Marital Rape in UK Law

Adultery is both a ground for divorce and a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment of two months to one year. A woman found guilty of adultery is punished along with her partner. For a husband's adultery to be punished however he must have committed the act in the matrimonial home or have had an ongoing sexual relationship with a woman other than his wife outside the marital home. The man's partner is not punished.

The section provides a powerful tool with which Judges can protect both children and the parent with whom they live, from corrosive, demoralising and controlling applications which have an insidious impact on their general welfare and wellbeing and can cause real emotional harm. Lawyers and Judges must be assiduous to identify when this occurs, in order to ensure that the Court is not manipulated into becoming a source of harm but a guarantee of protection.

Moreover, the Court, as a whole, did not regard the conduct as criminal, no doubt because, as Scrutton LJ indicated at 643 and 647, and Atkin LJ at 647 and 648, there was no allegation or evidence of misrepresentation or fraud on the vendor in the act of one of the two refraining from bidding, Scrutton LJ observing:

In the case of the United States and Part 2 offences, the analogue of the warrant, is the request, whether or not it includes more than is required for prosecution of the offence indicated in the Part 2 territory, for example, here, the ingredient of dishonesty to garnish the Sherman Act offence.

The committee has reached the conclusion that the wider construction should prevail. In short, the conduct test should be applied consistently throughout the 2003 Act, the conduct relevant under Part 2 of the Act being that described in the documents constituting the request (the equivalent of the arrest warrant under Part 1), ignoring in both cases mere narrative background but taking account of such allegations as are relevant to the description of the corresponding United Kingdom offence.

In two issues of the Sunday Times newspaper on 17th and 24th September 1989 there appeared articles concerning share deals involving the superannuation fund of the Derbyshire County Council. The Council is the "administering authority" of its superannuation fund under the Superannuation Act 1972 and the regulations made thereunder.