Reforming the Relationship between Sexual Consent, Deception, and Mistake.

The Criminal Law Reform Now Network (CLRNN) to invite you to the launch of our latest report Reforming the Relationship between Sexual Consent, Deception, and Mistake.

The launch event will take place in the Bingham Room at Gray’s Inn (London) between 5-7pm on Wednesday 18th January 2023. 

In the Report, the CLRNN recommends the creation of a new offence – causing a person to engage in sexual activity by deception – to be added as section 4A to the Sexual Offences Act 2003. A defendant (D) would commit the offence where he intentionally deceives the victim (V) to induce V to engage in sexual activity; V engages in sexual activity because of D’s deception; and D has no reasonable excuse for deceiving V. 

The offence is not limited to certain topics of deception (such as gender deception, deception as to the use of contraceptives, etc), and thereby avoids legislative pre-judgement on good / bad reasons to engage in sexual activity. Rather, the wrong criminalised is that of intentional deception where D knows that his lie will have a significant influence on V’s choice / autonomy.     

For the CLRNN Project, we asked ten legal experts to set out proposals for how the law could be usefully reformed. These proposals were collated within a consultation paper, which was published in 2021. Following a period of consultation, the CLRNN Committee has now settled upon a single policy .  The final report, which will be available at the launch event, will contain all the separate proposals in full, as well as a final chapter outlining the reasons why we recommend the creation of a new offence.

Launch Reception Event: Please join us in the Bingham Room, Gray’s Inn (London) between 5-7pm on Wednesday 18th January 2023. The launch reception event will provide an opportunity to discuss the reform proposals informally with the project team, as well as confirmed press such as Joshua Rosenberg (BBC) and Frances Gibb (The Times). The event will include brief talks from 5:45pm: (i) Dr Jonathan Rogers (CLRNN Co-Director, Cambridge Law) on the work of the CLRNN; (ii) Mr Paul Jarvis (Project Lead, 6KBW) on the Deception Project and CLRNN Proposals; and (iii) Harriet Wistrich of the Centre for Women’s Justice as Guest Speaker on the importance of reform in this area.

Please RSVP to our Network Facilitator and Committee Member Dr Laura Noszlopy [email protected]. 

Pictures from the event will be published on our website and beyond, so please let us know if you would like your image to be removed