Allowing a woman, 31, to walk free after groping 12-year-old boy is a criminal sign of outdated chivalry, says Peter Lloyd

Yesterday, MailOnline reported on the case of Amanda Wheeler – a 31 year-old from Cheltenham who was found guilty of sexually assaulting several young boys.

The mother-of-three got drunk at a party before kissing and groping a 12-year-old on a bench in November 2011.

She then performed a lap-dance and straddled a group of male children, before biting a 13-year-old boy on his neck and coercing him to perform a sex act on her.

She denied the charges, but was found guilty during a recent trial and faced several years in prison.

However, in the latest blow for British justice and men’s rights, she walked free from Birmingham Crown Court with only a suspended prison term and a smirk on her face.

Why? Surely it can’t be…Because she’s a woman.

Addressing the court during sentencing, Judge Patrick Thomas QC incredulously stated that: ‘Although these were paedophile acts…it was a one-off…they were [also] acts of drunkenness, selfishness and childishness’.

He then claimed that sending her to jail would be wrong because her victims have ‘largely recovered’ from their traumatic experiences…as if that makes a difference.

Shockingly, this is nothing new. In December last year, Lucie Slater – a 21 year-old woman and former X Factor contestant – glassed her defenceless boyfriend in the face over a Facebook post, but still enjoyed Christmas in the comfort of her own home.

Two months previously, Claire Roundhill from Yorkshire was spared jail after getting pregnant by sexually assaulting a 15 year-old boy. Following the ruling, the victim’s father said: ‘If it had been the other way around and this was a man having sex with a 15-year-old girl, he would have been locked up, without a shadow of a doubt. But, because she is a woman, she has walked free.’

Yet, ironically, a man like Scot Young – who’s embroiled in a bitter divorce row with his wife – can be jailed for six months over a private matrimonial matter.

It’s a complete joke…without being remotely funny.

Sadly, the issue is endemic. Recent national statistics prove that 58 per cent of male offenders who entered a guilty plea were given a custodial sentence – compared with just 34 per cent of UK women.

Out of the thirteen women’s prisons in Great Britain, two are private – and the rest benefit from an additional set of ‘gender specific standards’, which men’s don’t.

And, in 2010, judges were formally advised to go softer on female criminals, thanks to the (ironically titled) Equal Treatment Bench Book – published by the Judicial Studies Board.

Where is the equality in that?

Not only does this offend, but it devalues the concept of justice – something which should run through the core of society evenly, like letters in a stick of rock.

Instead, our legal system is being manipulated by the outdated notion of chivalry – something which has no place in modern society, let alone a court of law. And I urge all men, including our dusty, out-of-touch judges, to reject it.

Why? Because it’s the foundation of male gender bias. It teaches us to pick up the bill as well as the blame. Worryingly, it teaches women to expect us to.

Yes, I understand it stems from a good place – from wanting to protect a woman from the harshness of the world, but sometimes women are the harshness of the world.

This is the inconvenient truth.

Sadly, our legal system – which mostly consists of men – would rather be crippled by the romantic view of women than do what’s right for everyone. It might go against our protective instinct, but anything else is political correctness gone mad – and unchallenged.

Yet, although it’s men who are allowing women to escape justice, what I find most sinister about these cases – and Wheeler’s in particular – is that there’s no outrage from any of our country’s high-profile, self-confessed feminists.

Why haven’t Suzanne Moore or Julie Burchill expressed any outrage? Why is Caitlin Moran – a Twitter bigmouth – silent? Here we have a convicted child sex offender escaping jail, yet not one public feminist figure has spoken out. Not one.

Answers on a postcard, please.

Fortunately, others with more balanced views have voiced criticism. Egalitarian Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell told Mail Online: ‘If this had been a 31 year-old man with young boys the sentence would have been much tougher. It seems a case of double standards. Child sex abuse, regardless of whether it is perpetrated by men or women, is wrong and should be properly punished.’

Erin Pizzey – who opened the world’s first domestic violence shelter for women in 1971, before exposing feminism’s scope for hypocrisy in her work as a men’s rights activist – agreed.

‘Normal people – drunk or not – do not under any circumstances molest young children,’ she told MailOnline.

‘The fact that this woman insisted on pleading “not guilty” shows she has no remorse. In my opinion, jail was the only option. I cant help feeling that – had she been a man – she would have been incarcerated.’

And they’re right.

Feminism (like the law) needs to be even-handed if it is to be credible. It must rage against women’s unfair advantages as well as their disadvantages – both socially and legally. Otherwise, the message they send out is this: treat women equally to men, except when they’re treated better.

Anyone who disagrees is not only abusing the system – but our country’s young boys, too.

This article originally appeared in Mail Online, and is reposted here with permission of Mr. Lloyd.