"SJC denies father’s attempt to block daughter from having sex; Court also updates interpretation of Internet dating" by Milton J. Valencia | Globe Staff, March 13, 2013
The state’s highest court ruled Wednesday that a father from Massachusetts could not use a restraining order meant to protect people from domestic violence to prevent an adult from meeting his 16-year-old daughter with the intent to engage in consensual sex.
The Supreme Judicial Court pointed out that 16 is the legal age for a teenager to engage in consensual sex and that the father showed no evidence that the adult, a 24-year-old visiting from England, had threatened or planned to abuse her in anyway.
In its unanimous ruling, however, the court also took the extraordinary step of defining a relationship made up of online communications such as text and e-mail messages and Skype conversations as a legitimate romantic relationship that would be covered under the state’s domestic violence prevention laws, if any threat does occur....
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