Judge Tells 40-Year-Old Woman 'You were a very unhappy lady when this 14-year-old boy seduced you'

About as clear an example of the female sentencing discount as you'll ever see, though this is so outrageous the word "discount" seems excessively tame.

Perhaps "tame" would be better applied to the sentence--no jail time...

From Mother was seduced by 14-year-old boy, says judge (UK Telegraph, 10/14/08):

Sharon Edwards, 40, walked away from Teeside Crown Court after the judge ruled that she had been flattered by the boy's attention as a result of feeling trapped in an unhappy marriage and had let herself be seduced by him.

The court heard that Edwards had sex with the boy a total of four times betwee
September 2007 and January 2008.

Edwards' husband Mark first became suspicious because she was exchanging 50 text messages a day with the boy, prosecutor Tina Dempster told the court.

He spoke to her about he number of text messages she was sending to the boy but she said they were just having a laugh.

He began checking his wife's computer for MSN messages and, through these, discovered that her love
was a youngster who went to the same school as their two sons.

Mr. Edwards then contacted the boy's mother who called the police.

The next day the boy was interviewed by police and confirmed that he had had a crush on her and that they had had sexual intercourse the previous night.

In one of the MSN chats the boy even asked her to buy him cocaine, and she said that she would not want any money for it.

Deborah Sherwin, defending, said that it was clear from the video interview that police carried out that the boy was tall at six foot one, and mature for his age.

Judge Peter Fox QC told her: "You have been a very unhappy lady for a very considerable period of time when this 14-year-old boy seduced you and not you him both so far as sexual matters and as far as drugs are concerned."

He added that Mrs. Edwards did have a responsibility as an adult to reject the boy's advances but said that he regarded the case as an exceptional one.

She pleaded guilty to four charges of sexual activity with a child and offering to supply a Class A drug and was given a 12 month suspended jail sentence and ordered to register as a sex offender for five years.

Thanks to Chad, a reader, for the story.