L’adolescente accusato di atti sessuali con una ragazza (14 anni) non può avanzare la difesa del consenso “Romeo e Giulietta”.
https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2026/03/31/teen-accused-of-sexual-acts-with-girl-14-cannot-advance-romeo-and-juliet-consent-defence/
di 5x0uf5o
21 commenti
From the article:
“The girl was three months short of her 15th birthday at the time and the accused was seven months older.”
Legally, the issue appears to be simply that she wasn’t 15 yet.
Are we really wanting to charge 15 year olds for having sexual relationships with people a few months younger than them?
This seems fucking insane.
This is what’s wrong with most legal systems, they are just there to follow the law and not get justice.
Two teens have sex consensually, 7 months in the age difference and his life could be ruined now.
Yet certain judges *Cough, Nolan, Cough* let actual pedophiles in their 30s/40s/50s engaging in sexual acts with minors and content involving minors off with the most lenient sentences.
A 15 year old engaged in some stuff with a 14 year old and now, when they’re 18 they’re in court?
This is honestly beyond parody.
Has there been more info on this case in the past?
It only states sexual acts, which doesn’t typically imply anything non-consensual.
So are the odds leaning towards the parents or someone else informing the Garda of two teens having sex or adjacent activity?
I know we have, at this point, a beyond desperate need to remind teens that having sex young is a fucking disaster and needs to be held back by all accounts..
But what’s the outcome of this? Jail time? Put him on the register for life? It really does feel fucked from all angles and just a heartbreaking shame for something that could’ve been avoided with a bit of common sense.
Lots of people could be in trouble then from when we were 14-15 then may as well put us all on some kind of list
What’s Romeo and Juliet defence?
Fairly cynical of the Irish Times to list him in the headline as just “Teen” without his age and her as “girl (14)”, very negative framing of what happened here.
Who is pursuing the case?
And yet actual peadophiles are being let off everyday… fucking INSANITY
Most of my school would be up in court then. Absolutely no common sense.
I remember a case years ago where two 14 year olds had sex and the boy was legally charged after her father complained to the gardaí as legally the male had to be guilty of rape even though it was consensual and they were both the same age.
Why is one described as a teen and one a girl?
So if I’m reading the article correctly it sounds like 2 teenagers who’d be in the same school year. Both underage. Essentially they’re both a few months either side of 15. The older one has already said they didn’t know the other one was under 15. (Which wouldn’t be mad if they’re same school year). But the law is inflexible on this and specifically doesn’t allow for any lowering of the age for the R&J defence regardless of any circumstances.
My question would be, unless there’s something missing, how does this actually meet the criteria of being in the public interest to pursue?
Really weird to charge a 15yo for a crime of having a 14yo gf when both the Epstein files politicians and the Catholic Church leaders have never faced any consequences for their real crimes
It’s worth noting the judges remarks here. The ruling is without prejudice and is just a technical decision based on the law. The judge’s ruling is not that the law is morally fair or that the case has merit. Merely that the case is constitutional.
“His decision, he stressed, only concerns the constitutional issue, does not deal with the merits of the underlying criminal prosecution and the accused has the presumption of innocence which can only be displaced following a criminal trial in due course of law.”
Naturally this is one of those issues, like the 8th amendment, that has been ignored or dismissed repeatedly because “it’s not that big a deal”. Until someone falls foul of it and their life is ruined.
We should have fixed this years ago.
Can the teenage girl be charged with rape or committing sexual acts with an underage person . I assume she was a willing participant?
This is mental.
Thankfully this cant come back and bite me, not because I was only humping 15+ but because I was a complete uggo
so he was 15 and she was 14 and he has been charged. that seems unfair. I’m sure the parents are not happy about it
This is utterly unfair. The poor boy is terrorised and neither he nor the girl will be able to have a healthy attitude to sex for a long time. It’s totally natural.
Parents do this often – where the girl is so scared at being in trouble they say it wasn’t their idea. That’s rotten parenting. If they want to – scare the shite outta your kid, but don’t do this!
Either the article is really confusing or his defense was very confused… I think it’s the latter.
> In High Court judicial review proceedings, the accused, now aged 18, argued the law preventing him from availing of the peer consent defence in a situation, where he made a “reasonable mistake” about the complainant’s age, was unconstitutional.
If I’m reading that right the ruling is that you can’t use a “Romeo and Juliet” excuse for a “reasonable mistake” defense.
Which is fair. I can see an argument that considering the defendant was only 15 at the time it’s not right to be prosecuting them for “defilement” of someone only a few months younger, but arguing that “peer consent” can be used for an “I thought she was older than the minimum age allowed for peer consent to apply” defense is BS.
> The judge noted another argument advanced on behalf of the accused was rejected last year by the Court of Appeal in a separate case. That contended, in circumstances of reasonable belief the complainant was aged 15, the accused lacked the necessary intent to justify a criminal conviction.
So the defense is throwing everything at the wall in hopes that something might stick.