The Hindu : End to the age of 'secrets and lies'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 21, 2002

International

International

End to the age of 'secrets and lies'

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON NOV. 20. Britain is set to get rid of the last remnants of Victorian prudery after the Government on Tuesday announced a radical shake-up of what the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, described as "archaic, incoherent and discriminatory'' laws relating to sex offences.

As well as bringing down the curtain on an age of "secrets and lies'', as one newspaper put it, the Government would crack down on "date rapists'' and paedophiles following an alarming rise in incidents of child abuse, and date rapes.

Under the proposed laws, which have been widely welcomed, men accused of a date rape would have to prove beyond doubt that they `honestly' believed their partner had consented to sex. It would not be enough for them to claim, as they do now, that they presumed a woman was willing simply because she had had a couple of drinks with them or agreed to accompany them to their room.

For women's rights activists, who have been campaigning that the burden of defence in date rape cases should be on men, it is a big victory but sceptics said there were still loopholes which lawyers could exploit to get their clients off the hook.

``This will please the feminists... but I am not sure how many more convictions it will achieve,'' a member of the group which reviewed sex-related laws was quoted as saying.

On child-abuse, the focus is on checking paedophilia through Internet which is being used increasingly by men to contact children and `groom' them. A new offence of `grooming' would bar suspected perverts from sending e-mails to children. A number of other measures, including raising the age of consent, are also proposed to check a problem which has assumed scandalous proportions with even priests and teachers turning out to be closet paedophiles.

This is the first major overhaul of sex-related laws since the great Irish playwright, Oscar Wilde, was prosecuted for "gross indecency'' nearly 100 years ago.

Victorian laws which saw some of the most prominent figures such as the actor John Gielgud convicted for homosexuality would be scrapped in favour of a new law which would apply equally to both gay and heterosexual offences.

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