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The Sexual Offences Act 2003 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
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.
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.
Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, commonly known as the Labouchere Amendment, made "gross indecency" a crime in the United Kingdom. In practice, the law was used broadly to prosecute male homosexuals where actual sodomy could not be proven. The penalty of life imprisonment for sodomy was also so harsh that successful prosecutions were rare. The new law was much more enforceable. It was also meant to raise the age of consent for heterosexual intercourse. Section 11 was repealed and re-enacted by section 13 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956, which in turn was repealed by the Sexual Offences Act 1967, which partially decriminalised male homosexual behaviour.
The ages of consent for sexual activity vary from age 15 to 18 across Australia, New Zealand and other parts of Oceania. The specific activity and the gender of its participants is also addressed by the law. The minimum age is the age at or above which an individual can engage in unfettered sexual relations with another person of minimum age. Close in age exceptions may exist and are noted where applicable. In Vanuatu the homosexual age of consent is set higher at 18, while the heterosexual age of consent is 15. Same sex sexual activity is illegal at any age for males in Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Samoa, Niue, Tonga and Tuvalu; it is outlawed for both men and women in the Solomon Islands. In all other places the age of consent is independent of sexual orientation or gender.
The ages of consent vary by jurisdiction across Europe. The unrestricted ages of consent – hereby meaning the age from which one is deemed able to consent to having sex with anyone else of consenting age or above – are between 14 and 18. Some countries have close-in-age exceptions that go as low as 12 if both parties engaging in sexual acts are under 18. The vast majority of countries set their unrestricted ages in the range of 14 to 16; only four countries, Cyprus (17), the Republic of Ireland (17), Turkey (18), and the Vatican City (18), set an unrestricted age of consent higher than 16. 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 have equal and gender-neutral age limits.
In North America, the legal age of consent relating to sexual activity varies by jurisdiction.
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.
Deviant sexual intercourse or deviate sexual intercourse is, in some U.S. states, a legal term for "any act of sexual gratification involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another, anus to mouth or involving invasion of the anus or vagina of one person by a foreign object manipulated by another person".
Laws regarding incest vary considerably between jurisdictions, and depend on the type of sexual activity and the nature of the family relationship of the parties involved, as well as the age and sex of the parties. Besides legal prohibitions, at least some forms of incest are also socially taboo or frowned upon in most cultures around the world.
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.
The Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed to consolidate certain enactments creating offences and relating to the criminal law of Scotland.
The Sexual Offences Act 1956 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that consolidated the English criminal law relating to sexual offences between 1957 and 2004. It was mostly repealed by the Sexual Offences Act 2003 which replaced it, but sections 33 to 37 still survive. The 2003 Act also added a new section 33A. These sections create offences to deal with brothels.
Scots criminal law relies far more heavily on common law than in England and Wales. Scottish criminal law includes offences against the person of murder, culpable homicide, rape and assault, offences against property such as theft and malicious mischief, and public order offences including mobbing and breach of the peace. Scottish criminal law can also be found in the statutes of the UK Parliament with some areas of criminal law, such as misuse of drugs and traffic offences appearing identical on both sides of the Border. Scottish criminal law can also be found in the statute books of the Scottish Parliament such as the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 and Prostitution (Scotland) Act 2007 which only apply to Scotland. In fact, the Scots requirement of corroboration in criminal matters changes the practical prosecution of crimes derived from the same enactment. Corroboration is not required in England or in civil cases in Scotland. Scots law is one of the few legal systems that require corroboration.
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.
The Indecency with Children Act 1960 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that expanded English criminal law in relation to sexual acts with minors. The Act made it a crime to incite or commit an "act of gross indecency" with somebody under the age of fourteen. It was repealed by the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
There are a number of sexual offences under the law of England and Wales, the law of Scotland, and the law of Northern Ireland.
Lascivious behavior is sexual behavior or conduct that is considered crude and offensive, or contrary to local moral or other standards of appropriate behavior. In this sense, "lascivious" is similar in meaning to "lewd", "indecent", "lecherous", "unchaste", "licentious" or "libidinous".
There are a number of sexual offences under the law of England and Wales.
There are a number of sexual offences under the law of Northern Ireland.
References
- James Chalmers. The New Law of Sexual Offences in Scotland. (Gordon's Criminal Law, supplement 1 to vol 2). W Green. 2010.
- Alastair N Brown. Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009. Second Edition. W Green. 2015.
- Stair Memorial Encyclopedia.
- Andrew M Cubie. "Sexual Offences". Scots Criminal Law. Fourth Edition. Bloomsbury Professional. 2016. Chapter 11. Page 175 et seq.
- Gerald H Gordon. "Sexual Offences". The Criminal Law of Scotland. Second Edition. 1978. Part 5. Chapters 33 to 36.
- Claire McDiarmid. "Sexual Offences". Scottish Criminal Law Essentials. Third Edition. Edinburgh University Press. 2018. Chapter 13. Page 137 et seq.
- Sarah Christie. "Sexual Offences". Introduction to Scots Criminal Law. Pearson Longman. 2003. Chapter 10. Page 157 et seq.
- R A A McCall Smith and David Sheldon. "Sexual Offences". Scots Criminal Law. Second Edition. Butterworths. 1997. Chapter 11. Page 191 et seq.
- T H Jones and M G A Christie. Criminal Law. Fourth Edition. W Green & Son. 2008. Passim. See in particular "Proposed Reform of Sexual Offences", Chapter 9, Section 7, pages 279 to 282.
- Michael G A Christie (ed). Gerald H Gordon. "Sexual Offences". The Criminal Law of Scotland. Third Edition. W Green. 2001. Volume 2. Part 5. Chapters 33 to 36. Page 505 to 558.
- Clare Connelly. "Sexual Offences against the Person". Criminal Law. Fifth Edition. W Green. 2013. Page 62 et seq.
- A M Anderson. The Criminal Law of Scotland. Bell & Bradfute. Sweet & Maxwell. 1892. Pages 92 to 99.
- J H A Macdonald. A Practical Treatise on the Criminal Law of Scotland. Second Edition. William Paterson. 1877. Pages 167 to 170 and 198 to 203.
- James Walker and D J Stevenson. A Practical Treatise on the Criminal Law of Scotland. Fifth Edition. 1948.
- John Erskine and John Rankine. Principles of the Law of Scotland. Pages 621 to 623.
- Gane, Stoddart and Chalmers. "Sexual Offences". A Casebook on Scottish Criminal Law. Fourth Edition. Thomson Reuters (Legal) Limited. 2009. Chapter 9. Page 360 et seq.
- Pamela R Ferguson. "Sexual Offences". Scots Criminal Law: A Critical Analysis. Second Edition. Edinburgh University Press. 2014. Chapter 11.
- Peter Hamilton and J Ross Harper. "Rape" and "Incest". A Fingertip Guide to Scots Criminal Law. Sixth Edition. Bloomsbury Professional. 2013. Pages 25 to 27.
- ↑ For commentary on this offence, see T H Jones and M G A Christie. "Incest". Criminal Law. Fourth Edition. W Green & Son. 2008. Page 374 et seq.
- ↑ For commentary on this offence, see T H Jones and M G A Christie. "Rape". Criminal Law. Fourth Edition. W Green & Son. 2008. Chapter 9. Section 5. Page 267 et seq.
- ↑ For commentary on this offence, see T H Jones and M G A Christie. "Consent and indecent assault". Criminal Law. Fourth Edition. W Green & Son. 2008. Page 221 et seq.
- ↑ For commentary on this offence, see T H Jones and M G A Christie. "Lewd, indecent and libidinous practices". Criminal Law. Fourth Edition. W Green & Son. 2008. Page 222 et seq.