***DISCLAIMER***

Before I get started on this, I want to curb a few of you right off. This post is not about what I would do, or “if it was my daughter”. This is about facts and about how things get so f’ing twisted we can’t see straight. If you are going to reply, and say “If it was Adora……” don’t waste your time. I am commenting on the situation, not the morality.

***END DISCLAIMER****


Derrick Joseph Redden is an idiot. Hands down, an Idiot. A sexual relationship with a 16, now 17 year old girl…. Ludicrous. But the question is, is he a criminal? My response to this…….


Empthatically, NO.

We discussed this after the last teacher scandal. I fail to understand what these so called judges find illegal. If being a complete and utter moron is a crime (and maybe it should be) then hell yeah, he’s guilty. But it is not a crime. The judge was quoted as saying

It’s clear that there lurked in that teacher an evil which was an evil that led this man to throw away his career, the respect he gained in his community and amongst his peers, his relationship with his children, in order to gratify himself sexually the father says that she went from a grade A student to trying to kill herself.

The girl has quite a different story to tell. She says he was her support and she felt she had her feet planted firmly on the ground when she had him to talk to. I guess this judge must have supernatural power to see through the feelings of people and create what he wants to see. How convenient. I guess the father needs someone to blame. I wonder if he ever thought that there may be something else that brought her to the suicide. Maybe some internal audit of his own family might help solve that.

Redden says he takes full responsibility for his actions, and why not. Aside from making a class one stupid mistake, he did nothing wrong. The age for sexual consent in the province of Nova Scotia is 16. So why is this man sitting in jail, and being registered as a sex offender? The sex was consenting, and there was a relationship on part of both until the father found out.

Now since a lot of you will likely come back at me moral compasses blazing, firstly I agree with you. MORALLY. But I have to say he would not be in jail if she was 19. Or even 18 likely for that matter. Moreover, if she was that old, your moral compass wouldn’t even turn on. It likely wouldn’t turn on if he wasn’t married with children. Truth be told, if she wasn’t 16,and wasn’t a teacher, it wouldn’t have even made the god damn news. Do I think he was wrong in doing so, of course I do. What father wouldn’t? Would I lose my mind if it happened to my daughter, most certainly. It was a bad choice. But none of us know the details. Maybe her family life was bad, and he helped her get through it. A kind of Florence Nightingale effect. Just speculating.

All I’m saying is, this man did commit a moral blunder, one that was apparently catastrophic. He should not be charged with a crime though. There was no rape, it was totally and utterly agreed upon, and our own laws, the one this supposed “Judge” is sworn to uphold, says she is allowed to make that decision. I think the judge let his own feelings get in the way.

Redden deserved to lose his job. No question. But the law was not upheld here.