Ministers say adults who exploit children will no longer rely on perceived consent as a defence.
Changes in law in England and Wales, pledged by the government, are intended to close prosecution loopholes for adult sex offenders while ensuring that genuine teenage relationships are not inadvertently subjected to the same legal scrutiny.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has committed to legislative change so that any adult who engages in penetrative sex with a child under the age of 16 will automatically face a rape charge, regardless of the child’s apparent consent or perceived maturity.
The proposed reform, which will require amendments to the Sexual Offences Act 2003, follows a national audit by Baroness Louise Casey into group-based child sexual exploitation.
The review found that in many cases involving children aged 13 to 15, adult offenders were not charged with rape owing to a “grey area” in the law that allowed for the consideration of consent, despite the legal age of consent being 16.
In other cases, rape charges were downgraded because victims were perceived to have been “in love with” or to have “consented to” sex with the perpetrator.
According to Casey, this legal ambiguity exists in part to avoid criminalising individuals who reasonably believed a child was older, or to avoid prosecuting consensual relationships between teenagers.
“But in practice, this nuance in law is being used to the benefit of much older men who had groomed underage children for sex,” the report concludes.
‘Children Are Children’
According to Rape Crisis England and Wales, the review is a “difficult read” but offers hope for justice if its recommendations are fully implemented and centred on survivors’ voices.
One such voice is Sammy Woodhouse, a survivor of the Rotherham grooming scandal and a prominent advocate against child sexual abuse. She described the government’s proposed legal change as “common sense.”
Woodhouse was just 14 when she was forced to terminate a pregnancy and subsequently got pregnant again at 15 by her groomer, Arshid Hussain, who was 25 at the time.
In 2015, she testified against Hussain in court, who was convicted of 23 charges against nine victims and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
“Children are children, they can’t consent. And I think current laws are blurring the line,” Woodhouse told The Epoch Times.
She rejected the perception of young children being the groomers’ “girlfriends.”
“It’s child rape and it’s victim blaming,” she added.
Ministers plan to conduct close consultations with the Crown Prosecution Service and police in developing the legislative changes, acknowledging that charging decisions ultimately lie with them.
