Clause 1 - Rape
Sexual Offences Bill [Lords]
10:15 am
Ms Beverley Hughes (Minister of State (Citizenship and Immigration), Home Office; Stretford and Urmston, Labour)
On the police officers' main point, I did not take it to mean that their questioning was currently inhibited, but that such lines of questioning
are largely irrelevant, because the defence of mistaken but honest belief makes the answers to questions about suspects' behaviour largely irrelevant.
On the hon. Gentleman's point about juries, we shall have to wait and see. I am not as pessimistic as he is. It is much more common-sensual for a jury to make a judgment based on reasonableness, rather than having to accept, as is often the case at the moment, that someone's belief was honest, although wholly unreasonable in a common-sensical kind of judgment.