Sexual offences are covered under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (SOA 2003) and include:
- Rape
- Sexual assault
- Sexual activity without consent
- Sexual offences against children
- Sexual offences against vulnerable people
- Prostitution
The overall definition of sexual or indecent assault is an act of physical, psychological and emotional violation in the form of a sexual act, inflicted on someone without their consent. It can involve forcing or manipulating someone to witness or participate in any sexual acts.
Sometimes it can be hard to make sense of the situation, the definitions below may help:
Rape
Rape is when a person intentionally penetrates another’s vagina, anus or mouth with a penis, without the other person’s consent. The consent element is important, it doesn’t matter if the person is a stranger, relative, partner, husband, wife and so on.
Forced Sodomy
Anal or oral sex without consent, please note this can apply also to sex with animals.
Incest
Sex between family members or those associated through affinity, such as step-children, marriage, adoption and so on.
Minors – Contact abuse
Contact abuse is where an abuser makes actual physical contact with a child, such as:
- Touching of any relevant part of a child’s body whether clothed or not
- Penetrating a child’s mouth, anus or vagina with an object or body part
- Forcing a child to be part of sexual activity, including touching themselves or someone else
- Performing or receiving oral sex.
Minors – Non Contact abuse
As the heading assumes this is when sexual abuse occurs but no physical contact is made, examples would include:
- Exposing one’s genitals to a child
- Showing a child a pornographic image/video
- Forcing a child to undress in front of them
- Exposing a child to perform self-sexual acts such as masturbation
- Making, downloading, viewing, or distributing child abuse images or videos
- Communication with a child online or via smartphone with the aim to “Groom” them (defined as building a relationship to sexually abuse, traffic or exploit).
Solicitation of minors through the Internet
It’s no secret that young children and minors are becoming increasingly able on the internet, and over the last few years, there has been a huge expansion of social media. With these two factors combined, there is unfortunately always a potential for abusers to use this to their advantage. Abusers can often hide behind virtual chat rooms, secure networks and public networks. Often they will take on a persona to lure in children, such as lying about their age or income. The internet has sadly made it very easy for culprits to groom children, grooming is when a relationship is built to sexually abuse, traffic or exploit them.
If an abuser has access to another person’s internet, there is the potential that they could use it to download inappropriate images, with the knowledge that if the police trace the location of the internet search, they won’t get caught. The unassuming and innocent homeowner could be assumed to be the culprit, and potentially be punished as such, unless they can prove otherwise.
Possession of child pornography
The Protection of Children Act 1978 makes it illegal to create, distribute, or show indecent images of someone under the age of 18. This also includes possessing images with the intent to show somebody else.
The maximum penalty for this is 10 years in prison or a fine. In the context of digital media, saving an indecent image to a computer’s hard drive is considered to be “making” the image, as it causes a copy to existing which did not exist before. Indecency is to be interpreted by a jury, who should apply the recognised standards of propriety.
The level of abuse is known as the ‘Copine’ scale and is shown below
| The COPINE Scale | ||
| 1 | Indicative | Non-erotic and non-sexualised pictures showing children in their underwear or swimming costumes, from either commercial sources or family albums. Pictures of children playing in normal settings, in which the context or organisation of pictures by the collector indicates inappropriateness. |
| 2 | Nudist | Pictures of naked or semi-naked children in appropriate nudist settings, and from legitimate sources. Such as photos of children in the bath. |
| 3 | Erotica | Covertly taken photographs of children in play areas or other safe environments showing either underwear or varying degrees of nakedness. |
| 4 | Posing | Deliberately posed pictures of children fully clothed, partially clothed or naked (where the amount, context and organization suggest sexual interest). |
| 5 | Erotic Posing | Deliberately posed pictures of fully, partially clothed or naked children in sexualised or provocative poses. |
| 6 | Explicit Erotic Posing | Pictures emphasising genital areas, where the child is either naked, partially clothed or fully clothed. |
| 7 | Explicit Sexual Activity | Pictures that depict touching, mutual and self-masturbation, oral sex and intercourse by a child, not involving an adult. |
| 8 | Assault | Pictures of children being subject to a sexual assault, involving digital touching, involving an adult. |
| 9 | Gross Assault | Grossly obscene pictures of sexual assault, involving penetrative sex, masturbation or oral sex, involving an adult. |
| 10 | Sadistic | Pictures showing a child being tied, bound, beaten, whipped or otherwise subject to something that implies pain. |
| Bestiality | Pictures where an animal is involved in some form of sexual behaviour with a child. | |
Child sexual abuse:
This covers any sexual act with a child or someone older or more powerful than the child. It involves forcing, tricking, bribing, threatening, or pressuring a child into sexual acts. The abuse can be physical, verbal or emotional and includes such acts as sexual touching, exposing the child to pornography, taking pornographic pictures of the child, “peeping” at the child, exposing oneself to a child, and attempting/performing oral, anal, or vaginal penetration.
Assault by penetration:
This is when a person penetrates another person’s vagina or anus with any part of the body other than a penis, or by using an object, without the person’s consent. The sentences for this offence as the same as those for rape.
What is consent?
Put simply, consent is when both people agree to what’s happening by choice and have the freedom and ability to make that choice. For clarity, a person who is intoxicated is deemed to not be able to legally give consent. Consent should never be implied or assumed by either party.
Sexual assault
Sexual assault can involve forcing someone to witness or participate in sexual activity. Sexual assault can be purely psychological and doesn’t need to involve other physical violence or physical harm.