A jail term too far

gAylE nEWlAnD, 25, has been sentenced to eight years for duping a girlfriend into having sex by posing as a man.

It remains a mystery to many of us how anyone could have been fooled by such a bizarre ploy — even with the aid of a blindfold and a prosthetic appendage. yet the victim — an undergraduate — was left in great distress. Even so, eight years in prison does seem overly harsh. Especially when set against other horrific sex abuse cases.

One man who raped a six-year-old girl got just four years. I can’t help feeling that a couple of years of therapy would have been a more fitting and compassionate outcome for both of these confused young women.