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Policies -Gender bias - redifining rape
A new sexual offences law came into force last week to deal
with new offences such as drug-assisted date rape to paedophile
‘grooming’.
“Until now our sex offences laws were
based on the Victorian era - their values and the world they
lived in,” the Home Secretary, David Blunkett said.
“All crimes are traumatic for victims, but sexual crimes
can have the most devastating impact on the individual and
the community. The modern world of the internet means vile,
degrading material is just a click away and mass communications
can make it easier for offenders to contact vulnerable people
and the young.”
The new Act clarifies the law on consent in rape cases so
that a defendant’s belief that the victim consented
“must be both honest and reasonable”. The definition
of rape has also been extended to include penetration of the
mouth by the penis. Sex with 12-year-olds and under will automatically
be charged as rape - carrying a maximum sentence of life.
A new ‘grooming’ offence is introduced and so
anyone convicted of contacting a child – “whether
on the Internet or in the real world” - with the intention
of committing a sex offence will face up to 10 years in jail.
The new law requires all those on the sex offenders' register
to confirm their details in person annually, it also strengthens
drug rape offences and make orders banning those convicted
of a sex offence against under-16s from traveling anywhere
in the world. There is a new offence of trafficking people
for sexual exploitation with up to 14 years in prison for
offenders.
The Act deals with the inequality in the law for men and women
and offences of buggery and indecency between men are now
repealed. There will also be guidance provided to the prosecutors
that charges for sexual activity between children under the
age of 16 are unlikely to be in the public interest where
the activity is genuinely consensual and the parties are of
a similar age.
Meanwhile, a 15-year old boy convicted of having unlawful
sex with a consenting girl when they were both aged 15 has
won permission to launch a human rights challenge in the High
Court, arguing that the law discriminates against males under
16. The teenager E, from the Llandudno area, will ask the
court to declare the 1956 Sexual Offences Act incompatible
with the European Convention on Human Rights. Lord Justice
Maurice Kay, sitting with Mr Justice Moses, ruled the challenge
should go to a full hearing and took the view there was “at
least an arguable possibility of incompatibility” between
the Sexual Offences Act and the Convention.
Sexual Offences Act 2003
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