Hot news, judge sees sense

[scutty brown]

Northern Irish judge shows the hypocrisy of a punter getting charged but not the girl

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Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan has backed a district judge over comments made in court which saw a man handed a 12-month conditional discharge after admitting paying for sex with a prostitute.

District Judge Ted Magill asked a solicitor for the Public Prosecution Service to "explain to me how it is a criminal offence for two adults to engage in paid for consensual sexual activity?

"They both engaged in it - he's arrested and spends the night in custody and she's not."

The comments were later challenged by a DUP peer who had campaigned to make the procurement of sexual services illegal.

The defendant in the case, Daniel Buga (41), whose address was given as Grove Place in the Carlisle Road area of Derry, pleaded guilty to a single charge of paying for sexual services by a person in a house at Grove Place last weekend.

When the prosecutor replied that "sex trafficking is a problem here", Mr Magill said the defendant was not charged with that.

"The facts are he attended with a prostitute, they did engage in sexual activity which he paid for, then, for whatever reason, the police arrived," the magistrate said.

"He admits to committing an offence and is arrested. She is not despite the fact they both engaged in some sexual consensual activity.

"It is hard for me to wrap my head around that because it means if two people decided to go inside for paid for sex, one is guilty and the other isn't."

The comments were later described as "deeply concerning" by a DUP peer.

Lord Morrow described the comments of the judge as "unfortunate".

The peer fought to have the purchase of sexual services made illegal, and some convictions have already been recorded in courts here since the legislation was passed in 2015.

"The judge's remarks are deeply concerning," said Lord Morrow.

"The decision to only criminalise the buyer rather than the seller was subject to extensive debate and scrutiny in the Assembly during the passage of the relevant legislation.

"This is where questions of this nature are rightly determined."

Lord Morrow said he would be raising the issue with the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Declan Morgan, who said no contact has yet been made from the peer.

A spokesperson from the Lord Chief Justice's Office confirmed: "This office has seen Lord Morrow's statement but he has not been in contact.

"We can confirm that the judge was aware of the legislation and penalties that can be imposed.

"He dealt with the case on the basis of the circumstances put before the court."

Judges are bound by sentencing guidelines and must take into account mitigating circumstances, such as early guilty pleas, cooperation with police and remorse, as well as aggravating factors such as intent and excessive violence.

[S.X. MacHine]

Interesting.
Here in Scotland a committee of the Scottish Parliament is considering making paid sex illegal. If a law is eventually passed making consensual paid sex a crime, I suspect it’s implementation will be rendered problematic for the prosecuting authority, the Crown Office, by evidential issues.
How, short of a confession by the punter, would the police prove that sex, let alone paid sex, had occurred?
The Police Service in Northern Ireland has cited the difficulties in proving cases against purchasers of sexual services as the reason for the negligible number of prosecutions.
Besides, the police services whether in Ulster or Scotland, are fairly stretched and may well consider that their time might be better employed than in the pursuit of men engaging in consensual, paid sex.
Still, Lord Morrow and his fellow band of god botherers and ilk minded feminist bigots, will doubtlessly be delighted that prostitution is ‘officially’ a crime.

[pewpewpew]

Can use use the excuse that you're paying for her time etc. Or if push comes to shove, that you paid her to kick you in the balls for an hour. Is that illegal too?

Also, the buyer being criminalised and the seller not surely sets a bad precedent. Should we use the same rules with drug dealers?

[IAMBATMAN]

Should we use the same rules with drug dealers?

I thought the exact same thing. And if paid sex is made illegal will porn be affected? It is after all "paid for consensual sex" just with a camera.

[jc1971]

Suspect this will be the first of several scenarios where in male/female 'exchanges' shall we say the behaviour of the male may be deemed 'Criminal' whilst the female will be completely immune.

[Itsnotshy]

Law has been around in Sweden since 1999. They seem to have no problems. They just arrest and fine.
If the police and courts are prepared to enforce laws that go against common sense we just have to put up with it.
Maybe this judge has a modicum of common sense, I expect he'll get his botty smacked by his superiors in due course.

[Adoniron]

Law has been around in Sweden since 1999. They seem to have no problems. They just arrest and fine.
If the police and courts are prepared to enforce laws that go against common sense we just have to put up with it.
Maybe this judge has a modicum of common sense, I expect he'll get his botty smacked by his superiors in due course.

Apparently not. The Lord Chief Justice has backed him. Politicians should keep out of court cases they know nothing about.

[The Owl]

The DUP seems to live in another world. Perhaps they should put down their bibles and history books on puritan England and join the real world. By all means prosecute punters who fuck forcibly trafficked sex slaves but if there's consent in exchange for cash then the police and prosecution services should be focussing on real crimes.

[Marmalade]

Northern Ireland is not exactly a country with a history of common sense. Hence it having the law in the first place.

[HarryZZ]

Northern Ireland still has different laws on abortion to the rest of the UK, in many ways you may think that the protestant majority would side with England and the rest of the UK just to separate themselves from the Catholic south, but the two sides are more alike than they care to admit, as a nation anything to do with sex and they're very repressed.

There are many laws in the UK that separate the buyer, owner, user and seller from each other, drug use has already been mentioned and look at the backlash "decriminalisation" of cannabis causes, papers like the Mail report anything like that as all drugs or prostitution now compulsory, there's be dealers/prossies outside every school gate, they love it. So the laws remain unchanged whilst largely ignored, there's a law that in York that says you can still shoot a Scotsman with a bow and arrow within the city walls, the law was never removed it's obviously superseded by other laws but probably left there so as not to offend Ye Olde Daily Maile readers of the time, I suspect there are many similar examples, the judge is just using common sense.

[vindici]

Law has been around in Sweden since 1999. They seem to have no problems. They just arrest and fine.

That law is problematic, it is nigh on impossible for the Police to get a conviction without a confession. Imagine what tactics they employ to get that...

The NZ system is the best, full legalisation, with support offered to those that want it.

[Gordon Bennett]

They should concentrate on catching nonces. It's quite ridiculous pursuing red-blooded males for paying attractive ladies to have sex with them - it's completely normal reasonable healthy behaviour. There are existing mechanisms for the law getting involved when the ladies are being coerced or controlled and that's all that's needed really. As said above, the time and effort need to secure a sound prosecution would be disproportionate high and very hard to justify plus I don't see how any parlours or Adultwork or small-ads would be allowed. How can you permit the advertising/selling of something that nobody is allowed to actually buy????

[mrwhite]

Interesting.
Here in Scotland a committee of the Scottish Parliament is considering making paid sex illegal. If a law is eventually passed making consensual paid sex a crime, I suspect it’s implementation will be rendered problematic for the prosecuting authority, the Crown Office, by evidential issues.
How, short of a confession by the punter, would the police prove that sex, let alone paid sex, had occurred?

Simple way around that, you spend an hour or so of quality time with your lady of choice, and at the end of it she makes you a coffee.  You pay £120 for a coffee! simples!!

[S.X. MacHine]

They should concentrate on catching nonces. It's quite ridiculous pursuing red-blooded males for paying attractive ladies to have sex with them - it's completely normal reasonable healthy behaviour. There are existing mechanisms for the law getting involved when the ladies are being coerced or controlled and that's all that's needed really. As said above, the time and effort need to secure a sound prosecution would be disproportionate high and very hard to justify plus I don't see how any parlours or Adultwork or small-ads would be allowed. How can you permit the advertising/selling of something that nobody is allowed to actually buy????

Indeed. The problems around prostitution arise from exploitation, a fact which has been acknowledged for centuries; hence Victorian laws against pimping and procuring women  for prostitution. Enforcement is time consuming and difficult. Staking our escorts and arresting punters would, I suspect, be easier, but successful prosecutions would depend on confessions.
In America, where the religious bigots has prostitution banned in the thirties, the business turns over $6 billion per annum (estimated, of course) and advertising continues. I guess the adverts will ostensibly be for providing company only to punters; or ‘massage’.