Fair enough , my view was that it is more common than not, and rarely prosecuted, i was so astonished at your views, that i asked if you had worked as a gp, no gp would be surprised at how common under age sex was.
I always fully agreed with that. Underage sex is very common and rarely prosecuted in comparison to the scale.
"Almost 30% of young men and 26% of young women report having had intercourse before their 16 th birthday". At the time I think the case involved was an underage female and a very much older male. Prosecution would be far commoner under such circumstances as against a consenting 15 year old girl and an 18 year old male although technically both are illegal. We had crossed wires in the discussion and I recall by the time I tried to clarify the thread was gone

My main thrust was that there are very complex safeguarding protocols and procedures going on in the background for whatever arena is involved, be it Healthcare, Police, Social Services etc. All these processes are escalating in nature from someone first assessing the individual case (eg School Safeguarding team) through to multi-agencies (as appropriate) and finally CPS and the courts if required.
Here is some bedtime reading for you Willie which applies North of the border

It details just how complex the assessment is of underage sex.
External Link/Members OnlySorry for going way off at a tangent.