Much like it was illegal for her to get him a tattoo and lie about his age, and let him smoke cigarettes and god knows what else. Let's not pretend this was a normal relationship with normal boundaries.
Let's take this bit by bit. It is not, and never has been, illegal for anyone under 18 to have a tattoo. What is illegal is for a person to tattoo someone they know, or believe, to be under eighteen. You see the difference there? The offence is on the tattooist who, incidentally, went on to give evidence against Luke.
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For her to get him a tattoo and lie about his age..." There's no evidence she lied about his age. The claim in court was that Luke provided "fake ID" showing him as over age (that ID, had it ever been produced in court, would have shown a picture of a man 40+ years old, but we'll leave that for the moment). It was Luke who signed the form in the shop. So all Corinne is guilty of is being there. Think about it - what 18 year old would take his mum along to "confirm" his age? Just a few years after the murder, the same parlour carried out a body piercing on one 14 year old girl I know and tattooed her 14 year old friend. That's why they used that particular parlour - because they knew no questions would be asked about their age.
The "fake ID" that was never produced in court, Corinne and Luke always denied the existence of. Like I said, it would have depicted a man of 40+ years old - the tattoo staff would have put themselves right on the line if they tried to claim in court they accepted that the person in the picture was the 15 year old boy standing in front of them. By the time of the appeal, the person whose name (not ID) Luke used on the form had given a statement saying Luke had
never had access to his ID in any format. The statement wasn't used by the defence.
I smoked from the age of 13 - my parents didn't know. I was still under 16 when they found out but that still didn't stop me smoking. I knew loads of kids who smoked under the age of 16, both in my own generation and my daughters' generation.
"And god knows what else..." There we have it again - speculation and insinuation with nothing to back it up. What about, making him work for his pocket money? What about supporting his interests in outdoor activities - motorbikes, camping, tracking, etc? What about encouraging him to keep up his grades in school, setting a curfew time for him to be home both on school nights and weekends?
What about being a responsible enough parent to call Jodi's Gran to confirm Luke and a few others would be having a sleepover at her (the gran's) house ... even though the Gran lied to her, saying the teens would be in her house, knowing full well they were all going to sleep over at Yvonne Walker's flat?
What about Judith's own statement saying that, when she found out about the sleepover being at Yvonne's, she was so angry (because Jodi was banned from going to Yvonne's flat) that she threatened to tell Corinne. Jodi begged her not to because Corinne was "quite strict" with Luke and he'd be in deep trouble?
It has to go both ways. Either Luke, Jodi and the others were teenagers doing what teenagers do and their parents were doing the best they could, or everyone whose teenager was doing things they shouldn't have been doing was a bad parent. I know which one I believe.
