2003.001 Sexual Ethics and Criminal Law, Lester ... - Francis Bennion
2003.001 Sexual Ethics and Criminal Law, Lester ... - Francis Bennion
2003.001 Sexual Ethics and Criminal Law, Lester ... - Francis Bennion
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``<strong>Sexual</strong> activity between minors'' ± can be charged. 15 Igoonto<br />
or<br />
these in reverse order.<br />
discuss<br />
<strong>Sexual</strong> activity between minors This proposed criminal o€ence,<br />
22.<br />
with up to ®ve years imprisonment, deals inter alia<br />
punishable<br />
sexual activity between pubescents from eleven to ®fteen. It<br />
with<br />
cover a range of behaviour including, for example, any activity<br />
``will<br />
a child that a reasonable person would deem to be sexual or<br />
with<br />
in all the given circumstances. This will cover a range of<br />
indecent<br />
including, for example, inducing a child to take o€ their<br />
behaviour,<br />
in circumstances which would reasonably be considered as<br />
clothes<br />
sexual <strong>and</strong> outside the bounds of normal family life.'' 16<br />
The italicised words are a giveaway. Consensual sex play between<br />
23.<br />
siblings or friends who are age mates, say within the age<br />
young<br />
the bounds of normal family life. Or is it? Is the new law<br />
outside<br />
going to leave vital questions like this to be ®nally settled only<br />
really<br />
years of delay <strong>and</strong> a ®nal appeal to our highest court of justice,<br />
after<br />
House of Lords? That would surely be a gross dereliction of<br />
the<br />
by Parliament ± h<strong>and</strong>ing the ®nal decision to non-elected<br />
duty<br />
rather than deciding for themselves. Yet deliberate ambiguity<br />
judges<br />
often used in legislation when clarity might arouse dissent. 17 It<br />
is<br />
not be so used in the present case, when so much depends on<br />
should<br />
Much childish sex play between consenting age mates is within the<br />
24.<br />
of normal family life. That is my view, but many would<br />
bounds<br />
I suspect that most parents, scared by current propag<strong>and</strong>a in<br />
di€er.<br />
media <strong>and</strong> elsewhere, would indeed di€er from that opinion.<br />
the<br />
would run away from any display of sexuality by their<br />
They<br />
innocent little children. 18 Yet if they only knew it, a child<br />
supposedly<br />
Para. 49.<br />
15<br />
White paper, para. 50 as applied by para. 52. Emphasis added.<br />
16<br />
See <strong>Bennion</strong> on Statute <strong>Law</strong> (Longman, 3rd edn 1990), chap. 17.<br />
17<br />
For an account of the hideous damage those blinkered attitudes cause I refer<br />
18<br />
range eleven to ®fteen years, is considered by the Home O<br />
ce to be<br />
being clear.<br />
once again to chapter 12 of The Sex Code.<br />
14
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