Neil Wilson, ‘predatory’ and the Judiciary
When we first became aware of the Wilson case, where a 13yo victim of sexual violence was called 'predatory in all her actions', we knew we'd have to take action.
As you're all aware, CPS UK launched an internal investigation and completed a post case review. The outcome of this was that the prosecutor, Robert Colover, has stepped down from covering serious sexual assault or child sexual abuse cases.
Alongside of this, we appealed to the Attorney General to have this case reviewed under the 'unduly lenient' guidelines.
We're not experts in law, nor are we experts on the judicial system and its functionality. The issue for us was the use of the term 'predatory in all her actions' being stated by the Prosecutor, and how the judge accepted this when sentencing Wilson. The judge concluded that the 13 year old 'egged on' a 41 year old man, effectively blaming her for Wilson's abusive actions.
This was completely unacceptable. It is completely unacceptable from anyone, let alone a judge. It is not acceptable to blame a 13 year old for her sexual abuse and include the blame in mitigation when sentencing. This formed the basis for our sentence review request.
It is not our place to comment on the appropriateness (or not) of a particular sentence itself, which is why we don't discuss the details of sentences issued by the Judiciary. It is however, our place to discuss how a sentence came about, and in this case, it came about because the man who prosecuted this case opted to make a judgement on the behaviour of a 13 year old child who had been sexually abused. Following this, the judge opted to collude with this blame, and sentenced Wilson using this frame of reference.
The sentence has been reviewed by the Attorney General and has been found unduly lenient. Neil Wilson has now been sentenced to 2 years imprisonment.
We thank all of our supporters who appealed to the Attorney General and supported us in this case. We are certain that a review would not have happened without our campaign and your support, despite the attempts by the mainstream media to erase our activism.
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As far as I can tell, (and it’s extremely hard to work out what did happen in this case) the girl made advances to him, which he rebuffed. For this he gets two years in jail? No-one seems to have picked up on the significance of the prosecution lawyer being the one to use the word ‘predatory'(he’s the one meant to make the case as damning as possible for the defendant, within the bounds of honesty, of course). It’s worth noting the girl made no complaint and took no part in the proceedings at all.
The girl is a child. She’s 13. Legally she cannot be predatory. An adult male having sex with a 13 year old child is rape. This surely cannot be that hard to understand even for a rape apologist.
Mariana
This case was widely discussed in the media, it is not difficult to work out what happened in this case. The defendant pleaded guilty to the charges presented to him and the full transcript of the case is available on line.
It is irrelevant that she didn’t take place in the proceedings.
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Thanks. I was also accused of being a preditory 13 year old child abuse victim, and it stinks.
13 year olds cannot consent to sex. I would say that any 13 year old child who is sexually active is a victim of child abuse.
A 13 year old girl can’t legally consent to underage sex. What was that man saying, that he was overpowered by a 13 year old girl? Did she pin him to the ground and force herself on him? Is that what they’re saying?
Because if she didn’t they have no justification at all to call her preditory! Even if she did make advances, he could have walked away!!!