Father Waylays Daughter's Lover

Manchester Union Leader ^ | September 22, 2007 | Greta Cuyler

[Jim Noble]

WEARE – A father attacked his daughter's boyfriend last week after learning the boy had sex with the underage girl, police said.

It was about 1:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 10, when the man stormed onto the grounds of John J. Stark High School and beat up the 17-year-old from Henniker. School was just letting out, and many students witnessed the attack, said Detective Lou Chatel.

The boy suffered bruising and later received two stitches to his face.

The father was charged with simple assault, a Class B felony.

Police said the boy is dating the man's 15-year-old daughter.

The man discovered the two had had sex earlier that day, during school hours but not on school property, police said.

Under state law, a 15-year-old cannot consent to sex; therefore, police are investigating the allegation as a sexual assault.

The New Hampshire Union Leader has a policy of not identifying sexual assault victims. For that reason, the newspaper is not identifying the father.

Both students attend John Stark High School. The girl lives in Weare.

Chatel said there have been no arrests in the sex case, but he expects there will be.

[Jim Noble]

Readers comments available at the site

[Doohickey]

Boy’s lucky to be alive.

[Jemian]

Good for the father.

[Chanticleer]

I sympathize with him. He handled things poorly. He won’t be able to protect his daughter from prison. But I sympathize with him.

[the invisib1e hand]

Set A Precedent.

[afraid]

The father acted like a man. Very refreshing.

[ClearCase_guy]

While I have a certain degree of sympathy for the father, I think he might have handled it better. Also:

We live in a world in while a 6-year old can be suspended for kissing a classmate.
We live in a world where an 8-year old can be suspended for drawing a picture of a gun.

Here, we have a grown man, storming into a school and beating up a 17-year-old, in front of witnesses, and he isn't arrested?

Our enforcement of policies, and our enforcement of laws seems more and more arbitrary.

[Jim Noble]

I hope I’m on the jury that judges the assault case.

[Drango]

It was about 1:30 p.m. ... School was just letting out,

HUH?

[Chanticleer]

Your definition of a man is someone who assaults a child on school property in front of other children?

[JimRed]

Dad needed to do it with plausible deniability. If they can’t prove it was him, they can’t convict him!

[metesky]

The young lady is lucky she lives in America and not in some Islamist hell-hole where the father and lover would have teamed up to kill the "whore" in front of the rest of her family.

But that will be here soon enough.

[guinnessman]

Time to bring this one back.

It's an oldie, but a goodie.

Rules for Dating a Drill Instructor's Daughter

[Chanticleer]

A woman here got sentenced to a year in prison, 6 months on probation, and a bunch of community service for the misdemeanor offenses of trespassing on a school bus and contributing to the deliquency of a minor by encouraging her daughter to fight with a girl who had slapped her on a prior occasion.

Talk about arbitrary.

[Will88]

At age seventeen and fifteen, what we probably have is a twelfth grader dating a tenth grader. Age of consent laws (apparently sixteen in NH) that make it statutory rape between two high school students only two years apart in age are ridiculous. Obviously, teens should be protected by law from sexual advances by true adults, out of high school and with the freedom customary for adults as opposed to high school students.

But some common sense needs to be applied in these situations, and the father seems to place none of the responsibility on his fifteen year-old daughter, who is not a child, and according to rate of maturity for boys and girls, probably near the same maturity level as the boy. Two years of age difference is very common in high school dating.

[Chanticleer]

Good rules! Poor dad couldn't do much about what happened while the girl was at school, I suppose.

Another good reason to homeschool. :-)

[Wolfie]

I sympathize with him.

Me too, having raised a slut, and all.

[advertising guy]

could you sugar coat it any better

I would have done the same thing as this father did

[jude24]

No. Assault and battery is not justified by a daughter having sex with her boyfriend.

The instinct to beat up the boyfriend is understandable, but the law does not allow assault in "understandable" situations. It only allows it to protect someone from imminent harm.

The father stormed into the school, and proceeded to beat up a minor in front of witnesses? Lock him up.

[madprof98]

Your definition of a man is someone who assaults a child on school property in front of other children?

Yeah, that was really mean, wasn't it?