Sydney Conservatorium teacher admits sex with girl, 14
NewsThe prominent Australian pianist Jeremy So, a teacher at the high school of the Sydney Conservatorium, has pleaded guilty in court to 11 charges of engaging in sex with an underage person. A further 23 charges were withdrawn by the prosecution.
So was 18 at the time. The relationship continued for five years. So, who is now 30, was granted bail.
He will be sentenced in April.
Report here.
Quote from an article on the subject:
‘ After the girl had reached the age of consent the pair’s trysts continued for three more years. Their last sexual contact was on the girl’s 19th birthday when So was 23 and the relationship ended soon afterwards.
The girl went to police almost seven years later […] ‘
I know. It’s crazy– or suspicious. I detect the work of a therapist trying to earn their keep — and not doing the woman any favors.
You’re wrong Jim Cotter
Surprising he could remember the exact number of occasions. Seriously, though: Many, many 17 or 18 year olds have sex with younger classmates. Is crime so scarce in Australia their prosecutors have to look at this sort of thing?
The fact that the victim appeared happy to allow the inappropriate and illegal relationship to persist **at the time** demonstrates why the age of consent is an essential concept, and why it must be enforced rigorously. The whole point of having an age of consent is to draw a red line, making it unambiguous that people under that age are deemed as lacking capacity to consent to an action. The concept of an age of consent also helps protect an under-age victim from having to prove absence of consent in court (in rape cases, the presence or absence of consent is often difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt). The correspondence shown in the Daily Mail article demonstrates that the abuser was an adult at the time that the relationship turned sexual, was well aware of the law, and was well aware of the age of his victim (who was 4 years younger and at a different institution, so categorically *not* a “classmate”… but even if the age difference had been smaller, it would still be wrong). In other words, there is no mitigation for what that man did.
18 is also quite young though..
I don’t think it is as clear-cut as you put it. Age of consent differs significantly around the globe, and even amongst different states in the US. Furthermore, many countries do have conditions on age gap. In Japan, for example, the age gap must be greater than 5 years to be considered statutory rape.
Regardless, the law is the law, and this man failed to respect it in his own country, and therefore subjected to appropriate consequences. No one can argue against that. However, to pretend that Australian laws are universal, and to assume lack of capacity to consent at a certain age universally, and to assume abuse and predatory behavior on the part of this man, is unjustified when you look at the global state of this matter.
“Lacking in capacity to consent”
In America, we believe a child can choose their gender at any age – capacity be damned!