ABSTRACT
Chapter 8 considers the key criminal law offences regulating sexual behaviour. Many of these offences were redefined by the Sexual Offences Act 2003, starting with the new definition of rape in that Act. The current definition of rape focuses on a rape victim’s lack of ability to fully consent to sex, for various reasons. As post-2003 case law has shown, however, criminal law continues to struggle to define the boundary between rape and legal sexual activity. The chapter goes on to discuss offences of sexual assault, before focusing specifically on child sexual abuse offences defined in the 2003 Act, and briefly looking at what has happened in statutory law in this area since 2003. The second part of the chapter looks at how criminal justice responds to different kinds of sexual offence, considering evidence from the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the courts, and punishment agencies, and focusing specifically on the continuing criminal justice battle to secure justice for the victims of rape and sexual assault, particularly child victims. The chapter concludes by reviewing the evidence in the chapter in relation to the roadmap theories put forward in Chapter 1.
