Sex Laws Info

SEXUAL OFFENCES ACT 2003: “Offences against the person”

Elsewhere in our legal section we outline several provisions of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 as they affect prostitution; that, after all, is our primary concern. The Act also contains a number of regulations concerning what we may loosely call “offences against the person”. Some of these were enacted in the wake of the Sara Payne murder case, child sex abuse, and the growing problem of “date-rape”. Here are some of the key points.

The Act clearly defines "consent" as a person consents if she/he agrees by choice and has the freedom and capacity to make that choice. Sets out evidential and conclusive presumptions about consent.

• Reclassifies rape as the penetration by the penis of somebody's vagina, anus or mouth, without consent.
• Creates a new offence of assault by penetration, the insertion of a body part or foreign object, such as a bottle, into the anus or vagina without consent.
• Redefines sexual assault as an intentional sexual touching without consent. It can include touching any part of the body, clothed or unclothed, by either a body part or an object.
• Sets the age of a "child" at 18, amending the Protection of Children Act 1978, and provides a defence for all sexual offences when the child is 16 or over and the relationship is consensual.
• Classifies any sexual intercourse with a child aged 12 or younger as rape.
• Establishes a raft of new criminal offences including crimes involving familial sexual abuse, offences involving adult relatives and offences designed to give protection to persons with a mental disorder.
• Re-enacts the offences of abuse of a position of trust towards a child. This prohibits sexual contact between adults and children under 18 in schools, colleges and residential care.
• Creates a number of offences related to "intent" including a new offence targeting drinks spiking.
• Makes it an offence to give someone a substance without their consent and with the intention of stupefying or overpowering them so that any kind of sexual activity can take place. Two other "intent" offences cover situations where a person commits any offence with the intention of committing a sexual offence or where a person is a trespasser, he intends to commit a sexual offence on the premises and he knows that he is a trespasser,
• Creates several new initiatives to protect children and the general public from sex offenders. The act allows dual criminality, meaning notification orders can be extended to those convicted abroad, and creates a civil order, the sexual offences prevention order, which combines sex offender orders (Crime and Disorder Act 1998) and restraining orders (Sex Offenders Act 1997).
• Requires convicted sex offenders to register with their local police every year instead of every five years.
• Introduces risk of sexual harm orders, specifically designed to protect children, and also creates foreign travel orders, which can be used to prevent an offender with a conviction for a sex offence against a child from travelling to countries where he is at risk of abusing children.
• A new offence of voyeurism relating to those who observe others doing private acts without their knowledge for sexual gratification.
• Decriminalises a series of sexual acts including the offences of gross indecency, buggery and soliciting by men (cruising).
• Makes necrophilia and bestiality crimes.

We publish the above in the interests of our members, to increase awareness and to promote safety. We make due acknowledgement to The Guardian archive.

For the full article, see here: LINK

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