=(4) Weaknesses in the Law=

(a) Operation of the Rule Regarding Age of Consent

The readiness of juries to acquit in cases of carnal knowledge of, or indecent assault upon, girls may be due to several facts, of which the following may be mentioned: 

  (i) The failure of the law to make it an offence for a
  sophisticated girl to entice a male into carnal knowledge of her.

  (ii) The modern practice of not publishing the names of the girls
  involved.

  (iii) The fact that the defence of consent is available to persons
  under 21 years of age is a factor making it more difficult to
  obtain a conviction when the person charged is over 21 years.

(b) Girls Not Liable for Permitting Indecency or Carnal Knowledge

The law has always been chivalrous to females.  It is not an offence for them to allow to be done to themselves things which, when they are done, render the other party liable to heavy terms of imprisonment.

There is also a practical reason why the State has not legislated against females on this point, viz., the anticipated difficulty of obtaining convictions if the female, when called as a witness, is able to plead that she should not be required to testify lest by doing so she might incriminate herself.  This practical objection, however, would lose all force, both as regards cases where the accused are under 21 years and those in which they are over 21 years, if the proposed offence by females were restricted to girls under 16 and thus triable in the Children’s Court, and not by indictment.  The judicial process in the Children’s Court is, or can be, such a speedy process that the Crown would not be hampered in making its charge against the male in the ordinary Criminal Court by the possibility that the case would fail if the girl pleaded that she should not be required to answer questions.

(c) Girls Not Liable for “Indecent Assault” on Boys

It should also be made an offence punishable in the Children’s Court for any girl to indecently assault a male.

Under section 208 of the Crimes Act every person, male or female (including a boy under 14 years of age), may be convicted and sentenced to seven years imprisonment for an indecent assault on a female.  Under section 154 a male may be sentenced to ten years imprisonment for an indecent assault on a male (consent is not a a defence); but a female cannot be convicted of “indecent assault” on a male if he permitted the act.

This anomaly may have arisen because, in ancient times and, later, when the criminal law was set out in statutory form, it was not considered likely that females would descend to conduct which would entice males into the commission of one of these offences.

Having regard to the evidence before the Committee that many boys have been tempted and encouraged into sexual crime by the indecent conduct of girls themselves, in picture theatres and elsewhere, the time has arrived when boys should be protected by letting the girls know that they too commit an offence when they act towards boys in an indecent manner.