Story Archive

Unequal in the Eyes of the Law

An unidentified man in Swindon, England, vouched for the 21-year-old babysitter of his 11-year-old son, even though she had sex with the boy when she was supposed to be minding him. “The boy was laying down, Jade Hatt sat on top of him, sat astride him, took off her clothes and removed his,” a prosecutor says. “In his words she started bouncing on his private parts.” She was 20 at the time, and the father says his son is quite mature for his age, and the girl is immature for hers — and he knows that, in part, because he previously had sex with her himself. Judge Tim Mousley bought that. “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,” he said before sentencing her to 6 months in jail, suspended for two years, after she pleaded guilty to sexual activity with a child. “The judge’s comments in this case send out completely the wrong message,” complains a spokesman for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. “The offender in this case has escaped extremely lightly and you have to wonder whether, in the same circumstances, a man would have been treated the same.” (RC/Swindon Advertiser) ...Wait — you have to wonder?