Change the law to make sexual activity by deception illegal, say experts

Credit: Pexels/Ekaterina Bolovtsova The law must be toughened up to make intentionally deceiving a person into engaging in sexual activity a crime, according to a new report published today. The latest Criminal Law Reform Now Network (CLRN Network) report calls for a change to the law, which would make deceiving a person to induce them into sexual activity a new crime. The new offence - inducing sexual activity by deception - would potentially apply to all forms of deception. It would avoid what the report calls a 'legislative pre-judgement on good/bad reasons to engage in sexual activity'. The academics, practising lawyers, and other legal experts who make up the CLRN Network say that because no crime of inducing sexual activity by deception currently exists, courts have instead needed to decide that a deception has had the effect of nullifying the supposed consent of the victim. However, the courts currently struggle to say which sorts of deceptions have this effect, and which do not. One example of this difficulty arises in a recent controversial case called R v Lawrance (2020).