My blood started to boil when I read this in the Metro on the way to work this morning...
The son of an Oil Millionaire has essentially been let-off after sexually assualting a swedish fashion student because the Judge reasoned the 33-year-old from New Delhi knew no better. He will avoid a prison sentence by writing a letter of apology to his victim. After a night out clubbing in London with three female friends, the normally shy and 'geeky' Prashant Modi went back to a hotel room with the ladies where they ordered a meal and fell asleep. One girl awoke to see Modi on-top her friend, having removed her underwear and his jeans. The Judge deemed the circumstances as exceptional because Modi was not accustomed to 'Western ways.' Judge Jeremy Roberts said:
It's a situation he had never come across before. I am told in India it is not heard of...He found himself alone with three young women asleep in his room and had fallen into temptation.
I am appalled and disgusted. I do not believe it is human nature to force un-consented sex onto another person. I would argue that sexual violence is understood to be catagorically unacceptable, and not something that needs to be taught no matter where in the world you live. The fact he was 'unsocialised' does not make his behaviour understandable. The implication that the girls should not have shared a bedroom with their male friend knowing he was socially stilited makes me realise we really haven't come that far in terms of feminism in the courtroom.
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