CAMBRIDGE, U.K.—Last December, an unnamed 14-year-old blindfolded the 4-year-old neighbor he'd been asked, as a family friend, to babysit for, then stuck his cock in her mouth after leading the girl to believe that he was going to feed her a chocolate. He later pled guilty to child rape. His punishment? A three-year "community order"—it's called "community service" in the U.S.—with regular visits to a probation officer, plus he'll be required to "register his whereabouts with police" for 30 months.
But the real story is why Cambridge Crown Court Judge Gareth Hawkesworth decided that child rape wasn't worth any juvenile prison time: Pornography.
"You have not shown any sexual interest in children," the judge concluded at the sentencing hearing. "I'm satisfied it was impulsive and I believe you have become sexualised by your exposure to and the corruption of pornography. Your exposure at such a young age has ended in tragedy. It was the fault of the world and society."
Indeed, when questioned by police, the kid claimed he had regularly viewed "excessive" porn on his laptop, which supposedly contributed to his having "lost his mind" because his "hormones took over," but now, according to his defense attorney, the kid "knows that what he has done will follow him for the rest of his life. He is marked to some as a sexual deviant forever."
If an adult had committed the crime, the prescribed sentence would be six-and-a-half years in prison, but aside from the community service, the perpetrator's punishment will include a prohibition on watching porn "of any kind" on his computer, and of using any smartphone, computer or similar device without porn filters installed.
The girl's father told reporters that he and his wife were "just feeling completely devastated," and that after her rapist left, the girl described to dad just what had occurred—he characterized it as "oral rape"—and then she had to repeat the description because dad thought he'd misheard her.
The girl's mother lambasted Judge Hawkesworth for "making a cheap point about pornography ... as an excuse for what the boy did," and was incensed at the boy's sentence.
"He should be punished," she told The Telegraph. "His family were told to expect a three-year custodial sentence so we were shocked when he didn’t get one.
"If the act is treated as rape, he should be punished for rape," she continued. "It sends the wrong message to people—that you can do something like that and get such a light punishment. And it could stop victims coming forward. What’s the point in going through all that?"
Of course, the anti-porn legions that pushed for UK ISPs to require subscribers to "opt in" if they wanted to see porn were ready to shift the blame from the perp to the sexual speech.
According to The Telegraph's story, Claire Perry, a Conservative MP and leader of a bipartisan group campaigning against open access to pornography, said the "harrowing" case emphasized "that pornography can have serious negative impacts on children's lives."
Indeed; so can committing a forcible sexual act on a young girl when she isn't expecting it and has no idea what's happening—and the injury can only be compounded by numbnuts who claim that a 14-year-old's criminal sexual behavior is somehow mitigated by what he watched on the internet.
