Sexual Offences Act 2003
From Open Encyclopedia
The Sexual Offences Act 2003 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom, passed in 2003. It entered into force on May 1, 2004.
It replaces other sexual offences laws with more specific and explicit wording. It creates several new offences, such as voyeurism, assault by penetration (with objects), causing a child to watch a sexual act, meeting a child following sexual grooming, and necrophilia.
There are precautions against abuse of the law, by provision of safeguards such as "B is under 16 and A does not reasonably believe that B is 16 or over".
Criticisms
The Act has faced criticism on several grounds, of which the most controversial is the criminalizing various common behaviors, such as laws which on the face of it outlaw consensual "sexual hugging" in public places or by underage persons, even when both participants are underage, followed by the issue of guidance notes which countermand this, saying they should almost never be prosecuted.
The law is unique since neither the Home Office or the Police have any intention of policing such nor prosecuting them except in extreme circumstances. This does not change much: underage sex by teenagers never has been actively pursued by either the Police nor the Crown Prosecution Service.
The Home Office says legalising consensual sexual activity between children "would damage a fundamental plank in our raft of child protection measures". A spokesman said: "We are not prepared to do this. We accept that genuinely mutually agreed, non-exploitative sexual activity between teenagers does take place and in many instances no harm comes from it. We are putting safeguards in place to ensure that these cases, which are not in the public interest, are not prosecuted - by amending guidance to the police and Crown Prosecution Service."
Criticism comes from Action on Rights for Children: "Laws should mean what they say. It's astonishing that the government could consider legislation with the prior intent of issuing guidance to countermand it. I worry about the message it sends to young people - it seems to say that sometimes the law means what it says and sometimes it doesn't." Spokesperson Terri Dowty also fears that it could lead to unreasonable private prosecutions, such as by angry parents who don't like their child's boyfriend or girlfriend.
Professor Nicola Lacey of the London School of Economics comments: "What the Home Office would say was that they wanted to use the criminal law for symbolic impact, to say that it's not a good thing for kids to be having sex. My counter-argument is that the criminal law is too dangerous a tool to be used for symbolic purposes. With this on the statute book, it will give police and prosecutors a lot of discretion. It could be used as a way of controlling kids who perhaps the police want to control for other reasons. Kids who perhaps are a nuisance or who belong to a group who attract the attention of the police in some way."
