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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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I have been looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_law
"United Kingdom
The UK has historically had similar laws, but the offence is known as buggery, not sodomy, and is usually interpreted as referring to anal intercourse between two males or a male and a female. Buggery was made a felony by the Buggery Act in 1533, during the reign of Henry VIII. In 1885, Parliament enacted the Labouchere Amendment [3], which prohibited gross indecency between males, a broad term that was understood to encompass most or all male homosexual acts. Following the Wolfenden report, sexual acts between two adult males, with no other people present, were made legal in England and Wales in 1967, in Scotland in 1980 and Northern Ireland in 1982.
In the 1980s and 1990s, attempts were made by gay rights organizations to equalize the age of consent for heterosexuals and homosexuals, as the age of consent for homosexuals was set at 21, while the age of consent for heterosexuals was 16. Efforts were also made to modify the "no other person present" clause so that it dealt only with minors. In 1994, Conservative MP Edwina Currie introduced an amendment to Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill which would have lowered the age of consent to 16. The amendment failed, but a compromise amendment which lowered the age of consent to 18 was accepted. The age of consent remained 18 until the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000 which further reduced it to 16, and the "no other person present" clause was modified to "no minor persons present". Today, the universal age of consent is 16 in England, Scotland, and Wales. The age of consent for both heterosexuals and homosexuals remains at 17 in Northern Ireland."
With No Minor persons present. Hmm. 2 16 years olds are minor, and may have sex. But they can't be present!
Or, if they can have sex, a non minor may be present. Interesting, but I doubt it is what the law intended
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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the term minor in british sexual offence laws is actually (surprisngly) ambiguous.
as far as both courts and police are concerned, the word minor used in relation to the no other person rule refers to under 16s... not under 18s... bizarly, the same application of 16, not 18 is used in relation to some elements of child pornography, but not others...
the law makes 3 distinctions with all terms relating to "children" and minors" which link in with the more technical legal definitions of "child" "young person" and "young adult" used elsewhere in the law
for sexual offences you would find
Children under 13
Children under 16
Minors under 18
for most other offences the categories are
Children under 10 (Incapax - cannot commit a crime)
Children under 14 (the former Doli Incapax)
Young person under 18
Young Adult 18-21
what the courts say is in relation to the no minors present rule "minor" actually means "Children under 16"...
a case of judges making sense of parliamentary stupidity... or gross error on the part of the parliamentary draughtsman...
Odi et amo: quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, set fieri sentio et excrucior
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