a ten year old needs to wear a thong. My mother wouldn’t even let me have one until I was at least 16 and only because it would get rid of a panty line under my dress clothes. I just feel like thong underwear is more of an adult thing to wear.

    Is there any way this judge can be forced to not oversee any more court cases where he can ruin rape victims lives and put perverts on the street? I mean, is there no oversight to see that this man is ruling these cases wrong?

  14. I don’t want to be the one horrible person defending a pedophile or an evil judge, but if this really is a statutory rape charge, as appears to be the case from this article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6237480.stm ; Nik, do you have a clearer reference?), then the judge’s comments take on a different light. My take from this article is that the sex was not forcible, and that the activities would have been deemed consensual, if not for the fact that a 10-year old cannot legally consent to have sex. If this is the case, then it is relevant whether or not a reasonable person would have known that she was ten years old, and it is relevant whether she looked 16. Not because it’s OK to rape 16-year-olds, as the article above seemed to suggest, but because it’s OK to have consensual sex with 16-year-olds, and so it’s relevant to ask whether the accused were breaking the law knowingly or unintentionally.

  15. If this is the case, then it is relevant whether or not a reasonable person would have known that she was ten years old, and it is relevant whether she looked 16.

    I disagree. It is your responsibility to make certain that your sexual partners actively consent to sexual activity. He knew she looked young…he was on notice that she might possibly be under age…he recklessly disregarded that information and had sex with someone who was not capable of consenting. If she looked 30 you might possibly have a point…but not 16.

  16. I hate to be on this guy’s side, but the girl did TELL him she was 16 and willingly had oral and vaginal sex with him. I think it’s awful that this poor 10-year-old has already obviously so seriously abused that she thinks this kind of behavior is OK and I think this guy definitely took advantage of her, even if he did truly believe her to be 16. Either way this story is sad and gross.

  17. I hate to be on this guy’s side, but the girl did TELL him she was 16 and willingly had oral and vaginal sex with him.

    According to the article, he asked and she said “does it really matter?”

    If a store sells cigarettes to a 12 year old is it suddenly legal because the clerk thought he looked 18?

  18. I hate to be on this guy’s side

    Yeah. Your pain is practically visible.

    We are talking about A CHILD. She was TEN YEARS OLD. She was not old enough to give meaningful consent, forget “legal consent”. If a six year old says “Touch my peepee!” is that consent, in your book? Is it just a sad thing if a grown man goes ahead and has sex with the kid?

    The men who had sex with her were 25 and 34. This isn’t Romeo and Juliet.

  19. I thought, even if a person under the legal age of consent “consents” (which I don’t believe any 10 year old is capable of doing) to have sex with a person above a certain age, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that the underage person “consented” or that the person looked at or above the legal age because no matter what it’s against the law. Am I correct?

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