Member

To explain, I have to give a short bit of legislative history. Section 9 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 replaces Section 6 of the 1956 Act of the same name. The old Section 6 made it an offence for a man to have sexual intercourse with a girl aged 13 to 15. This was to do with the statutory age of consent—it had nothing to do with whether there was actual consent; prosecutors did not have to prove that the victim did not consent, merely that she was below the age of consent, so it was a completely separate offence from the offence of rape. Unusually for a criminal offence—in this the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, and the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, are entirely correct—prosecutions for the old Section 6 offence had to be brought within 12 months of its commission by virtue of the 1956 Act.