It was in 1956. I think it must have been a police sergeant using his discretion, having realised that my Mother’s action in turning in her own son was perhaps not the right thing to have done, in the circumstances.
I remember the term ‘having carnal knowledge’ was on my mother’s lips, so it’s possible my brother was 16. I know they were both young.
I might question that Paul.
English Common Law through the 1800sUnder early English common law, a male could not be convicted of rape if thefemale had consented to the activity (Fuentes 1994: 139; McCollum 1982:341; Miller 1994: 289). But as England codified its statutory rape law in theStatute of Westminster of 1275, “The King prohibiteth that none do ravish . . .any Maiden within age.”5This newly drafted law constructed the crime as sex-ual intercourse with a female under 12, who was regarded as unable to con-sent. The offense was made a capital one in 1285,6and the age was lowered to10 in 1576, “if any person shall unlawfully and carnally know and abuse anywoman-child under the age of ten years, every such unlawful and carnal knowledge shall be a felony.”
I think the law changed in more recent times to remove the consensual aspect and the Sexual Offences Act in 1956 (significantly) provided better guidance CPS Code for Prosecution
I’m not saying it was right but just that attitudes were significantly different then and I recall somewhere along the way, there was a condition which related to age… for example, a 17 year old boy getting a 15 year old girl pregnant was significantly different to a situation where the male was significantly older.
And then there was the question about “in the public interest”…
One final point. In those halcyon days, there was no CPS. The local Police Sergeant or Inspector would often prosecute offences in Magistrates Courts. Sometimes a local solicitor and in difficult cases referring to the DPP so it is quite conceivable that there would be some discretion in deciding if a case would be placed before a JP.
Yes. I am now told that this isn’t enough characters, so I will repeat it - yes. But don’t let it worry you.
I was going to point out that there used to be a thing called ‘due process’ where a person was first charged, then put on trial, then judged and either punished or released according to the law.
There seems to have been a lot of pre-judging in this case - granted with considerable suspicions and grounds for suspicion and even arrest, but the man still wasn’t ‘tried’. Yet people seem happy, and/or disappointed that he paid the ultimate price of his death - by whose hands we don’t know.
I know the Law isn’t perfect, but I don’t think mob law is better.
Now THAT would have been provocative wouldn’t it?
Sorry but the guy was a monster and a convicted sex offender, Jimmy Savile never made it to court due to his untimely death, is Norman really saying we should not judge him either?
Oh it doesn’t worry me,it is all giving me further insight into your character though
He wasn’t convicted nor tried and so you play a very dangerous game there.
Consider the Carl Beech case. He was very convincing but lied through his teeth. What is to say that the ‘victims’ of Savile weren’t doing the same?
NOTE: I do not condone child sex abuse before the thread police start sharpening their pencils 
Savile’s alleged victims ran into the 000’s spread over decades, no comparison to the Beech case.
Key word alleged he was neither tried nor convicted. The same maxim applies to Epstein, surely. He was tried IIRC and not convicted at that time but in the absence of doubly jeopardy he was re-arrested when further evidence now unlikely ever to be tried in front of a judge was presented.
Even if Ms Maxwell and/or others are plonked in front of a judge and convicted, Epstein cannot even if he is implicated in their trial.
Other than in the popular press, you cannot put a dead person in the dock to register a plea.
One of the issues with Saville is the similarities between complaints and reports from the victims, spread over many years and over the country ,in a time when there was no social media and they couldn’t have had any contact. Carl Beech was one person making several complaints and, to be fair the mood, especially after the Saville revelations was to believe ‘victims ‘ as so many had been let down over Saville
What about the allegations over Sir Cliff Richard?
It’s a dangerous game to play the victims card.
So Graham are you saying that complaints should not be investigated?That possible victims should not be believed? Cliff Richards was investigated and exonerated .The complaints against Saville were investigated albeit posthumously and found proven ,the wealth of evidence against him was such that it’s hard to imagine what his defence would have been
Epstein pleaded guilty to prostitution charges and received a jail sentence, ergo he was a convicted sex offender.
If Graham wants to paint a different picture of the man because he hadn’t been to trial again that’s up to him, I’m not sure his alleged victims will see things that way.
Hi Graham
The way you write on this suggests a deeper knowledge of the law than most people. Do you have a legal background?
I do (did), but I’m not prepared to expand beyond that.
I think that is very true and the local police had much more discretion generally in the 1950’s.
As to Law you might be right - it seems (on doing a little research) that the CPS does have discretion where both parties are minors and the case I recalled about a 15 year old getting put on the sex offenders register for sexting his 15 year old girlfriend was in the 'states.
It is, I think, worth remembering that Epstein was charged and convicted previously so there is a distinct difference to Saville who was not charged - the evidence of abuse only having become overwhelming after his death, although there is similarity in that both are accused by multiple people telling a fairly consistent story.
It’s one of the things that is bizarre about, say, the Rotherham case - the police were aware but had the girls down as “loose” or prostitutes, despite being underage and consequently did nothing when they found a girl less than 16 in the company of and clearly having sex with much older men.
Dangerous territory?
Saville’s victims, like Epstein’s, largely tell a consistent story across multiple witnesses - whereas Beech was just one individual making wild claims.
Sadly there has been some fallout from the historic sexual abuse cases which has not been positive. Whereas the likes of Harris and Hall have, rightfully, been given custodial sentences for historic crimes others, such as DLT have had their lives destroyed for transgressions that are relatively minor - pinching a few bums in the 70’s and 80’s was very, very different to what Saville, Harris, Hall, Gadd (Gary Glitter) or Jonathan King were up to.
Edit: one thing I find curious is that Lemmy, or Gene Simmons - rock stars who famously bedded thousands of female fans have totally escaped accusations of impropriety - are you really telling me that every single one of their conquests was above the age of consent or is there also some element of charisma and personality involved in who has been accused?
Utterly awful, sexist, classist rubbish. One would hope that sort of value-judgment would be outdated, clearly not.
And the fear of being accused of racism if they investigated the situation
Yes, exactly. Terrible.
Many years ago, a friend of mine (deceased) was accused of sexually molesting a 14 year old girl by her “mother”. He was charged, tried and convicted to 3 years in HMP and then deported to his home country. At the alleged time of the offence, he was not in the country but working for MSF in another country and had been for some months. When he came back to the UK he was arrested at his home. Despite the fact he wasn’t in the country, he didn’t even know the girl in question, he was still sentenced to 3 years in prison. This was all done on allegations and heresay even though the woman (mother) was well known to the police as being a “slack Alice” So I think assumptions based on allegations is a dangerous game to play. When I see things like this on the news it makes my skin crawl as the victim/perpetrator is already doomed guilty or not.
Unfortunately the fear of racism accusations hinder a lot of investigations these days due to the liberal oversensitivity and political correctness. These gangs know this and play this card and unfortunately get away with their crimes for a long time.