A prominent barrister today declared sex abuse is not a “black and white” issue as she again waded into the row over a child victim described as “predatory”.
Barbara Hewson had said it “takes two to tango” over the case of a 13-year-old girl who was abused by paedophile Neil Wilson, 41.
The human rights lawyer today stood by her comments, saying society has a “simplistic view of sex abuse”.
Barrister Robert Colover sparked outrage this week when he said at Wilson’s sentencing: “The girl is predatory in all her actions and she is sexually experienced.”
Ms Hewson also provoked anger with her subsequent “two to tango” tweet. Talking today about consensual sex between men and under-age girls, she said: “People have a real difficulty in thinking about these cases. What they don’t like is the fact that it is consensual.
“At the moment we have a simplistic view of sex abuse. This very black and white approach is not very helpful.
“But whenever there is any issue about children generally you tend to get this hysterical response.”
Ms Hewson caused a furore in May by querying the merits of the police probe into alleged sex offences by Jimmy Savile and others.
