ABSTRACT

The relevant facts are simple. The respondent was in dispute over business matters with a couple named Foreman, who employed Penn to obtain damaging information which they could use against the respondent, who is a homosexual with paedophiliac predilections. As part of this plan Penn invited the youth to his room. According to the evidence given by the youth at the trial he remembered nothing between a time when he was sitting on the bed and when he woke up, still in Penn’s room, the following morning. It was the case for the prosecution, which the jury by their verdict on the second count must have accepted, that the boy fell asleep because Penn had secretly given him a soporific drug in a drink. On the same evening the respondent went to the room where the youth lay unconscious. He and Penn indulged in gross sexual acts with him. As part of the plan Penn made a recording of what was going on, and also took some photographs ...