Psychic goes to jail for "causing women to engage in sexual activity without consent"

SubJeff on 23/6/2012 at 12:48

Got this link from another forum I frequent.

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-18549569)

Interesting views on that forum mostly of the type "why is he being punished because they are gullible?", but with quite a lot of support for the conviction.

Essentially this psychic promised 2 young women various psychic/spiritual benefits if they'd do a bunch of stuff for him and with him. Sexual stuff. And he's been convicted of "causing women to engage in sexual activity without consent" and will be sent to jail for and as yet unspecified time.

I'm not sure I get this. On the one hand they most certainly did consent (imho) as they weren't drugged or intimidated, on the other it's arguable that they didn't know what they were doing since they believe in nonsense.

How is this different to lying about how much you like someone in order to just bang them? And should this really be deemed criminal? I'm confused.

Vasquez on 23/6/2012 at 16:12

That is confusing.

This part IMO makes it different from just lying to get laid:

Quote:

He added that they were "vulnerable in the sense that they were bereaved and sought the defendant's consultation in communicating with those who died, and he took the most gross advantage of the situation".

But on the other hand, how can anyone be stupid enough to believe that acting like a porn star will get you in contact with the dead?

nickie on 23/6/2012 at 17:28

My immediate reaction was that it was right and proper. Over 4 years, this man manipulated 2 "vulnerable" women into having sex or performing sex acts in front of him. So, over 4 years I imagine it started slowly and not such a big thing at the beginning.

My first thought was that it was abuse of trust but that's not what he was prosecuted for. I did a quick shufty (no, not that meaning) through criminal offences but didn't see the one he was found guilty of. We need Matthew.

I wonder whether they paid him for his psychic services as well?

I've been thinking about it on and off all day and have come to the conclusion that it's justified for this reason.

Quote:

Following the case, David Watts, senior prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service in Wales, said: "This was a very unusual case involving the cynical exploitation of a number of young women.

"Karl Lang preyed on his victims in a callous and underhand manner. He targeted them at times in their lives when they were at their most vulnerable.

What I find very sad is that these two young women didn't have enough of anything to run a mile in the first place.

SubJeff on 23/6/2012 at 20:30

Well I've been enlightened. Apparently if you lie with regards to what the sexual acts will achieve (other than sex) you're taking away consent to sex. So if you said you were a tantric sex back-pain healer you'd be guilty.

Unless you actually healed the back pain. :p

demagogue on 23/6/2012 at 20:53

Well there's a very old line of common law that it's a crime to misrepresent for sex or marriage, like you promise you're going to marry a woman to have sex with her, then you ditch her afterwards, or you promise you're a rich man when you're not... It used to be the woman or her family could sue for damages, in the same line that made fornication and adultery crimes.

Anyway, by the 1960s a lot of these laws got tossed out, but there are remnants of that line still around, and my intuition is this interpretation of the "non-consent" element of the crime of rape, where a misrepresentation negates consent, is a legacy of that line that's still on the books... And when a case is brought, a good lawyer is going to dig it up and apply to this new context, and they sold it to the judge here.

But what's really doing the work here (in all these kinds of cases) is that they sold the story that the guy did some very swarmy things over a very long time with some kind of brainwashing regimen, and they told some harrowing story of how he took advantage of their vulnerability for such a long time that just kept getting worse and worse ... The judge & jury would have grabbed on to any hook they could to punish him for it because it just seemed criminal, whatever it was, and 'we want to send a message that the law doesn't let people just do this indiscriminately... Brainwashing is bad enough, but add sex to it & we'll draw a line'. And 'consent' is the ambiguous legal term that gives them the box to put it in. That's legal realism for you.

Yakoob on 23/6/2012 at 21:49

Hmmm I can see the logic in the sentence. It does seem ridiculous at first, but take the "psychic" out of the equation and just think of it as service-type job with a lot of intimacy and trust involved. Now if a doctor told you it is required to see you naked or touch your wawa to further diagnose you, you'd probably oblige. If it was not necessary at all and he was just doing to get a hard-on on, he would be waaay out of the line and should be, as in this case, prosecuted.

This can extend to less-biologically scenarios like counselors or therapists; while most people would raise an eyebrow at the odd request, lets not forget a chunk of them are emotionally unstable and in a position of great vulnerability that can be exploited.

Thinking in those terms, I can see why a "psychic" could sort of be an extension of the above two examples, even if slightly more muddy and unusual.

Quote Posted by Subjective Effect

Got this link from another forum I frequent.

YOU WHORE

SubJeff on 23/6/2012 at 23:54

As I understand it the case with all of these professions is quite different, even though the outcome is pretty much the same. There was no real contract or professional rules governing this psychic business.

Yeah, I think they accused me of the same in the other thread. lol

Vasquez on 24/6/2012 at 07:28

Quote Posted by Yakoob

Thinking in those terms, I can see why a "psychic" could sort of be an extension of the above two examples, even if slightly more muddy and unusual.

I would rather compare him to a priest than a doctor, since this is a case of brainwashing gullible people in the name of spirituality. The directly sexual aspect aside, this is more like a priest telling someone "You won't go to heaven if you use birth control" or "You won't go to heaven if you leave your abusive spouse" and that might lead to huge life-long problems for many people.
(Except, for some reason, that's not seen as a crime.)

nicked on 24/6/2012 at 07:57

The comparison to a priest is an interesting one, as it raises the question of belief. This whole case seems grounded in the fact that he didn't really think he could help them talk to the dead, he just lied about it to get sex. So would the outcome have been different if he had genuinely believed that outrageous sex acts would help commune with the dead? Looked at completely dispassionately, it's not really any stranger than believing that monogamy leads to Heaven.

Vasquez on 24/6/2012 at 09:34

Quote Posted by nicked

So would the outcome have been different if he had genuinely believed that outrageous sex acts would help commune with the dead?

Probably not, since he's not a representative of an "official" religious doctrine. If it's not organised and established, it's just silly superstition.

Edit. And I don't mean a priest would not be punished for sexing with his flock, I was talking more generally of using spiritual things to manipulate other peoples' lives.