I don't get it...

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I wasn't sure where to put this topic, I was going to post it in the PPR but I don't want to really go to that corner of the forum.

Anyway, I was reading a magazine the other day and there was a story in there that confused me. This woman in her 40s or 50s fell in love with a boy of 18, and he loved her too. But she got accused of "kidnapping" him, even though he said himself that he wants her and that she is not kidnapping him. But the police didn't listen, and the poor woman had to go through court and prove that she is not a kidnapper, which must have been humiliating for them both.

The confusing part is, this sort of thing happened in my own family a few years ago, with an 18-year-old girl and a man in his 40s - only the man WAS kidnapping her. He was a dangerous man (long story of how we knew, but we'd definitely seen how malignant he was with our own eyes). When we called the police to save her from this awful, psychopathic man, the girl told them she wants him and that he is not kidnapping her. The police listened, and told us that they can't do anything because she was an adult making her own decisions. And that was that. The guy got away with it scot-free, and spent the next few years doing what we knew he'd do; isolating her from her friends and family, and when we next saw her (she finally saw sense and got away), she was covered in bruises.

Both these incidents happened in England, UK.

So what I don't get is how come the middle-aged woman gets accused of kidnapping a young but old-enough boy even though it is true love, but a dangerous psychopathic and pervy middle-aged man kidnaps a young but old-enough girl and he gets away with it?
I know you might say that a woman dating a young boy is more unusual than a man dating a younger girl, but surely the same rules should apply regardless of gender? In fact, older guys in their 40s dating a teenage girl are more likely to take advantage of the girl's sexy teenage body and are more likely to be capable of tape. I've heard lots of cases of young girls being raped or even murdered by their middle-aged partners.

Or is it just the stupid, messed-up UK laws that accuse the genuine people of being criminals and let real criminals off scot-free?

I know what you mean.

Both are cases where the police chose to interpret the law in their own way.

In the case of your relative, it’s possible the police didn’t see that she could be a victim. The police decided to take the law literally—maybe because they were lazy and had more “pressing matters” to attend to. They asked your relative if she was okay with the guy. She said yes. That was that.

In the other case, maybe there was some sort of prejudice which could have caused the police to broaden the interpretation of the law, even though the man was an adult and consenting. Maybe the man had some sort of disability. Maybe society frowns upon an older woman/younger man situation too much. I feel an injustice was done to the woman for putting her through all this. Though I don’t know the whole story.

Yeah....the world sucks....but we have to live in it and do the best we can.

Saying this, it was horrible what your relative had to endure.

Oddly enough, the daughter of my former friend, who is in that abusive marriage is currently in a situation like what Joe90 is talking about. She is 17 and her boyfriend is 20 years older than she is. According to her grandmother, and my former friend's mother, she and her granddaughter will texting. However, that has stopped. Like with her daughter, she is in complete denial and is telling me not to breathe a word to anyone about what is going on.

Joe, in what years did each of those to incidents occur?

Both around the same sort of time. I don't think the law has changed about 18-year-olds dating older people. I would have known about it.