ABSTRACT
It was in August 1954 that a committee, chaired by Sir John Wolfenden, was appointed to consider the law and its operation with regard to homosexual offences (and prostitution), and the treatment of those convicted of such activities. The committee’s report, published in 1957, included the recommendation that sexual acts between consenting males over the age of twenty-one should be decriminalised, although anal intercourse itself was to remain illegal. In making this recommendation, the Wolfenden Committee – as it became known – explained that
We do not think it is proper for the law to concern itself with what a man does in private unless it can be shown to be so contrary to the public good that the law ought to intervene in its function as the guardian of the public good.
