Thanks for for your legwork, and I agree v much with what you say. Laws should not be passed on the assumption that they will be applied benevolently.

- The act was actually passed into law (very) slightly differently and can be found: http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?LegType=All+Legislation&title=sexual+offences&searchEnacted=0&extentMatchOnly=0&confersPower=0&blanketAmendment=0&sortAlpha=0&TYPE=QS&PageNumber=1&NavFrom=0&parentActiveTextDocId=3604553&ActiveTextDocId=3604553&filesize=218038

- The act contains a definition of a reasonable presumption of consent, and, very worryingly, it is the standard definition designed for dealing with rape – far too stringent for something as simple as chatting someone up.

- The apparent intention of ‘for the purposes of sexual gratification’ is to criminalise someone who gets off by shouting sex-talk at people/someone, but there is indeed a very worrying grey area surrounding blatant chat-up lines: ‘Hey baby, wanna make awooga awooga with me’ is not what is intended to be caught, but is very clearly not an overture of platonic friendship.

His overall opinion was that this law will only be applied in very limited circumstances, and, as such, is yet another addition to the corpus of law that is only really useful in allowing police or government harassment of individuals. I was planning on visiting Scotland soon, but now I don’t think I’ll take the risk. Well spotted.

I think there’s a lot riding on the interpretation of ‘for the purposes of sexual gratification’ – if that’s intended to be read as ‘for the *direct* purposes of sexual gratification’, it’s much more acceptable. That is, if the sexual gratification comes from the act of communication, rather than the communication being intended to result in eventual consensual sex, it wouldn’t be covered if that were the case.

There is also a lot riding on ‘(b) without any reasonable belief that B consents to its being so sent or directed,’ – insofar as it may well be reasonable to hold the belief that consent is the default position in adult situations – e.g. a pub, a nightclub – and the opposite is true in other situations – e.g. a church servioe.

Just to be clear, I am not a fan of such sloppy jurisprudence. Laws should not be this unclear.

I’m not a lawyer but the subsection (3) that states that it is an offence if;

“The purposes are—
(a) obtaining sexual gratification,
(b) humiliating, distressing or alarming B.”

I’m not clear whether it has to be one of those, or both. If both then it’s perfectly reasonable for this to be an offence, no?

Someone showing someone else porn or making deliberately lewd comments in order to distress them? (And in a court of law you’d need to be able to show that was their purpose)

It’s interesting that they’ve included sign language – a blow for equality there.

Anyway, I shall check this out with some colleagues in the Scottish Parliament for clarification to see if it means what you think it means. Has it been picked up by anyone else? How did you come across this?

I’ve tried googling this and can’t find any references to what you’re talking about, including in this post.

Thanks.