I hate him
Three 14 year old girls were drunk in Ashburton, when they met up with a 35 year old man. When one of them passed out he put her in the recovery position - then he gave some pot to the remaining girls and raped one of them.
This post isn't about that, this post isn't even about the fact that a jury wouldn't convict him of rape. No this is about the comments Judge Stephen Erber made during sentancing:
"They were silly, vulnerable and very drunk and the major complainant was clearly flirtatious," he said.
"This girl was partly the author of her own misfortune. She managed to get herself drunk.
"She was clearly making up to other men, or boys. This is a clear example of juvenile binge drinking.
That's not even the worst of it - I've Judge before, this isn't the first time he's said vile things about a woman who has been raped. He'll sit on another rape trial, sometime soon, he'll have another opportunity to victim blame, he'll have another experience to make another woman's life just that much worse.
NoteI will have zero tolerance for rape apologists in the comments. I will delete the post and ban your from my blog.
you should be able to run around completly naked blasted out of your tree and not get raped!
ReplyDeletedon't people get that by now?
People shouldnt have to modify thier behaviour to avoid getting raped
This makes me feel sick. I can't believe that things like this happen in courts of law. That poor, poor child.
ReplyDeleteI've already posted a comment about this on Cactus Kate's blog but I can't get over it. I seriously almost cried about it.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that the Judge would like to return to the 1950s where a girl remained in the home, unless accompanied by a male escort approved by her father (who statistically would be more likely to rape her than a complete stranger) to ensure that her erotic presence didn't drive any other male to having to rape her to quell his sexual need.
So the Judge is insulting both men and women: men obviously can't control themselves in public and women can't display any signs of sexuality because if they do, they are asking to be raped, in the eyes of this judge.
I wonder whether he would change his tune if he were raped at a time he was vulnerable. Maybe using a public toilet in a bar around a homosexual sex offender could be considered provocation enough for him to be asking to be raped. Luckily for him, that's not likely to happen. Too bad young women aren't equally as lucky.
As a male, I'm just outraged by this - what accountability for judges who display such appalling callousness?
ReplyDeleteFuxake. They're *children*. If anyone is allowed to be stupid it's them - the older guy bears more responsibility for his actions and should have known how to behave. Unfortunately we seem to have a culture where screwing any 'available' female, whether she likes it or not, is classed as accepted behaviour. That's way more stupid than getting drunk or stoned.
ReplyDeleteNoteI will have zero tolerance for rape apologists in the comments. I will delete the post and ban your from my blog.
ReplyDeleteI was going to take a similar stance with this post, but decided to preserve this comment just to remind me how fucked up some on the right are in their outlook on life.
Oh yeah, and here's another thing. I hate how the Herald reported this using the words "had sex." Sex between a grown man and an underage girl is rape -- the law calls it "statutory rape" because a girl that age is considered legally incapable of giving consent. Why won't the Herald call it rape??! Because that's what it is.
ReplyDeleteThis stuff makes me both mad and sad. It is heartening however to see how many bloggers have written slamming the judge's comments. I'm not sure that would have happened in the NZ pol blogs even six months ago to be honest. Thank you for continuing to raise these issues (because unfortunately they aren't going away).
ReplyDeleteSpan,
ReplyDeleteThe reason the Herald didn't describe the conviction as rape, is that rape is a legal term. The offender was charged on two counts: one for sex with an underage girl, and the second for rape. The jury didn't convict the offender on the second charge.
This is not an apology for the offender, but it's actually defamatory to describe him as a rapist, since he hasn't been convicted of rape. Predatory, absolutely. Sex offender, yes. But it wasn't legally rape.
Well, I think statutory rape is rape. That's why the word rape is in there, and it's a legal term, so why not call it rape? I can see why the Herald called it "having sex," but I don't agree with it.
ReplyDeleteIP - I think you were replying to Sofiya not me.
ReplyDeleteOn that issue though - is it any surprise that the jury acquitted on the rape charge given the attitude of this judge??
The point is that a child at 14 can't legally give consent. There is a good reason for this, we as a society decide for them that they are not old enough to have worked everything out when it comes to sex and consenting to sex.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, her actions are completely irrelevant, quite why the Judge even made those comments, I agree is disgusting.
I have previously raised the heckles of the feminist activist types by stating that women are responsible in a small way for the signals they put out and should at least be ary of this when dealing with men in particularly alcohol and drug fuelled environments.
In this case however it was a 14 year old kid. 100% blame and comment should have been directed by the Judge towards the vile cretin offender and not the victim.
Those 14 year old children have no conception of what they were getting into. That man raped that girl and should have been held to account for it. No means no, even if you are drunk and have been flirtatious.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that there is enough information here to make an accurate comment as of yet. Does anyone have a second article that corroborates this story from another source? Where is the official court transcript?
ReplyDeleteIt's a shocker.
ReplyDeleteStat rape is stat rape. Even if the girl was begging him for sex, it'd be rape since she's not considered old enough to consent. Any adult knows this.
Even if she was over the age of consent, he was going beyond the bounds of acceptability*. Drunken flirting isn't a good guide as to whether you (sober) should act on it, especially if you're 20 years older and provided some of the intoxicating substance! Any responsible person knows this.
* Still, as abhorrent as it is that people act on it in a predatory way, I suspect that drunken consent is viewed as legally acceptable consent for those over 16... it's an unfortunate consequence of consistency. If you're not accountable for what you do when you're drunk then we'd have to let off many domestic abusers and murderers. Can't have it both ways. If consenting when drunk isn't consent, then abusing when drunk isn't abuse.
The judges mistake was to apply this reasoning to a situation involving 14yr old (unless he didn't, and it's just that stat rape is called 'sex with a minor' now, which is ridiculous too).