The Relevance of Victim's Volunary to a Charge of Rape Essay

The Relevance of Victims Volunary to a Charge of reave - Essay ExampleThe Act replaced the Sexual Offences Act 1956, and all its a manpowerdments. The said Act saw the phylogenesis of the definition of rape the actus reus from its original definition in the Sexual Offences Act 1956 which was un truthful sexual intercourse with a woman to penile penetration of the vagina, anus or babble out of another person without their consent. The inclusion of the anus and mouth as body parts renders it now legally possible for a male to be raped, notwithstanding the retention of the word penile limits the defendant in a instruction of rape to only male. The charge of assault by penetration is used to cover circumstances wherein objects other than a penis be forcibly inserted into the aforementioned orifices, and exacts the same penalty as rape. The next topic is the mens rea or the guilty object this means that the person accused of committing the crime knew that he was committing the crime. In the context of rape, it means he knew that he did not secure the victim or the complainants consent when he proceeded with having sexual sexual intercourse with her. In the past, UK law relied upon the mistaken touch clause which was in the pillow slip Morgan4 in 1976. Here, the accused men were informed by the husband that his wife would struggle and say no, but they should just widen because she was in truth enjoying it. Whilst they were eventually convicted anyway, the case set a troubling precedent if there was an good belief engendered in a mans mind that a woman consented to sex, even if that belief is unreasonable, the requirement of men rea is unsatisfied and therefore the rape charge will not prosper. Westmarland (2004 7) provides a compendious summary of the definition of rape in the Sexual Offences Act 2003, to wit The... The research looks at the libber critique of the rape law, as it is framed. Feminists who have called for the reform of rape law have d emonstrated that the law of rape historically has regulated competing male interests in controlling sexual access to females, rather than protect womens interest in controlling their own bodies and sexuality. This is a fascinating proposition, and jibes with the conflict possibleness of criminal justice, which looks as criminal laws as having an agenda supportive of a dominant class. In the case of rape, the dominant class might be the male gender. This paper proceeds to look into the whole issue surrounding involuntary drunkenness, which goes into the heart of the notion of consent. Whilst there are differing opinions as to whether or consent is a state of mind, or it is an action, either way, intoxicantic drink ingestion makes consent problematic. If consent is a state of mind, alcohol at a certain level addles and distorts the mind in a state of inebriation. If consent is an action, alcohol has behaviour-altering effects and can impair speech and physical movement in such a bearing that consent becomes ambiguous. To use the definition given by Cowan, to be in a state of intoxication means that ones mental and physical capacities are substantially altered from ones sober state, through the ingestion of intoxicating substances. To better understand the situation at hand, researchers look at the two important cases of R v. Dougal and R v. Bree.