nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Child Item

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

Kermit.de.frog

Apologies if a thread already on this. I didn't see one.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/14/former-london-teacher-convicted-over-affair-with-teenager

Interesting case in England where a judge apparently had more to say about a 16 year old student rather than the 44 year old teacher she says she groomed.

I was watching a debate on this on British television yesterday and the audience seemed to go right a long with the idea of the girl as a victim. Having been 16 not long a go myself I got the impression that they were actually naive in that they seem to think that teenagers today are not capable of such things or they have some innocent idealistic opinions about teenagers - that they are all innocent etc.

I'm not so sure. I can well believe this case even though the teacher clearly is an idiot or has personal issues and should not have been teaching kids anyway if that is the case.

In two minds on this. Yes the teacher is at fault himself but I also don't think this is as extraordinary as made out regarding the girl's actions.

Be interested to see views on this.

Find more posts tagged with

Quick Links

Comments

osarusan

jimgoose wrote: »

Your points being what? That this child is a wicked femme-fatale who lures 40-something-year old men to their doom, siren-like, with feminine guile and sheer subtle manipulation? "Naive and deluded"?? Would you ever... Cheeses!! :pac::pac::pac:

Do you not see any middle ground between the above extreme and this:

jimgoose wrote: »

Sixteen-year-olds have no idea what they want.

jimgoose

osarusan wrote: »

Do you not see any middle sgorund between the above extreme and this:

Not at my age, no. Sorry!

AudreyHepburn

jimgoose wrote: »

Your points being what? That this child is a wicked femme-fatale who lures 40-something-year old men to their doom, siren-like, with feminine guile and sheer subtle manipulation? "Naive and deluded"?? Would you ever... Cheeses!! :pac::pac::pac:

No our points are that the girl is not in fact a child and she knew what she was doing.

Does this absolve the teacher of his actions? Of course not nor has anyone said otherwise.

All we've said the that the girl is not an innocent little child who has been hurt by the big bad man. She had her part to play to and acknowledging that does not lessen the teacher's actions at all.

jimgoose

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

No our points are that the girl is not in fact a child and she knew what she was doing.

Does this absolve the teacher of his actions? Of course not nor has anyone said otherwise.

All we've said the that the girl is not an innocent little child who has been hurt by the big bad man. She had her part to play to and acknowledging that does not lessen the teacher's actions at all.

Well alright, I'll buy that - in part!

Neyite

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

Who's excusing him? All anyone has said is that portraying the girl involved as a sweet innocent child corrupted by a big bad sex offender is off the mark.

Of course he was wrong but that does not and should not absolve the girl of her actions.

It matters very much who started and how the girl conducted herself because it makes the difference between the teacher being a predator and being a lonely weak man who made a seriously stupid mistake.

He's not a monster, she's not an innocent and we need to stop trying to make them out to be.

She didnt break the law. She was not the one on trial. Nobody is saying she was all sweet and innocent, but the fact remains that it should be irrelevant how she conducted herself given that she was a minor in the eyes of the law.

If you left your house unlocked and got burgled, do you think that the thief should get let off because you left your door unlocked? You may have been an idiot, or not thinking straight, or distracted when leaving the house, but you are still the victim of a crime, and you still deserve that crime to be punished.

In hindsight, you'd kick yourself for not thinking straight that morning, but you don't deserve the judge to tell the thief that they were just at a low point in their life, that you took advantage of that, that you appear to be a manipulative and deceitful person anyway, and that you somehow deserved to be burgled. You made a mistake, but that does not mean that the person who took advantage of your vulnerability at the time should get to blame you.

lolo62

If the title of this thread isn't a towering monument to describing an adult who cannot take responsibility I don't know what is

gozunda

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

No our points are that the girl is not in fact a child and she knew what she was doing.
Does this absolve the teacher of his actions? Of course not nor has anyone said otherwise.
All we've said the that the girl is not an innocent little child who has been hurt by the big bad man. She had her part to play to and acknowledging that does not lessen the teacher's actions at all.

If you say that she is not a "child" and the law says she is not an adult - then exactly what category is she?

I don't belive anyone here has implied that " the girl is not an innocent little child who has been hurt by the big bad man". That is simply hyperbole.

What is clear that the responsible person in this situation was an adult, a teacher, a person with a duty of care towards his pupils. He grossly abused his position. I really hope his wife finds someone more suited to being a father.

BBJBIG

ViveLaVie wrote: »

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.

Of course, his mikkie was doin d tinkin ... :eek:

suicide_circus

It is worth noting that had this man not been her teacher, he would not have been guilty of a crime.....but he was and he is.

Saralee4

"There is no evidence you encouraged her in any way. There is no evidence you groomed her. If anything it was she who groomed you. You gave way to temptation at a time when you were emotionally vulnerable because of problems with your wife’s pregnancy.

“She was intelligent and used that intelligence to manipulate people emotionally. She was vulnerable and needy and had a troubled home life.”

So his vulnerability means that he 'gave way to temptation' but her vulnerability and troubled home life makes her an intelligent emotional manipulator.

Kermit.de.frog

gozunda wrote: »

If you say that she is not a "child" and the law says she is not an adult - then exactly what category is she?

I don't belive anyone here has implied that " the girl is not an innocent little child who has been hurt by the big bad man". That is simply hyperbole.

What is clear that the responsible person in this situation was an adult, a teacher, a person with a duty of care towards his pupils. He grossly abused his position. I really hope his wife finds someone more suited to being a father.

Let's overlook the teacher's culpability for one moment -

What punishment should be handed down to this girl for her actions?

Or do you think that it's fair game for a 16 y/o to behave in such a way with absolute impunity?

Saralee4

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Let's overlook the teacher's culpability for one moment -

What punishment should be handed down to this girl for her actions?

Or do you think that it's fair game for a 16 y/o to behave in such a way with absolute impunity?

The teacher should have acted and stopped it from happening and then before anything happened they could have removed the girl from that class and got her into some kind of counselling and sort out her home life.

osarusan

Neyite wrote: »

but the fact remains that it should be irrelevant how she conducted herself given that she was a minor in the eyes of the law.

Do you think a judge should not be allowed to exercise discretion and take her conduct into account?

Gatling

Is he a pervert ,no
Is he a scum bag ,no
Was he stupid ,yes very
Hard to know what was going through his mind his wife had suffered a miscarriage not an excuse but its likely he had a laspe of moral judgement ,
What's worse to me he's lost his job and will never teach again and his wife has been put on leave by her job ,
Meanwhile the girl involved will probably get to sell her story to a tabloid in a year or 2 giving an all together different account

gozunda

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Let's overlook the teacher's culpability for one moment -

What punishment should be handed down to this girl for her actions?

Or do you think that it's fair game for a 16 y/o to behave in such a way with absolute impunity?

Are you serious?

Neyite

I’m reminded of something that happened to me many years ago. My flatmate was a care worker in a house shared by people with mild intellectual disabilities next door. She brought them in one day as she was passing to say hello. We were all young – 19 or 20 or so.

Later that week, my flatmate encountered one of those men in our hallway and he proceeded to grab her, wrestle her to the ground, tried to kiss her and groped her breasts. Luckily his absence had been quickly spotted and the screams alerted his carers before he could continue.

So let’s pretend she was as willing as he was to have sex in the above scenario.

While he had normal hormonal urges like any man, understood sex education and how sex happened, if my flatmate had decided to have sex with him, even though he would have fully grasped what was likely to happen, and he would have been willing, and thoroughly enjoyed himself, it would have still been wrong.

The law would hold the view that he was not deemed capable of consent. And if a judge had claimed that the care worker was groomed by the client, and was partly to blame, I think most of us would find those comments quite distasteful and unnecessary.

Kermit.de.frog

gozunda wrote: »

Are you serious?

Yes. You clearly think all 16 y/o's are innocent little pups so presumably you think her behaviour should not be punished in any way. That's all i'm asking.

kylith

Gatling wrote: »

Is he a scum bag ,no

Disagree with you there. His wife suffered a miscarriage and he responded to that by shagging a 16 year old entrusted to his care.

Any single shred of 'well, maybe it's understandable' I may have had vanished when I read

Jurors heard that he had told the teenager their relationship was “written in
the stars”. He had shown her a condom he had brought into school and told her he
would use it when she became too “irresistible”, the prosecution told the court.

He didn't have an unfortunate lapse of judgement, he planned and prepared for the affair and took advantage of a teenager's crush on him.

Kermit.de.frog

Saralee4 wrote: »

The teacher should have acted and stopped it

Yes but that's not what I asked with all due respect. I asked should 16 y/o's be able to behave this way without statutory punishment. I think there is some room for an example to be made here in some future case should it arise. I don't think it's ok for 16 y/o to behave like she did as per the words of the judge.

Neyite

Gatling wrote: »

Is he a pervert ,no
Is he a scum bag ,no
Was he stupid ,yes very
Hard to know what was going through his mind his wife had suffered a miscarriage not an excuse but its likely he had a laspe of moral judgement ,
What's worse to me he's lost his job and will never teach again and his wife has been put on leave by her job ,
Meanwhile the girl involved will probably get to sell her story to a tabloid in a year or 2 giving an all together different account

1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage. If every partner went off the rails at a miscarriage, we'd see a lot more action before the courts. Its a pathetic excuse.

bucketybuck

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Yes but that's not what I asked with all due respect. I asked should 16 y/o's be able to behave this way without statutory punishment. I think there is some room for an example to be made here in some future case should it arise. I don't think it's ok for 16 y/o to behave like she did as per the words of the judge.

Its a silly question. 16 year girls are allowed to pursue sexual relations with any older man if they want to, there is nothing illegal on her side. As has been said, if this happened between two people in a club there wouldn't even be a trial. There should be no punishment for the girl.

However that still does not mean that we cannot acknowledge the role the girl played in the case and take it into account when it comes to sentencing.

osarusan

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

I asked should 16 y/o's be able to behave this way without statutory punishment.

Statutory punishment for what, exactly?

kylith wrote: »

He didn't have an unfortunate lapse of judgement, he planned and prepared for the affair and took advantage of a teenager's crush on him.

To be honest, for me, notwithstanding the 'grooming' comment, which I think the judge might have meant to be interpreted differently, her comments about him giving in to a moment of temptation seem WAY off to me, given the comments and actions testified to by the girl (the guy has insisted he is innocent and is now appealing).

Comments about how their relationship was written in the stars.....showing her a condom...suggest it was not just a momentary lapse of judgement.

Saralee4

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Yes but that's not what I asked with all due respect. I asked should 16 y/o's be able to behave this way without statutory punishment. I think there is some room for an example to be made here in some future case should it arise. I don't think it's ok for 16 y/o to behave like she did as per the words of the judge.

No I don't think she should be punished. I think she was a naïve girl with a crush who had some inappropriate fantasies that were brought to real life by the acknowledgment of the teacher. She was a kid playing a game but the teacher failed to see that. Sixteen year olds are in between the age of adulthood and childhood. Some are still children, some are more mature.

If she was a 16 year old and she took advantage of another man, say she held him at gunpoint and made him have sex with her then she should be punished.

Kermit.de.frog

bucketybuck wrote: »

Its a silly question. 16 year girls are allowed to pursue sexual relations with any older man if they want to, there is nothing illegal on her side. As has been said, if this happened between two people in a club there wouldn't even be a trial. There should be no punishment for the girl.

However that still does not mean that we cannot acknowledge the role the girl played in the case and take it into account when it comes to sentencing.

I understand where you are coming from and the teacher was clearly vulnerable and in a fragile mental state in which case he should not have been teaching.

But I don't think it's right either that his life is destroyed (although the punishment is if anything lenient on him) when the instigator, as per the judge, gets to walk away free on this outdated idealistic notion that 16 y/o's today can not be deeply cynical, manipulative and devious and know exactly what they were doing. There were two or three types like that in my class that showed more maturity than some adults.

kylith

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Yes but that's not what I asked with all due respect. I asked should 16 y/o's be able to behave this way without statutory punishment. I think there is some room for an example to be made here in some future case should it arise. I don't think it's ok for 16 y/o to behave like she did as per the words of the judge.

Behave what way? Flirting?

bucketybuck

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

But I don't think it's right either that his life is destroyed (although the punishment is if anything lenient on him) when the instigator, as per the judge, gets to walk away free on this outdated idealistic notion that 16 y/o's today can not be deeply cynical, manipulative and devious and know exactly what they were doing. There were two or three types like that in my class that showed more maturity than some adults.

16 year olds can indeed be cynical, manipulative and devious. But none of that is a crime. And none of that absolves the teacher from the basic requirement that he be on guard for such manipulation.

As a teacher he should have been very aware that no matter what manipulation there was, the very act of sleeping with a 16 year old student of his was illegal. On that point he has no defense and nobody to blame but himself.

It is only on the aspect of sentencing that the surrounding circumstances have a bearing, not on the guilt.

Paz-CCFC

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

I understand where you are coming from and the teacher was clearly vulnerable and in a fragile mental state in which case he should not have been teaching.

But I don't think it's right either that his life is destroyed (although the punishment is if anything lenient on him) when the instigator, as per the judge, gets to walk away free on this outdated idealistic notion that 16 y/o's today can not be deeply cynical, manipulative and devious and know exactly what they were doing. There were two or three types like that in my class that showed more maturity than some adults.

But she wasn't instigating any crime, as there was no offence that she could've committed in these circumstances. It's not like, for example, one person convincing another to join her in the commission of a crime. She may have encouraged him to commit an offence, but as she was the victim, she couldn't be deemed to be guilty of committing a crime against herself. Her encouragement can be (and was) used in mitigation for the defendant, however.

AudreyHepburn

Neyite wrote: »

She didnt break the law. She was not the one on trial. Nobody is saying she was all sweet and innocent, but the fact remains that it should be irrelevant how she conducted herself given that she was a minor in the eyes of the law.

If you left your house unlocked and got burgled, do you think that the thief should get let off because you left your door unlocked? You may have been an idiot, or not thinking straight, or distracted when leaving the house, but you are still the victim of a crime, and you still deserve that crime to be punished.

In hindsight, you'd kick yourself for not thinking straight that morning, but you don't deserve the judge to tell the thief that they were just at a low point in their life, that you took advantage of that, that you appear to be a manipulative and deceitful person anyway, and that you somehow deserved to be burgled. You made a mistake, but that does not mean that the person who took advantage of your vulnerability at the time should get to blame you.

That's not quite the same though.

A better analogy would be if I took some-one's life and was up in court for it. Obviously that person is a victim but one of the big questions that would have to be asked would be what led me to do it the first place.

Did the person attack me? Did they attack some-one I love? Did they try to illegally gain entry to or damage my property? Did they threaten me? Was there a history between us?

None of these scenarios would absolve me of the fact that I killed a person nor do they mean I should not face consequences for my actions.

But they are vitally important mitigating circumstances which need to be taken into account because they make the difference between me being labeled a murderer for the rest of my life or the incident going down as an act of self defense or an act in defense of some-one else.

gozunda wrote: »

If you say that she is not a "child" and the law says she is not an adult - then exactly what category is she?

I don't belive anyone here has implied that " the girl is not an innocent little child who has been hurt by the big bad man". That is simply hyperbole.

What is clear that the responsible person in this situation was an adult, a teacher, a person with a duty of care towards his pupils. He grossly abused his position. I really hope his wife finds someone more suited to being a father.

Of course he abused his position, no-one is saying otherwise.

But can you honestly tell me that the girl involved does not apportion some of the blame? That she did not know what she was doing?

I'm not at all saying she should be thrown in jail, but she does need to face the consequences of what she did.

Gatling

Neyite wrote: »

1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage. If every partner went off the rails at a miscarriage, we'd see a lot more action before the courts. Its a pathetic excuse.

Sorry but that's bs ,

You or nobody else in here can make a sweeping claim like that

Shrap

I feel very sorry for the girl in this case. She has basically been publicly accused of grooming and stalking at the age of 16, and some perspective on the impact this could have on her would be good. This is a girl who had never had sex before this teacher took her virginity in a cupboard. She had troubles at home. She became infatuated with a teacher. That's not a crime.

Imagine the intensity of her feelings for him - awkward teenager making a complete fool of herself among her friends as she tracked the teacher's every move and lusted after him in class. That is a girl who needs help (*), not being taken up on her fantasy by a grown man who started imagining that sex with a 16 year old was the answer to his problems. Whatever his emotional state, he can't have not known that it was totally against the law for a good reason. Adults are supposed to know better.

* Help to understand that it's not appropriate to pursue a teacher, putting him in such an awkward position. I assume they teach this in teacher school.