{"id":18769,"date":"2013-01-27T11:25:51","date_gmt":"2013-01-27T16:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=18769"},"modified":"2013-01-27T11:25:51","modified_gmt":"2013-01-27T16:25:51","slug":"in-britain-ignorance-of-the-law-is-a-valid-excuse-under-certain-circumstances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/01\/27\/in-britain-ignorance-of-the-law-is-a-valid-excuse-under-certain-circumstances\/","title":{"rendered":"In Britain, ignorance of the law <em>is<\/em> a valid excuse (under certain circumstances)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/freethinker.co.uk\/2013\/01\/27\/muslim-faith-schools-misogyny-led-to-teens-rape-conviction\/\" target=\"_blank\">Words fail me<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The failure of an Islamic faith school in the UK to provide a pupil with any knowledge about sexual relations, other than to teach him that women were \u201cno more worthy than a lollipop dropped on the ground\u201d,  led to the trial of an 18-year-old who was charged with raping a 13-year-old girl.<\/p>\n<p>But, according to this report, instead of being jailed, the \u201cna\u00efve\u201d Birmingham teenager, Adil Rashid, was handed a suspended sentence in Nottingham Crown Court by Judge Michael Stokes, who said:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>Although chronologically 18, it is quite clear from the reports that you are very naive and immature when it comes to sexual matters.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The judge added that because Rashid was \u201cpassive\u201d and \u201clacking assertiveness\u201d, sending him to jail might cause him \u201cmore damage than good\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Rashid admitted having sex with the girl, saying he had been \u201ctempted by her\u201d after they met online.<\/p>\n<p>After they had had sex, Rashid returned home and went straight to a mosque to pray. He was arrested the following week after the girl confessed what had happened to a school friend, who informed one of her teachers.<\/p>\n<p>He told police he knew the girl was 13 but said he was initially reluctant to have sex before relenting after being seduced.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier the court heard how Rashid had \u201clittle experience of women\u201ddue to his education at an Islamic school in the UK, which cannot be named for legal reasons.<\/p>\n<p>After his arrest, he told a psychologist that he did not know having sex with a 13-year-old was against the law. The court heard he found it was illegal only when he was informed by a family member.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Words fail me: The failure of an Islamic faith school in the UK to provide a pupil with any knowledge about sexual relations, other than to teach him that women were \u201cno more worthy than a lollipop dropped on the ground\u201d, led to the trial of an 18-year-old who was charged with raping a 13-year-old [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9,11],"tags":[52,570,47,267,255,43],"class_list":["post-18769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-law","category-religion","tag-absurd","tag-england","tag-islam","tag-justice","tag-sexuality","tag-women"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-4SJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18769"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18770,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18769\/revisions\/18770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}