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SunshineGirl @
MoveAlong I don't think UK Law includes plea-bargaining; but it allows mitigation.
Pleading guilty is usually mitigation and the sentencing may also take any previous convictions into account, but neither the defence nor prosecution can set or even request the sentence. The trial is on the present charge, not previous convictions, and I think those are inadmissible as "evidence".
The Judge in a Crown Court, or Magistrates in a lower Court, determine the sentence, helped by Statutes, case-law and sentencing-guidelines, and if necessary by external reports; so may be deferred to a later sentencing hearing. It is then that previous convictions may affect the sentence.
Other countries allow the prosecutors or plaintiff* to request the nature and severity of sentence, but not the UK. "Victim Impact Statements" may be admitted, but I think prior to sentence, not earlier. They are not evidence.
Another vital difference from many other nations is that USA and UK Law assume innocence unless and until a ple of Guilty, or guilt proven in Court; with the burden of proof on the prosecution not defence.
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The question of the woman (two women now?) is odd. How does anyone in an open country order a woman to fly to another continent to have sex with a man she's never met? If she really didn't want to go she would have had ample opportunity to refuse, if only by "losing" her passport.
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plaintiff. Or victim, in plain English. I think the term "plaintiff" applies in civil-law, not criminal-case hearings; but I forget the latter's equivalent.
