Indecent exposure is the deliberate public exposure by a person of a portion of their body in a manner contrary to local standards of appropriate behavior. Laws and social attitudes regarding indecent exposure vary significantly in different countries. It ranges from outright prohibition of the exposure of any body parts other than the hands or face to prohibition of exposure of certain body parts, such as the genital area, buttocks or breasts.
Abortion in the United Kingdom is legally available through the Abortion Act 1967 in Great Britain, and the Abortion (No.2) Regulations 2020.
The Crown Dependencies are three island territories in the British Islands that are self-governing possessions of the British Crown: the Bailiwick of Guernsey, the Bailiwick of Jersey, and the Isle of Man. They are not part of the United Kingdom (UK) nor are they British Overseas Territories. They have the status of "territories for which the United Kingdom is responsible", rather than sovereign states. As a result, they are not member states of the Commonwealth of Nations. However, they do have relationships with the Commonwealth and other international organisations, and are members of the British–Irish Council. They have their own teams in the Commonwealth Games.
The Sexual Offences Act 2003 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, or "An Act to make further provision for the Protection of Women and Girls, the suppression of brothels, and other purposes," was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the latest in a 25-year series of legislation in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland beginning with the Offences against the Person Act 1861. It raised the age of consent from 13 years of age to 16 years of age and delineated the penalties for sexual offences against women and minors. It also strengthened existing legislation against prostitution and homosexuality. This act was also notable for the circumstances of its passage in Parliament.
The standard scale is a system in Commonwealth law whereby financial criminal penalties (fines) in legislation have maximum levels set against a standard scale. Then, when inflation makes it necessary to increase the levels of the fines the legislators need to modify only the scale rather than every individual piece of legislation.
The Offences against the Person Act 1861 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It consolidated provisions related to offences against the person from a number of earlier statutes into a single Act. For the most part these provisions were, according to the draftsman of the Act, incorporated with little or no variation in their phraseology. It is one of a group of Acts sometimes referred to as the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts 1861. It was passed with the object of simplifying the law. It is essentially a revised version of an earlier Consolidation Act, the Offences Against the Person Act 1828, incorporating subsequent statutes.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are among the most advanced in Europe.
In criminal law, the term offence against the person or crime against the person usually refers to a crime which is committed by direct physical harm or force being applied to another person.
The ages of consent vary by jurisdiction across Europe. The ages of consent are between 14 and 18. The vast majority of countries set their ages in the range of 14 to 16; only three countries, Cyprus (17), Ireland (17), Turkey (18), do not fit into this pattern. The laws can also stipulate which specific activities are permitted or specify the age at which one or other sex can legally participate. The highlighted age is that from which a young person can lawfully engage in a non-commercial sexual act with an older person, regardless of their age difference, provided the older one is not in a position of power, a relative, or is committing another form of exploitation. In some jurisdictions, including Italy and Hungary, there are exemptions if the age difference is within prescribed bounds. All jurisdictions in Europe, except the Vatican City, have equal and gender-neutral age limits.
Loitering is the act of remaining in a particular public place for a prolonged amount of time without any apparent purpose.
Rape is a type of sexual assault initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, under threat or manipulation, by impersonation, or with a person who is incapable of giving valid consent.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is a ministerial department of the United Kingdom Government headed by the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor. Its stated priorities are to reduce re-offending and protect the public, to provide access to justice, to increase confidence in the justice system, and uphold people's civil liberties. The Secretary of State is the minister responsible to Parliament for the judiciary, the court system and prisons and probation in England and Wales, with some additional UK-wide responsibilities e.g. the UK Supreme Court and judicial appointments by the Crown. The department is also responsible for areas of constitutional policy not transferred in 2010 to the Deputy Prime Minister, human rights law and information rights law across the UK.
The Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. It decriminalized private homosexual acts between two consenting adults in Scotland when it came into effect on 1 February 1981.
"Subject to the provisions of this section, a homosexual act in private shall not be an offence provided that the parties consent thereto and have attained the age of twenty-one years." (§80:1)
Criminal Law Amendment Act is a stock short title used for legislation in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Canada, India, Pakistan and South Africa which amends the criminal law. It tends to be used for Acts that do not have a single cohesive subject matter.
Laws against child sexual abuse vary by country based on the local definition of who a child is and what constitutes child sexual abuse. Most countries in the world employ some form of age of consent, with sexual contact with an underage person being criminally penalized. As the age of consent to sexual behaviour varies from country to country, so too do definitions of child sexual abuse. An adult's sexual intercourse with a minor below the legal age of consent may sometimes be referred to as statutory rape, based on the principle that any apparent consent by a minor could not be considered legal consent.
A sodomy law is a law that defines certain sexual acts as crimes. The precise sexual acts meant by the term sodomy are rarely spelled out in the law, but are typically understood by courts to include any sexual act deemed to be "unnatural" or "immoral". Sodomy typically includes anal sex, oral sex, and bestiality. In practice, sodomy laws have rarely been enforced against heterosexual couples, and have mostly been used to target homosexual couples.
Rape is a statutory offence in England and Wales. The offence is created by section 1 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003:
(1) A person (A) commits an offence if—
(2) Whether a belief is reasonable is to be determined having regard to all the circumstances, including any steps A has taken to ascertain whether B consents.
(3) Sections 75 and 76 apply to an offence under this section.
(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for life.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in the British Crown dependency of Guernsey have improved significantly in the past decades. Same-sex sexual activity for both men and women is legal in Guernsey. Same-sex marriage has been legal since 2 May 2017 in Guernsey, and since 14 June 2018 in its dependency, Alderney. Legislation approving the legalisation of same-sex marriage in its other dependency, Sark was given royal assent on 11 March 2020. Guernsey is the only part of the British Isles to have never enacted civil partnership legislation, though civil partnerships performed in the United Kingdom were recognised for succession purposes. Since April 2017, same-sex couples can adopt in the entire Bailiwick. Discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity has been banned since 2004. Transgender people can legally change gender since 2007.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in the British Crown dependency of Jersey have evolved significantly since the early 1990s. Same-sex sexual activity was decriminalised in 1990. Since then, LGBT people have been given many more rights equal to that of heterosexuals, such as an equal age of consent (2006), the right to change legal gender for transgender people (2010), the right to enter into civil partnerships (2012), the right to adopt children (2012) and very broad anti-discrimination and legal protections on the basis of "sexual orientation, gender reassignment and intersex status" (2015). Jersey is the only British territory that explicitly includes "intersex status" within anti-discrimination laws. Same-sex marriage has been legal in Jersey since 1 July 2018.
