A (now) 21-year-old woman from the UK pleaded guilty to sexual activity with a child after it was discovered that she had sex with the 11-year-old boy she was babysitting (the boy had told the babysitter he was 15, not 11). Under any normal circumstance that charge would carry a penalty of jail time, however, the boy’s father read a statement in court that convinced the judge to go very light when dolling out this punishment.
In his statement the boy’s father claimed the following:
“‘He is sex mad. He would have been fully up for this experience and in many ways sees it as a notch on his belt and is totally unaffected by it.’ One has to say that is a father that knows his son well.”
There are two more factors that influenced the judge’s sentencing:
(1) the boy’s father, the one who read the statement, also has a previous sexual history with the (now) 21-year-old babysitter.
And (2), the then 20-year-old babysitter was somehow proven to be extremely immature while the 11-year-old boy was somehow proven to be remarkable mature for his age.
The Swindon Advertiser reports:
Reading from a statement from the dad he told the court: “He said ‘I know he told her he was 15. He looks older than his years.
“‘He is sex mad. He would have been fully up for this experience and in many ways sees it as a notch on his belt and is totally unaffected by it.’ One has to say that is a father that knows his son well.”
Mr Ross said petite Hatt ‘clearly doesn’t operate at the level of a 20-year-old’ and was honest with the police about what had taken place.
Mr Ross said she was vulnerable and had a hard upbringing, spending two years in hospital with leukaemia between the ages of five and seven.
Passing sentence Judge Tim Mousley QC said it was an exceptional case allowing him to step outside the rigours of the sentencing guidelines.He said: “Having read everything before me, it was quite clear he was a mature 11-year-old and you were an immature 20-year-old so that narrows the arithmetic age gap between you.
“I have read the comments of the boy’s father to the police where he doesn’t consider you a typical 20-year-old. I have also read what he has said about the effect on the victim.”He imposed a six month jail term suspended for two years with supervision and said she must register as a sex offender for seven years.
He also imposed a sexual harm prevention order banning her from having unsupervised contact with young boys for two years.
I can’t for one second ever imagining a judge here in America ever passing down a sentence/judgement like this in a case like this. If this was in America the Father AND the babysitter would both be arrested and both would be serving jail time, there’s no doubt in my mind.
There’s really not a whole lot of analysis I can provide on a case like this, so if you’re interested in reading more about this case then you follow the link on over to the Swindon Advertiser.