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An Irish 'abortion rights' lawyer is under fire in Britain for calling for the age of consent to be lowered to 13 in the wake of the Jimmy Savile and Stuart Hall scandals.

The BBC reports that Barbara Hewson told online magazine Spiked  that the move was necessary in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal to end the "persecution of old men".

The NSPCC called her views "outdated and simply ill-informed" and said to hear them "from a highly experienced barrister simply beggars belief" said the BBC.

Hewson is a long-time legal campaigner to have Ireland's abortion laws changed. In 2006 she was barrister for the D case, brought to the European Court if Human Rights seeking to overturn Ireland's pro-life laws.

Photo: Andrew Crowley

Her remarks on the age of consent are particularly grating given that she has presented herself as a long time advocate of women's rights.
 
Niamh Uí Bhriain of the Life Institute said that "the natural reaction of all decent people to all these recent scandals involving children is one of disgust. Hewson's reaction is to call for a lowering in the age of consent. It's bizarre and shocking."
 
Ms Ui Bhriain said that abortion campaigners set themselves up as defenders of women, "but often when we scratch the surface we see a different side to things."
 
"This is a lawyer who took Ireland to the European Court to foist abortion on the Irish people; a woman who called our pro-life laws 'cruel and unusual'. Yet now she wants the age of consent lowered - as a reaction to the Savile and Hall crimes. What kind of defence of young women's rights is that?" she added.
 

LINKS

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22459815
• http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/1286/