Tipster Aliya alerts us to this breakthrough in British jurisprudence: This week a London judge offered a convicted sex attacker a suspended sentence in exchange for a letter of apology to his victim. The judge felt this was appropriate as the perpetrator was “unsophisticated by Western standards,” being instead a poor little rich boy from India.
The perpetrator, 33-year-old Prashant Modi, travels frequently to Britain for his father’s oil business, the court learned, which no doubt explains his lack of sophistication. He was also unsophisticated enough to go clubbing with three Swedish women ten years younger than him, and unsophisticated enough to take them to his hotel room and order room service in the early morning. At some point the women fell asleep in his room. Mr Modi’s (female) defense attorney argued that her client was too unversed in the ways of the West to make sense of this situation in any but the most primal, dare I say primitive way:
She added: “It was a situation he had never come across before. I am told in India it is not heard of. Mr Modi was simply unable to know how to behave. Not surprisingly, he was aroused.”
The judge concurred:
After sentencing Modi, Judge Roberts said: “I suspect that this situation of having three women asleep in his bed and sofa would have been somewhat confusing. It was, of course, that situation that led him into temptation.”
“Temptation,” in this situation, meant undressing and mounting one of the sleeping women until another one woke up, saw what was going on and screamed. All in a night’s good time, the judge opined:
He added: “I don’t suppose it occurred to any of these four people that there was anything dangerous in going back to the hotel room. There is no suggestion that he lured them back with any dishonourable intentions. All four were affected by alcohol. It is unfortunate that having had their food, the women did not go home.”
I guess they should have know that their host was a sheltered Indian ruled by animal passions. Amazing how the celebrants of the oh-so civilized West can trip over themselves in a rush to denigrate entire religions for not respecting women’s bodies and rights, then use this sort of noble-savage argument to excuse crimes against women. Hey, here’s a thought experiment: what if Prashant had been — oh, nevermind.
I know the guy too – he’s totally familiar with western ways, has partied in the Western world like there’s no tomorrow for the last ten years. He’s quite the ‘gentleman’ encouraging all the girls he’s with to drink excessively – he pours out seriously lethal shots. It seems like his strategy is getting girls TOTALLY drunk so he can take advantage. It’s highly likely he’s tried to do this before but this time didn’t get away with it.
bollocks! Sorry about the foul langugae but this judge is an idiot…If the desi boy assaulted them , it was intentional. Can such a defense work for Prem Chopra’s early characters? Doh! Indian know what rape is!!!
If you guys who say know him say the man is versed in Western ways, and he is not geeky, but some sort of flirt, then very well the intent could have been wrong. But I always find it VERY suspicious whenever there is an incident of HOT GIRL + RICH GUY = Girl calls rape. We’ve all seen it before, and the fact that the guy is Indian has nothing to do with it, I almost ALWAYS am suspect of the girls intentions. If you recall the story of the Sultan of Brunei, he brought over many U.S. models to his palace. He lavished them with gifts, and some claimed he confiscated their passports, did not let them leave the kingdom, and were raped. So everything is fine and dandy, you meet a rich guy, he gets you gifts, and you think there is nothing suspicious with that? You don’t think he will try moves on you? The Sultan was later sued, and I’m guess he probably settled. So women like that get molested, and then pay off? He may have known better, but the fact is the women knew better too. I’m not sure this is what happened, but the chances are fairly high.
I just read the article again. Towards the end, it is mentioned that at the three girl knew this guy, had met through friends, and had gone out together in the past. Two of the three girls had previously slept in his hotel room after a heavy night of drinking with no sexual activities taking place. So, this guy was not a stranger to them and probably someone they trusted to some extent.
Suraj, if you really think there is nothing wrong with your initial statement (#5), you are, in my opinion, a disgusting example of a human being. I’m going to assume you were being sarcastic, but it just came out wrong.
Um….the point here is that Modi attempted to have sex with the girl without consent. Get it? It doesn’t matter if those girls were blonde, or Swedish, or 23, or naked. The point is that there is no reason to justify sex with a sleeping or unconcious person if one party is perfectly lucid enough to take responsibility for his actions(and Mr. Modi certainly seemed so – in any case he remember to put on a condom).
The fact that this case went to court must highlight how serious it was – because you can bet your bottom dollar that modi would have tried to settle out of court and pay them off to avoid this hitting the papers. If these girls were gold-diggers I’m sure they would have settled…but no, they actually wanted to see him behind bars. He pleaded guilty so it wasn’t even a question of him trying to prove his innocence.
Also, some of you folks need to calm down. I’m sure the judge wasn’t being intentionally racist – it’s just cultural relativism taken to a more extreme level. Must we believe that everybody is out to discriminate us?
But one doesn’t have to be intentional about an action for it to be racist. The judge didn’t have to go through a linear racist thought process (“Hmm. Well, brown people are savages. Hmm. Well, this guy is brown. Hmm. Well, he probably just couldn’t reason any better. Hmm. No jail!”) to make his decision racist.
OK, so he’s racist. Now what?
Insensivity Training.
The Brits are certainly taking that “cultural relativism” to an all time high this week…
Posts 46 and 47
I don’t know what your experiences are, and frankly don’t want to, but buying food, drink and gifts for a woman are standard western courtship rituals and do not necessarily imply sex. It’s about courtship, not bargaining or paying for services. If you want to pay for sex in a straightforward contractual way, hire an escort for god’s sake.
Post 47 – it’s one thing to ‘try moves’ on a girl who accepts your gifts, another to try to force yourself on her. Violation of the body is unacceptable under any circumstances, whether the guy’s rich and has bought the girl gifts or not. I’m assuming you’re a guy. Suppose you got this great job from this CEO who promised you a swift advancement up the ranks, gave you great perks, took you under his wing – if he f?$#@ed you up the ass one day in the boardroom, would you say to yourself ‘oh well, I guess I should have known better – I mean he gave me this great job and all those perks’? Give me a break. You’d punch his face; a girl has to file a lawsuit.
No, but saying that he was ‘just trying to be nice’ with a ridiculously inadequate knowledge of how 1 in 6 people in the world live is pathetic and there is absolutely no excuse for it. It’s one thing to be multicultural, it’s another to be neo-colonial.
And yes, the majority of English judges especially those in the House of Lords are racist and there is widespread discrimination in the British legal system. Lord Diplock, one of the pre-eminent judges in the House of Lords, remarked a few years ago that it was getting hard to see ‘a real English person’ on juries.
“The perpetrator, 33-year-old Prashant Modi, travels frequently to Britain for his fatherÂ’s oil business, the court learned, which no doubt explains his lack of sophistication. “
What! Traveling frequently to Britain explains his lack of sophistication? Someone needs an English lesson.
Yep. And then? And then? And then?
What are you accomplishing by pointing fingers and shrilly decrying “racist!”? Are you going to pay for his insensitivity training?
People are all equally dumb – that’s a fact, whether they’re white, black, brown, yellow or pink with purple spots.
tashie: see post above.
Meena:
You don’t get it. Insensitivity Training is the opposite of Sensitivity Training.
Has it occurred to anyone that the girls maybe trying to frame Prashant for their own financial benefit since they realized he is from a wealthy family??
I know of this guy as well. He is very aware of western way of living! He knew the girls from before and they had friends in common and had been there before without anything happening so of course they weren’t scared. Also as Natasha says “If these girls were gold-diggers I’m sure they would have settled…” They were offered money but declined and wanted to take it to court. Very sad that this kind of sentence can occur in england 2006…
enlighten me. I have truly no idea what you are talking about.
if you go back and read by comments, i attributed the judges actions to multiculturalism, ie oversensitivity and nonjudgementalism toward other cultures as opposed to misogyny or traditional racism. So maybe he took one too many sensitivity training classes.
We can reverse the situation by offering Insensitivity training. reductio ad absurdum. a joke
Andrea I agree with that. White girls are generally misunderstood and many times misportrayed in south Asian popular culture (such as in hindi movies till lately they were either shown as beach babes or hanging around in a bar smoking joint). But since this case is so unclear, I would give the brown dude a break coz many times if not most, brown dudes get “what the fuck is he doing with the blonde” look while all we are doing is having coffee together.
I don’t know. Everytime three blonde women have gone to my room they wanted to have sex. Maybe razib has more datapoints.
Maybe so, but I’d never use that as an excuse to exonerate him! And in all honesty, from the comments I’ve read above, this goes beyond Asian culture and Western culture. He seems to follow very well ‘rich kid’ culture. I know I’m generalizing, but the wealthy kids and people in their 20s from ALL countries that I’ve encountered seem to party pretty hard and live a more “Western” lifestyle (as portrayed in non-Western media) than most American kids will ever get a glimpse of. At my school, It’s not the American kids on scholarship or the Indian grad students who go out and get drunk and stupid weekend after weekend; it’s the Florida trust fund baby partying WITH the kid from Delhi whose dad paid his entire four years of tuition in one lump sum. They share more in common than trust fund baby and scholarship student, or Indian grad student sharing a crappy apartment with three other guys and Delhi party king, do.
In short: the argument about “temptations of the west” is still macaca guana, and it’s just another case of a rich kid who doesn’t have to suffer the consequences of his actions.
Make that “macaca guano” – I’m still not familiar with all the correct terms for excrement.
50 · LDN said
Completely agree with you, have also seen him at Tramp, and i also know one of the girls. I must clarify this point, the three girls wereactually friends with Prashant, one of them actually dated his cousin, they’d all known each other for over two years, so this was not just a random one time event. It’s very east to judge when the full story is not told. and the judges were most definately bought off. No one, i repeat no one, is actually stupid enough to believe that a man who is so ‘unsophisticated’ is a member of Tramp – probably the most exclusive members only night club in London, attended Harvard Business School, and was not just staying at the Metropolitan Hotel, actually owns an Apartment there – as well as being the MD of a London Stock Exchange listed company? Prashant’s circles in Delhi are extremely hedonistic, and this whole outcome was a complete and utter shambles.
Brown