(Crown Ct at Sheffield) There were nine counts in an indictment against a husband and a co-accused charging various offences of a sexual nature against an estranged wife. One of these was of rape as a principal.
Held: The whole concept of a marital exemption in rape was misconceived: ‘Were it not for the deeply unsatisfactory consequences of reaching any other conclusion on the point, I would shrink, if sadly, from adopting this radical view of the true position in law. But adopt it I do. Logically, I regard it as the only defensible stance, certainly now as the law has developed and arrived in the late twentieth century. In my judgment, the position in law today is; as already declared in Scotland, that there is no marital exemption to the law of rape. That is the ruling I give. Count seven accordingly remains and will be left to the jury without any specific direction. founded on the concept of marital exemption.’
Judges:
Simon Brown J
Citations:
[1991] 1 All ER 755
Citing:
Followed – S v HM Advocate HCJ 1989
Rape is regarded as an aggravated assault, of which the achievement of sexual intercourse is the worst aggravating feature. . .
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v R HL 23-Oct-1991
H has no right to sexual intercourse with W – rape
The defendant appealed against his conviction for having raped his wife, saying that intercourse with his wife was necessarily lawful, and therefore outside the statutory definition of rape. Due to the matrimonial difficulties, the wife had left . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Crime
Updated: 13 May 2022; Ref: scu.194937