bol-uk
Player Valuation: £50m
So all those girls in Rochdale and Rotherham etc, the fact that they were groomed doesn't excuse them either?
A child groomed by an adult doesn't have an excuse for her actions??? Really?!
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So all those girls in Rochdale and Rotherham etc, the fact that they were groomed doesn't excuse them either?
A child groomed by an adult doesn't have an excuse for her actions??? Really?!
She can still have been raped. I know you haven't said this but I'm not quite sure how someone can 'look like a rape victim' or not.
In any circumstance, we don't know either way, so it seems pointless debating it here.
Diogenes the Cynic
Player Valuation: £40m
She has been radicalised.
She may or may not have been groomed.
At this point there is no suggestion from her that she has been raped or had any sexual contact she didn't consent to.
She is legally able to consent in the country that she chose to travel to.
Everything else about potential rape etc is pure speculation and probably not helpful.
Excuse them what mate ? They don’t need excusing for the abusive sexual relationships obviously because they were victims . As regards other matters I think at one stage one in Rotherham charges were considered against one victim with being involved in procuring which I think would have been wrong as she was a victim and I think that was rightfully looked at again
I’ve discussed this before in this thread but I’ll do it again . To me being a victim does not give that said victim carte Blanche forever in relation to criminality . It may influence any future sentence but , to me , it does give somebody a life time free pass you may disagree . I’ll use the examples I’ve used before. A 15 year old is groomed and sexually abused , at 19 they commit sexual abuse on a child themselves, are they excused ? A 15 year old is involved in dealing as a result of grooming and at 19 is still actively involved in dealing are they excused ? I think it can be considered a influencing factor but it can’t be considered an excuse once they are adults I’m afraid . Otherwise where do we draw a line , do we consider it an excuse until 18 , 19 , 21 ,30 ?
To me there is a huge difference in considering the effect abuse or grooming may have had and it excusing future actions or offending . If Begum was 15 now however we may be having a different conversation, she isn’t she’s 19.
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bol-uk
Player Valuation: £50m
OK, so grooming is only to blame for someones actions if it fits your remit. A load of girls get groomed into having having sex and taking drugs with older men, they are of course innocent.
But to you, Begum, herself groomed, is not - how convenient!
The following is wriiten by someone else but sums up exactly how I feel:
"
The brainwashed child she was has everything to do with the brainwashed young woman she has become. That’s not to justify what she has done, but to see the series of events that have unfolded in her life as being traceable directly back to her grooming and subsequent radicalisation. Children are influenced by those around them, a product of their environment. We only develop and learn to be better when another influence takes a bad one’s place. Since the age of 15 Begum has not been afforded that opportunity in the caliphate; it is unsurprising her views continue to be as dangerous as when she left – they’ve become her norm.
If she seems untroubled by the violence she has witnessed, that’s no more a sign of a callous and wicked villain than a vulnerable young woman who is profoundly scarred. We know that trauma in childhood impacts your experiences as you grow older. I can’t begin to imagine what she has seen in her life, what it’s like to have had two children die. What we told ourselves about that 15-year-old girl remains true to this day, except now helping this young woman requires more than just easy words.
That’s not to say Begum is to receive a hero’s welcome back at Gatwick airport. To rehabilitate and reintegrate her back into society will take much work by dedicated professionals, be in no doubt. But to try to help her must be better than leaving this teenager to languish in a camp, to quite possibly witness her third child die. If rehabilitation proves impossible, at least back in Britain she can live under supervision and be kept from doing further harm – to herself or to others. And should, one day soon, Begum be in a position to rejoin British society proper, who could be better placed to warn other vulnerable children of the dangerous reality of online grooming, of radicalisation by extremists and the acts that led her to commit? Our justice system is based on the possibility of rehabilitation. It would be wrong to write off the prospect of anyone changing, let alone a vulnerable 19-year-old girl and her unborn child. "
No not if it fits my remit mate at all , I totally accept grooming occurs . I’m just saying that it can’t be used for somebodies life time to excuse their behaviour. Or do you disagree ?
I asked a couple of questions , you didn’t answer and that’s your right . However would you consider a 19 year old who’d been groomed but abused a child to be excused ? Because it happens and happens frequently. An 18 year old nursery nurse was jailed in the U.K. very recently for abusing 2 children , she’d been groomed since she was 16/17 by the offender but that doesn’t excuse her actions to me , does it to you ? A huge proportion of sexual abusers in this country have been abused , does that excuse their future adult conduct ? If not when would you draw a line .
I’ve argued against knee jerk responses with Begum and I also can certainly see that grooming may well have played a part . Safaa boulaar was 18 when she was jailed for plotting a terrorist attack , the court accepted she’d been groomed since she was 16 and I could go on . For me grooming is a mitigating factor it isn’t something to excuse one’s actions in perpetuity
She was groomed whilst living in the UK.
Diogenes the Cynic
Player Valuation: £40m
She was radicalised in the UK, it's unclear at this point whether it could be classified as grooming but that's semantics really.
In any case even if she were groomed in the UK any act took place on foreign soil with a foreign national. So for the purpose of criminality the offence would be something about inducing someone under legal age or grooming or something in that area. She couldn't be a victim of statutory rape in Syria because she's over the age of consent. If a girl comes from a country where the age of consent is 18 and as a 17yr old she visits the UK and gets consensually rattled she has not been a victim of statutory rape, she has been goosed in accordance with the laws of the country.
But you can see my point , i hope ? I’ve not argued once that her grooming shouldn’t be considered in any future sentence , in fact I’ve repeatedly said the opposite.
I do believe that you have to have responsibility as an adult . I’d suggest Very few offenders offend because they’re ‘evil’ most do it because of a series of circumstances but it can’t be used as that complete free reign to excuse all future conduct . For example the majority of victims of sexual abuse don’t offend , the majority of domestic violence offenders have had it normalised it their lives but the majority who have seen it don’t continue the circle of violence . I can see yours and Again I hope you take my point , I think there has to be that personal responsibility , mitigation - yes but excused- no .
bol-uk
Player Valuation: £50m
Yes. well put and I do agree with you somewhere along the line. The thing is, this is her first, and apparently, only offence. If she continued a life then yes, she should be treated as a full criminal as an adult but, as yet, she seems to have only done what the grooming was designed to do. It is not really her own act. FOr me, second chance, benefit of the doubt and actual compassion would play a huge part in her future before writing her off and leaving her to rot.
Oh deary me
....sad news, Sky reporting the recently born child has died.
B
Big Fat Sam
Guest
Very sad for the child. Yet another innocent victim of that terror group.
You have to ask yourself why the mother didn't allow him to be taken to the UK to be looked after, if her words about him being sick were true, which it seems they were.
Her woeful decision to join a terror organisation, failure to apologise and subsequent refusal to allow her child to receive the care he needed, has led to his death. Just another thing for her to have hanging over her for the rest of her life.
At least she can't use the my-baby-needs-to-be-in-the-UK-and-I-can't-let-him-go-alone excuse for being allowed back.
My heart goes out to all of the other innocent children out there, stuck and helpless due to their parents' poor decision-making.
She didn`t seem that arsed about the other two kids that she had already lost tbh.
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