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Back Page: Hound - Between the lines in the past week's media

1 min read
Daily Express columnist Vanessa Feltz pulled no punches when she laid into the judge guilty of handing down a shockingly lenient sentence to a man who raped a 10-year-old girl.

Judge Julian Hall - who once suggested a paedophile should buy hissix-year-old victim a bicycle to "cheer her up" - argued the girl inthis recent case was "provocatively dressed" and "very disturbed, veryneedy and sexually precocious". No wonder Feltz was spitting bile.

"Judge Hall has done the unthinkable," she writes. "He has made a10-year-old child somehow responsible for her own rape."

Lesley Thomas of The Daily Telegraph also condemned the ruling but wenton to take a different tack. In a column entitled "Why do we dresschildren like tarts?" she suggested the girl's local authority guardians- she was in care - were at fault for letting her out in inappropriateclothing. Is it really reasonable to suggest social workers could andshould ban children from wearing outfits sported by many of their peers?Or that the way this child was dressed should in any way been seen as anexcuse for such a despicable act?

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