"But is Britain unusual in maintaining the age of consent at 16, and how does we compare to the rest of the world?
In Europe, countries who have the age of consent set at 16 include Cyprus, Finland, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland.
Spain did have one of the lowest ages of consent on the continent at just 13, but recently agreed to raise this to 16.
For Austria, Germany, Portugal and Italy it is 14, and in France, the Czech Republic, Denmark, and Greece it is 15.
In China, the age of consent is 14, in Iraq it is 18, while in Japan it is five years lower at 13.
The likes of Brazil, Peru, Paraguay, Ecuador and Colombia all have it set at 14.
I know this is the popular case to flog your morals over right now but the relationship to this story seems pretty threadbare. What connection do you see outside of the sex crime angle?
While that case is terrible, I think most people will find a difference between one incident of rape between two people in their 20s and the statutory rape of 5 adolescent girls by a 45-year-old man. To me at least, there seems to be very little comparison.
In brief, raping someone who is unconscious fits neatly into the 'Power-Reassurance' category of rapist. On the other hand the guy himself appears (although we'll see as he gets older) to be more of a 'Power-Assertive' type. In either case the major factor is the perception of the victim as vulnerable, which can come in the form of "drunk and unconscious", but just as often comes in the form of, "Elderly or disabled".
Rapists tend to be highly preferential in their modus, but across typologies the victim profiles are insanely varied... except that the rapist feels they can dominate/control them.
