CRIMINAL LAW

The General Pharmaceutical Council’s Fitness to Practice Committee had been entitled to remove a locum from the register of pharmacists where it had used its expertise and experience to form the view that there was a risk that he would repeat behaviour that had led him to commit serious sexual offences and where he had shown little insight into his conduct.

A member of a group under police surveillance who had entered into a sexual relationship with an undercover police officer was unable to establish that her lack of knowledge as to the officer’s true identity vitiated her consent to sexual relations within the meaning of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 s.74. There was no justification for extending the common law position as contended for by the claimant, namely that the matter to which the deception related had to be sufficiently serious in objective terms as to be capable of being regarded as relevant to a woman’s decision-making and that, subjectively, the deception went to a matter which the woman regarded as critical or fundamental to her decision-making.

In imposing a 12-month period of suspension on a solicitor sentenced to a 12-month community order and a five-year notification requirement on the sex offenders register for convictions of sexual assault and racially aggravated assault, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal had erred in its failure to consider the period of suspension necessary to protect the reputation of the profession and the public confidence in the profession, and in taking into account the period for which the solicitor had not been able to practise prior to an order of the court being made.

The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission had no standing to seek a declaration that abortion law in Northern Ireland was incompatible with ECHR art.3 and art.8 because it had not instituted proceedings by identifying any unlawful act or any actual or potential victim. Although the Supreme Court therefore had no jurisdiction to make a declaration of incompatibility, it considered that the current law was disproportionate and incompatible with art.8 insofar as it prohibited abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormality and where pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.

The failure to provide exceptions to the law in Northern Ireland prohibiting abortion in respect of fatal foetal abnormality at any time, and pregnancies due to sexual crime up to the date when a foetus became capable of an existence independent of its mother, was contrary to the ECHR art.8.

A conviction for sexual offences against a child was safe, as medical evidence adduced as fresh had not permitted confident review of a previous diagnosis so as to describe it as ill-founded; taken at its highest it neither supported nor refuted the allegations against the offender. The defence was still that any abuse was perpetrated by another and the jury had decided on the non-medical evidence.

When dismissing an appeal against conviction for sexual activity involving children, including rape and trafficking within the UK for sexual exploitation, the court considered the issue of consent. Where a vulnerable or immature individual had allegedly been subjected to grooming for sexual purposes, the question of whether real or proper consent had been given would usually be for the jury to decide, unless the evidence clearly indicated that proper consent had been given.

Bad character evidence in respect of complainants in sexual assault allegations had been properly excluded where a judge had decided that it lacked substantial probative value as it did not establish a propensity towards general untruthfulness. That exclusion avoided the inevitable, grossly prejudicial, admission of the accused’s previous convictions for sexual offences.

The Northern Ireland Public Prosecution Service had not erred in making a decision not to prosecute an alleged rape of a 14-year-old boy with moderate learning difficulties; there was a clear factual basis for the finding that there were insufficient grounds to mount a prosecution.