‘It is What “Girls of Indifferent Character” Do …’ Complications concerning the Legal Age of Sexual Consent in the Light of R v C (2011)
| Author | Kim Stevenson |
| DOI | 10.1350/jcla.2012.76.2.760 |
| Published date | 01 April 2012 |
| Date | 01 April 2012 |
| Subject Matter | Comment |
COMMENT
‘It Is What “Girls of Indifferent Character”
Do . . .’ Complications concerning the Legal
Age of Sexual Consent in the Light of
R v C (2011)
Kim Stevenson*
Keywords Age of consent; Statutory rape; Sentencing sexual offences
The issue of what should constitute the appropriate legal age of consent
to sexual activity is something that has agitated legal and public opinion
since it was first established in the modern context, and in respect of girls
only, at 16 years of age by s. 5 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act
1885. Historically aligned with the age of marriage,1where consent was
automatically presumed irrespective of sexual knowledge, by the late
19th century 16 year-old-girls were expected to have some comprehen-
sion of what exactly they were consenting to. The Act was a direct
response to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Protection of
Young Girls 18812which inquired into the decoying of young English
girls to Belgium for immoral purposes. Initially, the issue of reforming
the age of sexual consent was not a primary concern. However, the
revelation of a potential ‘white slave trade’ sparked (in an early example
of Victorian investigative journalism) by W. T. Stead’s ‘shocking exposé’
of child prostitution, ‘The Maiden Tribute to Modern Babylon’, scandal-
ised Victorian society and catapulted it into the public discourse.3
The House of Lords was deeply divided about whether the law should
be invoked to criminalise sexual activities that many perceived as a
purely ‘moral’ matter to be addressed through public and/or religious
‘education’. For example, the Earl of Milltown and Lord Norton believed
not that young girls needed protection from men, as proposed by the
child saver Lord Shaftesbury, but that men needed to be protected from
‘immoral’ girls who might seduce and entrap them.4‘Coincidentally’,
just three days after Stead published his exposé, the House of Lords
managed to reach a compromise and the Bill was passed. However,
negative attitudes about the responsibility of young girls for their ‘im-
morality’ endured and were reflected in judicial as well as political
* Associate Professor of Law, School of Law, University of Plymouth; e-mail
kim.stevenson@plymouth.ac.uk.
1 In medieval times it was 12 years (Statute of Westminster 1275); Elizabeth I
lowered it to 10 (Act of 1576); by the 19th century it had reverted back to 12
(Offences Against the Person Acts 1828, 1861) and an 1875 amendment to the
1861 Act raised it to 13.
2 See TNA HO45/9547/59343/(I)284 Minutes re Genesis of Act.
3Pall Mall Gazette, 4 July 1885.
4 HL 1883 [280] col.1390-1.
130 The Journal of Criminal Law (2012) 76 JCL 130–139
doi:10.1350/jcla.2012.76.2.760
To continue reading
Request your trial