Who’s speaking out for the fat girls?

As readers can imagine, this story from London has fueled anger and concerns that it exemplifies the degree of prejudicial attitudes besieging fat girls today. In defending her client accused of being part of a gang rape of young teenage girls, a barrister actually argued that one of the young victims may have been glad for the attention since she was fat.

'Gang-raped girl was glad of the attention,' says barrister

A teenage girl who claims she was gang-raped by three 13-year-old boys would have been “glad of the attention", a woman barrister said. The 16-year-old and a friend have told how the boys mugged them and then raped them repeatedly in a park while filming the ordeal on a mobile phone.

But Sheilagh Davies, defending the youngest of the three accused... suggested one of the girls, who has given evidence via video link, had been overweight and had “slimmed down a lot" since the alleged attack in South-East London on November 23 last year. The barrister said in her closing speech: “She was 12st 6lb - not quite the swan she may turn into. She may well have been glad of the attention."

Ms Davies went on to blame the girls for wearing clothes that made them “sexually attractive.”

One girl said she was forced to strip and lie face down while she was raped and the other described being made to perform a "disgusting" sex act. The boys warned them they would be killed if they called police, jurors have been told. All three were arrested within a few days of the attacks but claimed either that nothing had happened or that what took place had been consensual.