Clause 50 - Causing or inciting child prostitution or pornography
Sexual Offences Bill [Lords]
10:30 am
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield, Conservative)
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. When drafting an indictment in the Crown court, it is quite common for there to be a serious offence that requires specific ingredients of proof and a lesser offence that has different ingredients.
I turn to the features of clauses 9 and 50. To leave pornography to one side, with regard to inciting prostitution involving a child under 13, it seems to me that the ingredients will be identical except for one addition: in clause 50, it must be shown that the sexual activity was part of prostitution. In those circumstances, it is unlikely that both offences would be on an indictment. It is likely that there would be an either/or situation in which the prosecution must decide which to pick; and there is always the risk that at the end of the trial the judge might say, ''I can't understand why the prosecution decided to proceed with an offence that is only punishable by 14 years imprisonment because if they had proceeded with the other case I would have dished out life imprisonment.'' If that were to happen, there would be a big public outcry and lots of criticism of the prosecutor—I do not know whether that would be well founded.
I do not see these two offences as alternatives that could be put on a single indictment. To do that would be sloppy practice; if someone tried it, the judge might raise an eyebrow. The prosecutor will therefore have to make the choice—and it will have to be the right one.
This is why I get a bit worried about this plethora of options, all of which are punishing and criminalising what seem to me, in this case, to be virtually identical activities—although I accept that things might be slightly different in the case of pornography.