Can a 16 year old girl "groom" a 44 year old teacher?

He was in a position of authority over her and she was underage. End of. Regardless of her behaviour, she was the vulnerable person and he was entirely in the wrong.

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

That is the default position yes. But we were not privy to the evidence. The judge who was had this to say of the girl which is the crucial statement.

If the default position is always taken then girls or boys could do this with impunity. As I said clearly the teacher had issues and should not have been so stupid in the first place but there are two sides here (according to the judge - a female judge too). Let's not pretend that all teenagers are stupid and innocent themselves because the argument can be put given the judges remarks that this girl knew exactly what she was doing. I suppose that is the crux of this case.

As the adult and the teacher he had the authority to remove himself from interaction with the student and or report her inappropriate behaviour.

No one has said teenagers are always either 'stupid or innocent' - that's not the point. The issue is that teenagers lack maturity to make fully informed decisions.

I believe that too many paedophiles use similar arguments when justifying similar interaction with children and adolescents.

Is it possible for a teenaged girl to throw herself at an older man? Absolutely, I've seen it. The man, however, being both older and in a position of authority had a responsibility to remove himself from the situation and put a stop to it. A grown adult trying to excuse having sex with a teenaged girl by saying that she groomed him is pathetic.

Yes the teacher should have known better and yes a 16 year old can be mature enough to know what they are doing (not all 16 year olds are the same) but if she was 17 for example, then it would all be legal- would it really be that big a difference?
If it was a 44 year old guy and a 17 year old first year college student, who met in a club, slightly strange age gap but all 'legal' - nobody would say a thing. Don't think its always black or white. I don't know enough about the case to have a view but 16 year olds can be mature enough to be completely aware of their situation - it's a tricky one all right but loneliness can do strange things to people.

seventeen sheep wrote: »

I am sure some sixteen year olds are capable of knowingly and purposefully doing this. However it doesn't negate the fact that his actions were wrong. I don't think it should be a case of trying to split the "blame" 50/50 or 60/40 or whatever ... She's not the one under trial here, he is. It shouldn't matter how much she flirted with him or chased him - he should have had the strength to remain professional and deal with the situation appropriately. I know if I were a parent in that school, I wouldn't be happy to have my daughter in his class.

It matters a lot because it is the difference between him being a predator and being a foolish man who's loneliness led him to make a serious mistakes.

Neyite wrote: »

But for a judge to blame it on a silly schoolgirl with no prior sexual experience and to imply that she was some sort of sophisticated femme fatale who seduced an unwitting man is utterly ridiculous and blatant victim blaming. Even if the girl was gyrating naked in front of him, the correct response from any teacher would be to extricate themselves from the situation asap and involve the headmaster, call her parents, not take her virginity in a school store room on a yoga mat.

I think your exaggeration shows your own bias here and overshadows any point you might have.

Sting was a teacher!

Teacher is a dead ringer for Kevin's father from The Wonder Years.

bucketybuck wrote: »

I think your exaggeration shows your own bias here and overshadows any point you might have.

It's not an exaggeration, it's a pretty accurate summation of the judges opinion. Recognition of the law isn't bias, and ignoring it is no excuse. As Neyite said - this man knew what he was doing was inappropriate, morally wrong, illegal, yet while the judge claimed he didn't encourage the girl, he didn't discourage her either, which is what he should have done. You can make all the claims you want too about how he was "vulnerable" and all the rest of it, but it was his wife who suffered a miscarriage, not him!

As Neyite said, it doesn't matter if she had danced naked in front of him, even thrown herself upon him, the fact is that the girl was not in a position of authority over him and had no responsibility towards him, no duty of care towards him, so she is not responsible for his actions. He is responsible for his own actions. We teach children to say 'NO!', and I for one am not about to go making excuses for adults who can't say "NO!".

The fact the judge is a woman in this case isn't relevant either, her gender doesn't preclude her from introducing her own bias in expressing her own opinion, and it is disheartening to hear a judge hold a young person responsible for the actions of an adult who knew exactly what they were doing.

Neyite wrote: »

But for a judge to blame it on a silly schoolgirl with no prior sexual experience and to imply that she was some sort of sophisticated femme fatale who seduced an unwitting man is utterly ridiculous and blatant victim blaming.

Thankfully most judges, including the one in this case, are wiser than the majority of the mainstream and tabloid journalists, and wiser than most of the reactionaries posting on the internet.

This was a female judge, thankfully. Most intelligent people would pause for a moment before assuming it was old-man-nonsense that she was spouting, and would look at the context of the comments.

The judge did not blame the schoolgirl. The jury found him guilty and she had the task of deciding on the sentence. The role of the judge is to apply some form of reasoning to how a sentence should be formed, and in this case she explained her reasoning. I thought her reasoning was pretty sound.

• Firstly, she acknowledged that this was not at the most serious end of the sex-with-minors scale of the offence
• The victim's age was the main issue in that view, as she was at the higher-end of the minor age range.
• More importantly the judge had to consider how pre-meditated the crime was, and this is the critical factor in deciding most sentences
• In that regard she noted the teacher had not made any attempt to 'groom' the victim. This is important because it is an indicator as to his likelihood to re-offend. Likelihood of re-offence is a key element in determining the severity of the sentence.
• The judge further commented that the 16-year-old had in fact been the one to pursue the teacher. Stating this as a fact is perfectly reasonable. She did not attach blame against the girl for her actions because let's face it, in the eyes of the law, that 16-year-old is not deemed capable of making a sexual selection in a consensual manner. Rightly so.
• But the actions of the girl do explain to some extent that the teacher's actions were due to his weakness rather than to a malicious desire to have sex with a minor. Accordingly the judge reasoned that a sentence in the lower range of the law was appropriate.

Having explained her reasoning the judge still applied the law perfectly and imposed a sentence. Lack of pre-meditation was the primary factor in allowing the custodial sentence to be suspended. She deemed he was unlikely to offend. These are decisions that judges make, and for the most part, make well.

Tabloid media will always seek to make scandal from a case which involves sex. If there's a teacher involved it will be even more sensational and sell more papers. Reactionaries who want to "throw the book" at every sex offender really should not be given much public airing. That is not good judgement, it is reducing real life to TV drama.

Personally I think it's ironic that this man was a religious education teacher. Clearly he had plenty of study in areas of morality to know that what he was doing was wrong. He should have known better, and has no excuse for that. I understand that he had marital issues and may have been lonely, but to take comfort in the arms of a 16-year-old is just so perverse that it boggles the mind.

But I agree with the judge that this is a story about a weak man, not about another Ian Watkins.