Published in News

Out of options go for the “console made me do it” defence

by on06 February 2014



More than a 100 different applications

It seems that lawyers have finally worked out that there is mileage to be had for outsourcing blame to the use of computer games consoles.

The latest bizarre defence comes from the UK where a 13-year-old kid decided to rape his eight-year-old sister. He told coppers that it was not his fault because he had been watching porn on his Xbox 360 when he "decided to try it out." This has been seized by the UK press as proof that porn needs to be banned as a terrible corrupting influence. 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.”

The only difficulty here is that there are no dedicated applications serving porn to the Xbox 360, so the kid must have been using a web browser or playing DVDs. The Lancashire Telegraph reported that the whole thing might have been a lot darker than a simple “kid tries something out” story. The boy said he chose his sister because she was small and "couldn't remember stuff,” which implies a degree of planning and knowledge that he was doing something wrong.

In short this is an evil little kid who would probably be doing something evilish somewhere, so why is he getting any sympathy at all? Oh that is right, it is always someone else’s fault, and technology is to blame.

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