Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T08:03:48.860Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Indecent Assault: The Presumption of Mens Rea Revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 April 2002

Get access

Extract

In B (a minor) v. DPP [2000] 2 A.C. 428 (noted (2001) 60 C.L.J. 26) the House of Lords held that mens rea must be established as regards the age element of the crime of gross indecency with a child under the age of 14, contrary to the Indecency with Children Act 1960. It followed that the defendant in that case, who honestly, but mistakenly, believed that the victim was over 14, was not guilty because he lacked the necessary fault. The Court left open the question whether mens rea also had to be established for the age element of indecent assault committed on a child under 16, but it has had the opportunity to consider this in R. v. K [2001] UKHL 37, [2001] 3 W.L.R. 471

Type
Case and Comment
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Law Journal and Contributors 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)