Perverting the course of justice is a serious crime and rightly carries a custodial sentence, in a country when the law is upheld with the consent of the people it can't be seen to be held in contempt by its citizens.

Maybe I've missed something, but I fail to see how any instance of rape can result in only a caution being issued to the offender.

What if your immature and besotted son had got it on with his school's Miss World, they are in love of course and unofficially engaged and devoted to each other "for eva", she looks 25 but is in fact a month under the legal age of consent. They thought there was nothing wrong with it, that no-one would find out, that it was nobody else's business and in 2013 was no big deal.



You are the judge. What sentence would you impose?

Not sure that would class as 'rape' under UK law. Isn't sex with an underage person a completely different offence?

Statutory rape.

Only if they are under 13, which was specifically not the case mentioned.

The problem is in the reporting of course, that is the reporting in the media, it makes a very nice soundbite if you use the word "rape" without explaining the circumstances in each of the five, yes just five cases out of 29,000 that were dealt with by caution - five cases are very simple to examine and explain in a paragraph but doing so would spoil the thrust of the article which is to criticise the practice rather than explain it.



A simple statement from The Met would put the story to bed, its obvious that there is no systematic dismissal of every rape case by means of dealing with it as a caution, it obvious that there are strict guidelines as to when cautions can be used in rape cases, its quite probable that the decisions aren't even being made by police officers at all, but none of this is reported by the media because being sensible about issues will not sell newspapers and TV channels.

^^ this ^^



It is viewed as not just a crime against the state but a crime against what is probably the most important foundation that underpins the state.



In the 1970s a mate of mine worked for Security Express. One particular contract they operated was to return used banknotes to the Bank of England for destruction. This involved collecting sacks of notes from individual banks, collating them into cages and trucking them back to the BoE for incineration. These notes were literally stuffed into bin bags and wads of notes would spill out onto the floor. My mate, over a period of months, managed to "pick up" over £30k of this "unwanted" cash and redistribute it to various retailers and holiday companies.



It was only a matter of time before he was caught and he was charged, and pleaded guilty to the theft. Before passing a custodial sentence of only 6 months, the judge was scathing in his criticism of Security Express, even suggesting they remove the word "Security" from their title. He also said that if the money had not belonged to Treasury, he would've been less inclined to order a custodial sentence but the fact that it impacted on money supply (however insignificant in the grand scheme), was the deciding factor. So it wasn't the amount involved or even the crime itself, it was who the money belonged to that determined the sentence.



Chris Huhne was a high-profile figure in our legislature, he had input into the formulation and delivery of laws on the statute books. He showed clear contempt for the law and between them, he and his then wife belived themselves above the very laws he was supposed to guard. A custodial sentence probably wasn't necessary but it was a clear case of "justice beeing seen to be done".

In the case of consensual sex between a girl just below 16 and a boy just past his sixteenth birthday?

Perhaps you could offer an example of when you think it's appropriate to deal with rape by way of a caution.

Right, well apparently, the term isn't used in UK law, but the concept is sex with anyone who is underage.



I do recall the prosecution (in Wales, IIRC), a few years ago, of a 15-year-old male for having consensual sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend. She wasn't prosecuted. He was put on the Sex Offenders' Register.

I would imagine it's when all the evidence has been gathered & considered and the CPS has come back with a zero chance of getting a conviction