Originally Posted by
Darkmouse
From what I gather, the liaison in question occured in the UK, to which the alleged victim travelled voluntarily. Whilst the whole thing is morally extremely grubby, I really don't see what 'offence' has been committed. If Andrew turns round and say, "Yes alright, I did s**g her, I knew she was 17, but she was keen," what does that mean as far as the law is concerned? Nothing as far as I know.
It's a civil case, so the consequences of losing are financial and reputational. In this case the defendant is probably better able to weather the financial impact than most, it's the reputational impact that will really hurt. From that perspective, 'fessing up doesn't make sense because he'd take the reputational hit anyway; even worse, she then has carte blanche to sell her story to the press, with whatever embellishments she cares to add. Contesting the case at least retains some possibility of winning and escaping with his reputation relatively intact, and even if he loses he can continue to claim (however implausibly) that the verdict was wrong and he didn't really do anything.