Most of us are very clear on the difference between assault and sexual assault.
Actor Kevin Spacey appeared in court on sexual assault charges this year after allegedly putting his hand down an 18-year-old man’s pants.
This unidentified 21 year old appeared in court on sexual assault charges after allegedly putting his hand down an 18 year old man’s pants. In BOTH court cases touching another man’s genitals without his consent was described as sexual or indecent assault
The prosecutor in the Labour Party summer camp trial says the Crown does not accept there was no sexual offending, despite taking a downgraded plea deal to resolve the case.
But the accused’s lawyer says her client “is not a sexual offender […]
The dispute between the two lawyers comes after a 21-year-old man today pleaded guilty to two amended charges of assault under the Summary Offences Act 1981.
[…] The accused began the trial facing five counts of indecent assault, which related to four people – two men and two women.
[…] the sexual charges against the two men were amended to assault.
“[…] He has pleaded guilty to two minor assaults which he’s always been prepared to take responsibility for. As I have said from the outset, my client is not a sexual offender
[…] Johnstone, however, hit back.
“It is not correct to say that the Crown accepts there was no sexual offending,” he said.
How can putting your hand down a man’s pants without his consent (not once, but twice), and squeezing another man’s genitals without his consent, be described as a minor assault? It wasn’t his arm that was grabbed without his consent it was his sex organs. How can grabbing someone by the genitals not be a sexual act?
[…] “the correct position” was that the Crown “did not consider it necessary in the public interest for the jury to resolve the point”.
He said the defendant’s plea offer came during the evidence of the second male complainant.
This suggests to me that the second witness’s evidence was compelling.
“It necessarily involved the defendant recognising that the touching of the two males did happen largely in the way the Crown alleged, but disputing that the defendant knew either that touching was indecent or of the circumstances that made it indecent,” Johnstone said.
The accused was twenty at the time of the alleged offending, and we are expected to believe that he did not know that it was indecent to grab two younger males by the genitals and that he didn’t know that it was also indecent to grab them in full view of other people at a party.
“[…] This reassessment needed to take account of the uncertainties and costs inherent in the jury process, the fact of the defendant acknowledging the intentional non-consensual touching of the males, and the moderate level of the alleged offending as a whole.
Have you got that guys? If a drunk man shoves his hand down your pants without your consent during a party and squeezes your wedding tackle, that is not a sexual or indecent assault in New Zealand; it is just a common or garden variety assault – as long as he didn’t realise that what he was doing was wrong.
This defence of not knowing that it is wrong to sexually assault someone is sadly not new. In Austria an Iraqi asylum seeker who confessed to raping a 10-year-old boy in a swimming pool, and who claimed it was a “sexual emergency”, has had his conviction overturned.
In a truly shocking twist the Supreme Court decided the grown Iraqi man may not have realised the 10-year-old did not want to be sexually abused by him.
When the youngster went to the showers, Amir A. allegedly followed him, pushed him into a toilet cubicle, and violently sexually assaulted him.
[…] The child suffered severe anal injuries which had to be treated at a local children’s hospital, and is still plagued by serious post-traumatic stress disorder.
In a police interview, Amir A. confessed to the crime; telling officers the incident had been “a sexual emergency”, as his wife had remained in Iraq and he “had not had sex in four months”.
The case sparked outrage across Europe […] the Supreme Court yesterday overturned the conviction, accepting the defence lawyer’s claim that the original court had not done enough to ascertain whether or not the rapist realised the child was saying no.
express.co.uk/news/world/723868/Migrant-jailed-Austria-attack-boy-10-sexual-emergency-has-conviction-OVERTURNED
I am not at all happy to live in a country that will accept ignorance as a defence or a mitigating circumstance for sexual or indecent assault. How long will it be before we have rapists claiming that they didn’t understand that the person they assaulted didn’t want it to happen, as has already happened in Austria?
Priest said in her first statement her client and his legal team were “grateful that what happened that night has been seen for what it really was: drunken antics at a party”.
A Newspaper
