Working paper on sexual offences / Home Office, Criminal Law Revision Committee.
- Great Britain. Criminal Law Revision Committee
- Date:
- 1980
Licence: Open Government Licence
Credit: Working paper on sexual offences / Home Office, Criminal Law Revision Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.
13/72 page 7
![RAPE AND ALLIED OFFENCES RAPE 16. Rape is generally regarded as the most grave of all the sexual offences. It can be, and usually is, punished severely. During the past decade there has been much discussion, some of it indignant, about the law of rape and the way it has been applied in the courts. This was brought about largely by what seemed from newspaper reports to be surprising leniency in a few cases and from misunderstandings about the decision of the House of Lords in Morgan [1976] A.C. 182, as publicised. In that case it was adjudged that a man would not be guilty of rape; even if the woman had not consented to sexual inter- course, if he honestly believed she had. (The appeals were, however, dismissed under the proviso to section 2(1) of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968, since it was clear that the jury rejected the defendants’ allegations of the wife’s coopera- tion, and would not have acquitted even if they had been properly directed by the judge.) A departmental committee was set up in 1975 under Mrs. Justice Heilbron. This committee recommended changes in both law and practice.! In 1976 Parliament passed the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act which now contains much, but not all, of the law relating to rape. 17. That Act provides that a man commits rape if— (a) he has unlawful (that is extra-marital) sexual intercourse with a woman who at the time of the intercourse does not consent to it; and (b) at that time he knows that she does not consent to the intercourse or he is reckless as to whether she consents to it. The Act leaves unchanged section 1(2) of the Sexual Offences Act 1956, which provides: “‘a man who induces a married woman to have sexual intercourse with him by impersonating her husband commits rape’’. This is a very rare form of rape. The maximum penalty for rape is life imprisonment and for attempted rape 7 years. 18. Since as recently as 1976 Parliament defined rape and the words used cover adequately nearly all the cases which are likely to come before the courts, we can see no reason for trying to improve upon the statutory definition. How- ever, as we have already said, the Act of 1976 does not purport to cover the whole of the law of rape. It is the matters not dealt with in the Act which need scrutiny, even though they seldom give rise to difficulties. 19. It seems to us that the following questions are the ones most in need of an answer— (1) What amounts to consent? If a woman consents to sexual intercourse with X, thinking that he is Y, and X knows that she thinks he is Y, has she consented to that intercourse? If a woman is told by a man purporting to treat her for a medical condition that the insertion of his penis into her vagina is part of the treatment, has she consented to sexual intercourse? Unlikely though these two sets of circumstances may be, the reported cases do show that 'Report of the Advisory Group on the Law of Rape, Cmnd. 6352 (1975).](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3222350x_0013.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
