ABSTRACT
The Wolfenden Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution recommended by a majority of 12 to 1 that homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence. One of the committee's principal grounds for this recommendation was expressed in its report in this way: 'There must remain a realm of private morality and immorality which in brief and crude terms is not the law's business'. The publication by Sir Patrick of this lecture is in itself an interesting event. It is many years since a distinguished English lawyer delivered himself of general reasoned views about the relationship of morality to the criminal law. The most remarkable feature of Sir Patrick's lecture is his view of the nature of morality - the morality which the criminal law may enforce. English popular morality has no doubt its historical connexion with the Christian religion: 'That', says Sir Patrick, 'is how it got there'.
