While standing trial for child rape, the perpetrator told the court that he had no idea sex with children was against the law. However, the most disturbing moment came when the judge accepted the child rapist’s excuse and released him without jail time.
Adil Rashid was arrested after British investigators discovered that he had sex with a 13-year-old girl he met over the internet. The 18-year-old Muslim man had meticulously groomed the child for two months on Facebook before luring her to a hotel room in Nottingham to have intercourse.
Once he was arrested, Rashid acted confused and claimed that he had no idea it was illegal to have sex with 13-year-old girls. He even told police that he was educated in a madrassa, which is an Islamic school, claiming that the strict religious teaching caused him to believe that females were inferior and created for the sexual fulfillment of men.
In other interviews with psychologists, Rashid claimed he had been taught in his school that “women are no more worthy than a lollipop that has been dropped on the ground.”
Clinging to his religious upbringing as an excuse, Rashid once again explained to Judge Michael Stokes that he can’t be held criminally liable because he thought having sex with children was permissible. What no one expected was for the judge to accept his justification and allow him to walk free.
According to Daily Mail, although Rashid was found guilty of crimes that would typically receive 4 to 7 years in prison, Judge Stokes allowed him to walk out of the courtroom with just 9-months in a youth center. The Nottingham Crown Court judge defended his decision to release the convicted sex offender, claiming that jail time might cause him “more damage than good.”
“It is not too far to say that he may not have known that having sex with a 13-year-old girl was illegal,” defence lawyer Laban Leake said.
Even though Judge Stokes initially stated that Rashid “must have known it was illegal” to have sex with a child “unless he was going round with his eyes shut,” he eventually sided with the rapist. Subsequently, Rashid openly blamed his child victim, arguing that he had been “tempted by her” after they began chatting online. He claimed that the girl lured him through private messages on Facebook before texting him on his phone, which ultimately led to him traveling to Nottingham and booking a hotel room at the Premier Inn.
Rashid claimed that he went home after having sex with the girl and then headed to a nearby mosque to pray. He was arrested a week after the child confided in a classmate about their rendezvous. It was then that he attempted to justify his actions by blaming the girl and citing his Islamic education.
Describing Rashid, the judge said: “He’s had an unusual education, certainly in terms of the sexual education provided. Comparing women to lollipops is a very curious way of teaching young men about sex.”
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the sentencing is that Judge Stokes admitted that he believed Rashid knew what he was doing was wrong. Still, he gave him the lightest sentence possible, ensuring that the child groomer doesn’t feel the sting of justice.
Another sexual predator goes free while his victim serves a life sentence, doomed to suffer from his sick perversions for the rest of her life. Sadly, odds are that Rashid will find yet another vulnerable young victim to groom for his own sexual purposes.
