250 U.K. Celebs Accused of Child Sex Abuse

Working in the courts - about five years. I'm honestly not making this up. During my down time, I read PCAs (probable cause affidavits) for fun. Seriously read about 3-5 years' worth, so I honestly hae a good understanding. I'm no apologist for sexual criminals, but it was REALLY shocking. The number of statutory rape convictions v. all others was significant. And, at least in my opinion, a 16 year old willing banging a 20 year old, is not THAT offensive. It should be dissuaded by fine or minor criminal penalty, but not to the level that the state likes to charge. I would honestly say that 20-30% of the sexual crimes prosecuted in this one city (about 100-150k people) were consensual sexual acts between two people who were pretty close in age... nothing that was strange, i.e. less than a 5-6 year gap. But holy shit, these guys got YEARS in prison for a BJ. Seriously. A non-forced, consensual BJ from their girlfriend. Like I said above, they usually got in trouble b/c the relationship ended and the younger one wanted revenge, a few times a parent walked in an freaked out, or bad luck (cop walks up to a car in a parking lot). Again, I would be fine with some sort of penalty to essentially tell them to not do it again - a fine, a class about sexual education, or even a day or two in jail w/o the sex offender listing. But the state, in most cases I saw, sought YEARS in prison (i.e. not local, regular jail - but big boy state prison with SERIOUS criminals), a 20-year (I believe) sexual offender listing (so he has to report it on any job, can't live near schools, parks, etc) and public reporting. For a blowjob. For. A. Blowjob. A 20 year old, usually an apparently pretty decent dude (I was able to see if they went to college, had a job, etc), was permanently BANNED from regular life. FOR A BLOWJOB. I saw cases where the guy was a student at the University of Florida and happened to bang a HS girl he knew - get convicted of a sexual offense. Dude went from probably being an accountant and having a nice family in the suburbs somewhere - to a violent sexual criminal in the eyes of the state (and thus everyone else) - because some HS chick gave him head after a party and a cop walked up on them in a parking lot. Talk about fucked up criminal penalties. Reddit loves to rail against weed dealers getting prison time - "sex offenses" are strict liability crimes - meaning that the onus is on the "perp" to check that he isn't committing a crime. So even if, say, a 25 year old guy picks up an older looking girl in a bar and bangs her, and she turns out to be 15-16 and had a fake ID to get into the bar, he is at fault. Even if he asked and she lied.

That's fucked IMO.

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