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Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned. The Act clarifies the law by restating, in statute, the broad legal principle established in the case of R v Brown, that a person cannot consent to actual bodily harm or to other more serious injury or, by extension, to their own death. Perpetrators of these crimes should be under no illusions β their actions will never be justifiable in any way, and they will be pursued rigorously through the courts to seek justice for victims and their families.
Rough sex, including sadomasochistic sexual activity, can involve the infliction of pain or violence, simulated or otherwise, with the aim of providing sexual gratification for the parties involved. This type of activity can encompass a wide range of behaviours and, although it may occur in private and be consensual, the law states that the infliction of serious harm which results in actual bodily harm ABH or other more serious injury or worse, will make a perpetrator liable to prosecution.
This is irrespective of whether consent had been given by the victim or not to behaviour of this type. The general proposition of law reflecting this position was established by the then Appellate Committee of the House of Lords in the case of R v Brown [] 2 W. L,R In the last five years, the campaigners also claimed that this defence was successful in seven of the 17 killings of a woman which reached trial, with the man being found either not guilty or, much more frequently, being convicted of manslaughter.
This aims to make absolutely clear that a person cannot consent to the infliction of a serious level of harm or worse for the purposes of obtaining sexual gratification.
