Anna Rowe

Peter with much respect,you need to catch up with new behaviours and how online now enables abusers to multiply their efforts.Romancing is someone looking for a real relationship,the courting.He was not. He never had any intention of a relationship. It was all fake for a purpose

I'm perfectly well aware of the online behaviours, thanks... So it's the intention that's important, not the exaggerations & lies, yes?

Some of these don’t use a fake ID like he did. For me and the other victims of his, the intent was covered by the deception. It meant we didn’t have the freedom to choose to have that relationship with him and he knew full well that we wouldn’t have engaged if he told the truth.

But the same applies to many things said in "ordinary" romancing & chatting up. I'm trying to establish where you draw the line... Or don't you?

Thanks for the link... But it's not the answer - "serious" and "material" are totally subjective terms - what is to one person may not be to another. She proposes an objective (reasonable person) test... The Courts are familiar with the concept but I'm not sure it would be >

>appropriate for such a serious offence (Courts have tended to apply a subjective test (did this defendant realise) & I'm pretty sure they would here unless Parliament specifically mandated an objective one... Personally I think that if you were to apply such a test you should>

>introduce a lower level offence (max penalty 7 or 10yrs not Life) such as the one I've previously suggested to address other problems with consent (an offence of, for want of a better way of putting it, sex without taking reasonable care to establish consent). An objective >