Criminal

Indecent assault of girl under 16 - prosecution not required to prove lack of honest belief in age of complainantR v K: CA (Roch LJ, Rougier and Gray JJ): 31 October 2000

The defendant was charged with indecent assault contrary to s.14(1) of the Sexual Offences Act 1956.

The defence raised a preliminary issue, namely whether to establish the defendant's guilt the prosecution had to prove that at the time of the incident he did not honestly believe that the girl was over 16.

The judge ruled that the prosecution had the burden of proving the absence of genuine belief.

The Crown appealed against that ruling under s.35 of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996.

Anthony Scrivener QC and Anthony Heaton-Armstrong (instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service) for the Crown; David Fisher QC and Irena Ray-Crosby for the defendant.

Held, allowing the appeal and reversing the judge's ruling, that in s.14(1) of the 1956 Act Parliament had excluded any defence of genuine belief that the girl was over 16 to a charge of indecent assault on a girl under 16; that if it had intended otherwise the enactment of s.14(3) and (4) would have been unnecessary; that B (A Minor) v Director of Public Prosecutions [2000] 2 WLR 452 had not implicitly overruled R v Maughan (1934) 24 CrAppR 130 and R v Forde [1923] 2 KB 400, decided under the predecessor of s.14, which were still good law; and that, accordingly, the judge's ruling was not correct.