Originally Posted by
Barry Shnikov
The new Sexual Offences Act is based on - essentially - the same age of consent as the previous one: 16. However, there are two important changes.
Firstly, what I think of as the 'get out of jail free' provision. Persons under the age of 21 accused for the first time of underage sex with a person under 16 but over 13 would have a complete and automatic defence. Persons under the age of 16 and accused for the first time of underage sex with a person under 13 but over 10 would also have a complete and automatic defence. In either case, a the defence would not be available in the event of a second offence.
The thinking behind this was that it was recognised that young persons are going to be sexually active, and that it is wise to give someone who himself is young the benefit of the doubt on a question of the age of consent. 50 year olds, of course, didn't benefit; neither did a 20 year old charged with a second offence of underage sex with a 15 year old - either it was the same girl, and he knew beyond doubt; or there's a suspicious pattern emerging.
That's now gone.
What was also introduced was the rule that for teachers, lecturers and so forth the age of consent is 18 where a pupil or student is concerned.
Sexual relations with pupils and students has always been a disciplinary matter; in recent years it's been dealt with very firmly (although as the recent re-showing of The history man revealed, it was not always the case...!) It seems to me to be highly undesirable to criminalise such things. If a 17 year old person is capable (in law) of deciding whether to have sex with her best friend's parent, why is he or she not capable of deciding whether to have sex with his or her best friend's teacher?
Notice all sex with 9 year old persons or younger is and has been illegal whoever you are; sex with persons under 16 is and always has been illegal if you are what was (until the change of the law) an adult (i.e. 21). So the clear instances of paedophilia haven't changed. What has happened is that the grey area of activities which might be illegal but are certainly not 'evil' (I bet a substantial portion of people in this forum were technically offenders when, at age 16, they were involved in some sexual activity with a 15 or perhaps 14 year old) has been made much wider, less certain and been moved slightly upwards in age.
So: there are now an additional two sets of circumstances (probably more; I don't know the Act well) where human sexual activity - most of which is perfectly understandable - is criminalised. Producing more criminals and potentially more prisoners for the same set of circumstances as existed before.
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