LONDON, March 6, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A 15-year-old rapist’s “interest in sexual matters was heightened” by “trawling through internet pornography,” a British court has heard in a shocking rape case.
The horrifying case involves a 14-year-old girl who was beaten, brutalised and raped after being tied to a chair by two boys, 14 and 15 years old. The older boy has admitted he was re-enacting scenes he had witnessed in violent online pornography. The court heard that the boy had viewed hours of such material each day for months leading up to the attack.
The victim’s distraught father has demanded that MPs implement controls. “Kids can get it on their mobile phones really easily,” he continued. “Any porn is inappropriate at that young age. But it’s the extreme violent nature that is worrying.”
“This will affect her for the rest of her life. She’s very quiet now, she’s a different person,” the girl’s father added.
“They can get it anywhere,” he said.
He called for restrictions saying, “Surely the safety of girls like my daughter is more important than people’s liberty,” the Daily Mail reports. The Mail is undertaking a public campaign to urge the government to install locks on violent pornography on the internet, a project that has received much opposition from libertarians who argue it is government interference with freedom of expression.
The boy’s interest in sex was “heightened” and left “unfulfilled” so that he wanted to “experiment,” Judge Simon Bourne-Arton has said. He told the boy, “Weak-willed you may be and weak-minded you may be, but you knew everything that you did to her. You may have been led, but you were led willingly.”
The 15-year-old boy was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison. The younger boy, described as more aggressive, has already been sentenced to four years. Both admitted to charges of rape and false imprisonment.
A massive public investigation in Scotland has revealed that young children are regularly gaining access to pornographic images through the Internet. Eight police forces and 23 council education departments have responded to a Freedom of Information request by the Scottish Herald that revealed authorities are aware of a growing problem.
Children and teenagers are using mobile phones for “sexting,” sending pornographic images to each other, a problem teachers and parents are aware of but can do little about, according to the Hearld. Many of the cases reported to the Herald were of older teenagers “sexting” much younger children, with the youngest being only eight.
The Herald quoted Chief Constable Colin McKerracher saying, “Professionals are coming across more situations where young people are at risk or have been harmed by experiences with the net.”