A 13-year-old in the UK admitted to raping his eight-year-old sister, telling police he had been watching porn through his Xbox 360’s browser when he “decided to try it out”. The gut-wrenching case adds fuel to the controversy there over whether and how access to online pornography should be controlled.
While there are no dedicated applications serving porn to the Xbox 360, the console does feature a web browser that can access web sites the same as any browser on a PC. The console also can play DVDs. The source of the pornography was not described in news accounts about the assault and guilty plea.
The Lancashire Telegraph reported that the boy admitted the assault and specifically named the console as the device where he had been watching the porn, and that it inspired him to “try it out”. The boy said he chose his sister because she was small and “couldn’t remember stuff”.
A detective told the court that “this is one of those tragic sexual experimentation cases.”
The member of parliament for the area where the assault occurred called the case “breathtakingly horrible” and called on internet service providers to “recognise that they have greater responsibilities for controlling access to porn.”
UK ISPs have acceded to calls to filter pornography and other objectionable content, placing it on new customers to opt out of filtering as of the beginning of the year. But a new bill is set to be discussed in committee, one which proposes internet users opt-in to viewing adult content by proving they are over 18.
Blackburn boy, 13, rapes sister, 8, after watching porn on Xbox [Lancashire Telegraph h/t James]
Comments
91 responses to “Boy Admits Raping Sister After He Watched Porn On Xbox”
Great… it could have been any device… but now we have to suffer through a bunch of morons trying to fight the “Good fight” against video games.
I think the focus of this story was the content itself and not the console. It doesn’t mention anyone blaming the console, just the internet itself
Doesn’t change the relevance of the above comment. The article may not make a point of it, but we know the anti-video game brigade is readying pitchforks.
yeah, but look what this article was focusing on? the only picture is also of an xbox…
i don’t really give a crap about the xbox, but i can see where rethilgore is coming from.
No mention of where the parents were while their 13yo had access to the internet…
Can the browser be included in ‘Parental Controls’ lock on 360? This is possible on PS3 – though most parents never seem to bother with parental controls.
This has nothing to do with Porn, or an Xbox. It has to do with a 13 year old undiganosed Sociopath being left alone with his younger sibling.
It has nothing to do with either. It has to do with how you raise your children.
This falls outside of the realm of normal parenting related issues. No parent normally has to have a sit down chat with their child telling them not to sexually assault their siblings. It takes a level of pre-existing dysfunction to even consider such an act.
In the words of Chris Rock “Whatever happened to crazy?”.
The odds of a teenager be coming a sociopath all of a sudden is quite slim to how he was raised considering the parents should have been taking care of him his whole life. It would take quite the leap of faith to assume that he was just plain crazy. Blaming crazy is just easier to resolve people of responsibility and guilt. Pop a pill and it will fix everything and that way we don’t have to focus on the real problem.
Did you know, statically speaking that a person with single parent mother are more likely to commit rape?
Definitely this. The argument of nature vs nurture says ‘is he naturally a sociopath or did he learn the behaviour?’ If we believe he learnt the behaviour, then why under the same parenting, is his sister not a sociopath striking out in the same way at others for instance?
Selective parenting?
Indeed it’s possible. Don’t know why someone downvoted this, as abusive parenting is selective parenting for instance, or lazy parenting as well. However, I guess we’ll never know.
Well there are instances of parents selecting “prodigy” children and ignoring the rest. Putting all their eggs in one basket and are more annoyed by the other siblings. Hell, in China you’re ignored if you’re born as a woman.
It is possible that the parents wanted a little girl but got him, so now they let him do what they want. But who knows.
Absolutely there is. I went to school with identical triplets and ‘the fourth child’. The triplets got all the attention and their youngest brother was ignored by everyone. The folks treated the youngest (Who was a good friend during my highschool years) like shit, he got yelled at a lot, blamed for everything the triplets did, it was ridiculous.
These days, two of the triplets are in jail, one for drugs, the other for violence. The third is a labourer and guess who is a succesful barrister?
O_o
I call bull**** on your dichotomous approach to this child’s actions – logical fallacy detected. Also, he could very easily have learned behaviours that his sister does not given that we don’t learn everything from a single authority (parents, god, whatever) but are part of a world of many influences (people, drugs, dogs, walls). Further, that the child is a sociopath adheres to a very structuralist psychological regime that entirely misses any notions of spontaneity of desires and so on… yeah it is an extreme desire (in that I suspect this is a fairly rare case) that we would prefer not to exist but your approach here doesn’t do anyone any good least of all the kid. Keep looking for causes and your list will continue to multiply ad infinitum. The kid’s line of flight can be altered for better from here, learn from stupid (extremely stupid – immoral, etc) actions sort of thing, if he isn’t placed into your overcoding regime of psycho-typical categories. Sociopath? Well lets just get in early before he starts on with an entire wave of sexual assaults in his life and just burn him now aye? (note sarcasm). These are humans, heterogeneous and complicated dude, not homogeneous types.
It’s more accurate than blaming porn.
You don’t think this could have been prevented if the parents were taking an interest in what their kid was doing, actually…you know…supervising him? Or if they implemented some kind of parental controls on the console?
Not really…….though you could argue the parents should have known the boy was dangerous……..as a parent you tend to see the good side of your kids so your always surpised when someone tells you your kid is evil (I assume, mine are perfect). Unless your saying the parents should have been involved in there child’s interest in porn??
Well as a person who was once a 13 year old boy I wouldn’t be trying to watch Porn with my parents in the next room, so it would imply at least that he was Home alone with his sister.
How did he do it without her calling for their parents? Chances are they weren’t home to call for.
This particular incident may have been stopped, but what about tomorrow? Or the next day? Parents aren’t godlike in their powers and this kid obviously has a serious problem that was going to manifest at some point.
He’s 13, at that age he ‘should’ be mature enough to understand that if his parents leave him alone for a few hours he shouldn’t rape someone.
Ahahahahahaa! I just visioned his parents talking to him about that right before they left.
“Your dinner is in the microwave. Remember to take out the trash, feed the dog, and don’t rape your sister”
You forgot “remember your banjo practice” and “keep an eye on the moonshine stills”
The thing is, we’re only assuming they didn’t. It’s easy to jump to judgement, but we could equally assume:
1. They do supervise him.
2. He knows the code for the parental controls.
3. He snuck onto the console to watch porn.
We’ve only been given the super-barebones of the facts, we would need far more before deciding any sort of judgement.
But fuck that, it’s the internet, lets crucify them instead of the kid who did it.
Valid point.
*Dons a bib.*
It’s gonna take me a while to finish this humble pie…….
Well put. I respect that.
Ha, back under your rock you go.
This is way Ps4-ps3 dont have flashplayers.
Because Flash is the only porn on the internet. We don’t know if he was watching it on a video site or looking at JPEGs.
I’m sure his parents are great people…
Im sorry this is a horrible thing to happen.
But where the fuck are the parents ?
^ This. Or better yet, why didn’t the parents put in the effort to research and lock down the console.
The “kid” is 13 f*cking years old.
Leaving a 13 year old with a games console/ television/ mobile phone shouldn’t ever be expected to end in something like this.
These are the kinds of things that fester within the minds of people with serious issues, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the parents were aware of it or that they had some overriding responsibility to shelter their kid from the internet in case he rapes someone.
There’s every chance that this boy was a pretty normal kid a year earlier (pre-pubescent) and that a surge of hormones during puberty triggered something seriously messed-up within him.
Kids need to be sheltered and educated, but in a world where the internet is absolutely everywhere I don’t think it’s reasonable for parents to be blocking 13 year olds out of accessing it entirely.
If you don’t monitor what they do during that significant age of physical development it can happen. The body matures faster than the mind (in most cases, some are lucky where the mind matures far faster than the body).
I will concede though. True, it can’t block Internet access completely. But the child should not have full range.
There is a reason why there are parental locks on theses consoles: so content above a specific rating is filtered out.
It is not that hard to turn them on. So the question remains: where were the parents in the matter?
Allowing unsupervised access is a poor parenting decision imho.
We certainly don’t need to wrap them in cotton wool but there is absolute responsibility to monitor their access.
No doubt something is wrong with the child but if supervision was provided maybe he would not have been in a situation to act on impulses.
Or better yet, why didn’t the parents feed him more vegetables, or take him to soccer practice, or shoot him into the sun?
The porn isn’t the issue. The Xbox isn’t the issue. The kid has serious problems, the parents can’t be everywhere all the time, and he was going to do something to someone at some time. It’s terrible that this happened, but flailing blindly for someone to blame is pointless. The kid has a problem.
It was said perfectly “breathtakingly horrible”
And yes, how a 13 year old boys gets to play and watch anything he wants to unmonitored is beyond me.
He’s 13 for fucks sake. Did your parents hold you by the hand every minute until you were 30?
And again everyone complaining about the parental controls….He’s 13… Do you really think parental controls would’ve made any difference in this situation?
He’s going to learn about sex eventually, chances are he’ll see porn eventually or are you honestly trying to tell me none of you had any idea of what sex was until you were well over 18?
This case clearly has nothing to do with supervision, parents should be able to leave a 13 year old alone without worrying about him/her assaulting or raping anyone. Obviously the kid has issues which you could argue the parents should’ve known about but then when it comes to mental disorders like bipolar and the like, parents are usually the last to realise/accept it (blissful ignorance so-to-speak)
There’s also every chance that a 13 year old who commits a sexually motivated crime hasn’t had the same motivation to commit that act for a very long.
Plenty of awful people over the years have lived normal lives intersected by horrific acts of sexually predatory behaviour.
If a grown man with a family and a job can be a paedophile without anybody realising (which happens all the time) I don’t see how the parents can necessarily be expected to know what’s going through the mind of a pubescent 13 year old.
Newsflash people. Parents can’t be there all the time.
Newsflash – There is no way in hell an 8yr old and a 13yr old should be left completely alone for any period of time
That’s not really a newsflash. The kid was 13. He’s a teenager. Should the two kids still be sleeping in their parents bed in case he decides to rape his sister during the night?
His parents did not make this monster rape his sister any more than the Xbox did.
I think any parent who never gave their 13 year old any alone time would be a pretty bad one.
There is a difference between maturity in years and maturity in mind.
Maturity has nothing to do with rape. Are we all just mindless rape zombies until we learn not to be?
The issue here is that the boy has a serious problem and his sister was tragically hurt as a result.
Really? I was left alone with my younger sibling when I was 13…because I was trustworthy and not a headcase. I don’t think you can paint all kids with the same brush.
Ridiculous we often leave our 13 and 11 year old together, for short periods like food shopping…we only take the two youngest (we have 4)
Our 13 year old cooks dinner, changes and baths the baby etc very responsible.
Newsflash: there are mechanisms parents can use when they are not there. Such as the parental locks which a Google search will explain.
Or better yet, turn off the console’s Internet connection before letting the kids use it.
I wasn’t addressing that at all, I was addressing the people claiming that the parents shouldn’t have left the kids alone. As someone who worked in television compliance I am fairly sure I know what parental locks are.
Clearly none of these people have kids, I have a 13 year old and you can’t baby them and they need their space, clearly the boy is disturbed. I’m sure plenty of boys watched porn at 13 and didn’t go out and rape people.
Exactly, I use to see this kind of stuff on the sly through various underhanded sources when I was that age. As did most boys I know.
The idea that a 13 year old shouldn’t ever be alone with his 8 year old sister is COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS.
They’re siblings, this kind of thing is the result of one messed up kid primarily.
Parents need to protect and monitor their children to a reasonable extent but there’s a very good chance that nobody saw anything like this coming.
The kind may well have had behavioural issues or something in the past, but I’d very much doubt this boy would have done something like this pre-puberty.
How are the parents supposed to know what the boy is thinking, he may have always been messed up, but puberty turns him from regular messed up to messed up and driven to act on it. You can’t necessarily predict that.
I remember being caught with porn before I was 13….haven’t raped anyone yet, can’t say it’s on my to-do list.
So the issue here is parental locks? Not a 13 year old that thinks rape is totally A-OK?
Newsflash: This is a story about a rapist who owned an xbox. Not an xbox that causes rape.
Then they shouldnt have kids. Simple.
My parents managed to always have their eyes on me. But I found a way to watch porn, but my parents were always home with my siblings and myself, if their eyes werent on us, they were atleast in the next room with the door opened.
Especially when ur 13 years old. Parents are just lazy these days.
This kid has to have some serious issues to rape his own sister.
Filtering porn shouldnt be allowed either. Why the hell didnt the parents use the parental control features on xbox. Its the bloody parents faults.
Why should others be punished.
What the hell has happened. Parents arent taking responsibility anymore.
Its disgusting that Society has become so ignorant to the facts.
In this thread, all valid points that will be ignored by media and politicians.
dammit this doesn’t mean porn should be regulated it just means kids should be taught about the potential dangers of porn but some f*cking parents think porn is just too taboo to speak about. For everything like violence, sexual assault etc there’ll be some idiot who decides to act it out but that isn’t a reflection of the media itself it’s just a reflection of the small percentage of the population who will interpret things the wrong way. Also although porn has been attributed to many serial rapists, I think (but have no evidence to assert) that a world without porn would cause a whole lot more sexual frustration and thus more rape.
Its not even hard. Just put opendns family filter to the xbox and it’s done. Best of all don’t connect the xbox to the internet since I doubt he have internet access using PC anyway.
Roughly worded but a perfectly valid point.
The internet CAN and SHOULD be monitored by parents. NOT government organisations.
What is a 13 year old doing with an unrestricted connection in the first place? If you want to blame anybody. Blame his parents.
For some parents it’s just easier to give their kids what they want after half an hour of whining and then leave them unsupervised and also the parents don’t bother to educate themselves.
The problem is, yes it’s ultimately the parents responsibility to raise their child and teach them right from wrong, but it’s hard for any government to try and tell people how they should be raising their child. I think if you tell someone ‘you’re not doing all you can to be a good and responsible parent’ they’re going to slam the door in your face
all any parent needs to do is go to Google and ask a simple search phrase like “protecting my child online” and they have a wealth of resources and support to educate themselves and their kids.
Rather than just going “meh… just go for it”.
Ultimately the majority of people are going to see this for what it is. A tragedy that could have been avoided with simple education.
The Vocal minority are going to use this a fuel for the fire of Government Censorship and the “evil’s” of video games.
It’s just a 5 minutes job and it’s free to setup internet filter. I’m gonna filter my whole fking network when I have kids except for my own PC 😉
Both our oldest got laptops for Xmas this year, it took me a whole 2min to find porn after my wife set up the internet filters and my wifes PC savvy.
So if they try hard enough they will find it, just hope your kids are educated enough to understand what’s going on when they do.
Definitely but if they are old enough to be able to do that watching porn is alright. Just cases like this where the kid is unaware and was just searching for fun that causes this tragic incident. Internet filter will be able to prevent younger kids from accidentally access it
“Damn those citizens, they won’t listen to us! we must force them to comply… for their own safety!” …but who will parent the parent’s parent?
We tell children not to resolve their problems with violence, yet, we give a free pass to parents and the government. A very hypocritical society.
I’m confused how did the parents or the government solve this problem with Violence?
You think a 13 year old is going to be stopped by a parental filter or removed connection…. hahahahahahaha.
Ethernet cables are cheap, filters are easy enough to bypass especially if they’re set up by your parents with passwords you can probably guess because you’re their child.
No point having ethernet cables when there is no modem to plug into? My parents used to hide the modem and bring it to the office and I can tell you it works. Just because you think kids are smart they cannot me smart enough to get the username and password for the ADSL even if you buy a new modem 🙂
When i was just out of school (supposed to be looking for a job) about 4 years ago i got so addicted to World of Warcraft that my parents actually resorted to have to physically remove the modem from the house. and yes. It works.
Now Granted parents are not expected to walk out of the house and take everything from their children on a daily basis.
All that was required in this case is some basic education. and don’t try to say that 13 is to young for sexual education, If you are going to leave your kid ALONE with access to the entire collective information of the world at their fingertips then they are old enough to learn what is right and wrong…
well, i regret reading that.
what the boy said broke my heart a little.
watch some right wing parenting organisation turn this in to the ‘evils of vidya games’ :-/
Exactly.
Both wings say that. It’s not just right wing.
Both wings think people just stop playing games when the person reaches around 12-14 years of age.
in the uk? i thought it was just the right wing people who campaigned with things like opt-out porn filters. my mistake.
Sorry, I didn’t know you were in the UK. I’m in Australia.
im in oz too – but the story is in the UK 🙂
I watched a bit of porn at 13, yet I never raped my sister, though my sister is quite homely looking. I dare say the kid would have done something like this regardless of watching porn…………….also ban xboxes!!
I feel horrible that this made me laugh…
GTA made me kill.
Porn made me a rapist, yes, I have NO responsibility.
We need a new organisation to stamp out these acts of filth:
Supervisors, Educators and Xbox Collectors Against Underage Lewd Displays and Rapists On the Net
SEXCAULDRON
If this organisation is not formed in real life society has lost to the straight men and no longer has a place for me……..
I thought that place shut down years ago!
They Moved and got a more discreet sign.
This was obviously completely wrong for the boy to do this, and has nothing really to do with an XBox console, other than it may have been overlooked as a form of multimedia… porn is available on computers, mobile phones, magazines, tv, etc.
At puberty, your body naturally becomes aroused, and to further stimulate that with porn would put an impressionable young individual in a dilemma of what to do. In porn, the consenting adults appear to enjoy the act. So with that as a moral compass, it might seem like the “okay” thing to do for him. At what point do parents explain the birds and the bees to their children? Without proper parental supervision, the situation could be very much like “Lord of the Flies”. It’s really a combination of nature and nurture anyway… as mentioned above, kids can be exposed to porn at a young age and still turn out okay. I don’t ADVISE that they are or advocate it of course. I just think his parents were probably a bit naive and should have been a bit more proactive with his guidance.
once my baby grpw up im gona make sure all devices have filters. i thought all parents think this way. also isnt there parental controls on consoles? i know what this boy did isnt something any parents would have anticipated but you still sort of make sure you are aware of what the kid is playing.
This is a parenting issue. Like father , like son.
The parents are irresponsible.
Really? Mental disorders just don’t exist in your world or is there a magical cure for them that the parents should’ve been using?
He also implied that the boy’s father is a rapist.
Will this become another case where the parents will start a crusade and want to ban all XboX’s, like the other mother who wants to ban Bitcoin because her son bought cocaine & paid with bitcoin and died due to an intolerance to the drug?
He did not die from the cocaine, he had been using it for a year without it affecting his life in any way as demonstrated by the fact that his parents didn’t notice any change in behavior nor did his marks at uni fall, and he had a non fatal dose of cocaine.
What killed him was the shit it was cut with. The funny thing about crims is this don’t give much thought to quality control. If he’d bought the cocaine in a store he’d be fine and dandy today.
Prohibition killed him.
Stop watching porn!
http://makingandtaking.com/5-reasons-quit-watching-internet-porn/
I read articles like this simply for the commentary which is far more entertaining than the article itself.
On topic however, heaps of people have seen porn by this age and I am fairly sure that most 13 year old know you just cannot assault people, irrespective of whether it is sexual or not.
I don’t know why xbox even had to be mentioned. I mean you can watch porn on so many things, hell my TV has an internet browser that runs flash and you can watch porn on the internet browser, so does my phone and numerous other things in my possession.