Judge Consoles Rapist, Claims He’s Not A General Threat: ‘You simply could not resist’

A jury of the Hull Crown Court found rapist Lee Setford, 29, guilty as charged, but the judge made a point to console him over his conviction. According to the judge, Setford was not out “searching for women to rape.” Lee Setford was sentence to five years in prison, but the judge excused the man’s actions. “I do not regard you as a classic rapist. I do not think you are a general danger to strangers. You are not the type who goes searching for a woman to rape,” Judge Mettyear told Setford. “This was a case where you just lost control of normal restraint.”

Feb 23, the victim and a friend went to Setford’s house following a night out drinking. In the early hours of Feb 24, the rapist’s victim who had been passed out, awoke to Lee Setford raping her. Lee said that the 24-year-old drunken woman basically consented to have sex with him that night. The rapist tried to argue that she had gone to his house completely drunk. The defense tried to argue it was a matter of confusion, not rape. Still, most rapists are not strangers who hide in bushes as Project Unbreakable tries to relay:

The judge consoled Setford by saying,”It was almost out of the blue that two girls turned up late at night, very, very drunk, at your home.” According to the Hull Daily Mail, the judge admitted that the rapist’s victim had been highly intoxicated. The judge accepted the evidence that allowed the jury’s unanimous verdict, but strangely added, “She was a pretty girl who you fancied. You simply could not resist. You had sex with her.”

Because Setford had said he was not guilty, the victim had to give testimony about her rape. The woman has suffered emotional trauma and had to be medicated for depression since she was raped. Because Setford argued the case, she had to recall the trauma of waking up to a rapist forcing sex upon her. The judge, unbelievably, said to the rapist that it would have been better if he had just admitted to the woman that he had made a mistake and apologized. The judge said, “That would have made it much easier for her and I could have passed a lighter sentence.”

Crown barrister Richard Woolfall said, “He had sex with her when she was asleep and out of it. That happens to be labelled rape.”

Setford was then told that he will have to serve half of his five year sentence before he can be considered for early release. The rapist already had a previous conviction for battery in 2009, which makes it even stranger that the judge said he was saddened that a man of such “good character” would end up in “the docks.”

Mark Shrayber of Cosmo asks:

Would this judge also view someone who lost control and killed someone because they just hated them so much as a non-classic murderer? Where is the logic here? Is there any?

If Lee Setford is released in two and a half years, the judge said that he will need to register as a sex offender, because he is a convicted rapist.

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