What are the common defences to rape?
There are 3 defences to rape. 1) Nothing happened 2) It wasn’t me 3) She consented. Because of DNA fingerprinting, we are getting much fewer of the first two defences and much more of defence three. Because of the Morgan ruling in the mid 1970s, to convict a man of rape first of all, the prosecution had to convince the jury beyond reasonable doubt that the woman was not consenting. Whether he was guilty or not depended on whether or not he thought she was consenting – what was going on in his head –not what was happening to her body. This was the “Morgan” rule which says that a man is not guilty of rape if he believed she was consenting NO MATTER HOW UNREASONABLE THAT BELIEF. The Sexual Offences Act 2003 introduced the concept of ‘reasonable steps’. Deciding whether a belief is reasonable is done by considering any steps he has taken to ascertain whether she consented (subsection (2) of sections 1-4).
There are 3 defences to rape. 1) Nothing happened 2) It wasn’t me 3) She consented. Because of DNA fingerprinting, we are getting much fewer of the first two defences and much more of defence three. Because of the Morgan ruling in the mid 1970s, to convict a man of rape first of all, the prosecution had to convince the jury beyond reasonable doubt that the woman was not consenting. Whether he was guilty or not depended on whether or not he thought she was consenting – what was going on in his head –not what was happening to her body. This was the “Morgan” rule which says that a man is not guilty of rape if he believed she was consenting NO MATTER HOW UNREASONABLE THAT BELIEF. The Sexual Offences Act 2003 introduced the concept of ‘reasonable steps’. Deciding whether a belief is reasonable is done by considering any steps he has taken to ascertain whether she consented (subsection (2) of sections 1-4). This is a major change in the law and the Act abolishes the Morgan defence of a genui
