Restrictions on sexual activity involving minors in the United Kingdom and its predecessors have existed since medieval times. During the 1970s, there was some political advocacy in favour of significantly reducing the age of consent, supported by various 'youth liberation' organizations and mostly by members of an international British activist group. Meanwhile, over a similar time period, the unequal age of consent for straight and gay young people was campaigned against by the LGBT rights movement. More recently arguments have occasionally been made in favour of reducing the age of consent, generally to an earlier point in adolescence.
Legal history
In 1275, the first age of consent was set in England, at age 12 (Statute of Westminster I). In 1875, the Offences Against the Person Act raised the age to 13 in Great Britain and Ireland, and ten years later the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 raised it to 16. In 1917, a bill raising the age of consent in Great Britain and Ireland from 16 to 17 was defeated by only one vote.
In 1950, the Parliament of Northern Ireland passed the Children and Young Persons Act, which successfully raised the age of consent to 17. However, in 2008 this enactment was reversed by the British government in the Sexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 2008, which made the age of consent in Northern Ireland 16, regardless of sexual orientation or gender. The reason given for this Order being made was to bring the age of consent into line with the rest of the United Kingdom. The Criminal Justice Minister, Paul Goggins, said there was no compelling reason for the age to be different in Northern Ireland.
The male homosexual age of consent in the England and Wales was set at 21 in the Sexual Offences Act 1967 for "consenting adults in private" (following the recommendations of the Wolfenden Report). In 1980 The Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act (1980) legalised homosexual acts at age 21. The homosexual age of consent was then lowered to 18 in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, and finally lowered to 16 in England & Wales and Scotland in the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000.
Currently, the age of consent for penetrative sex, oral sex and mutual masturbation in the United Kingdom is 16 years. This means that if any individual 18 or older has sex with someone 15 or less, then they may be charged with a criminal offence and may receive a 14-year prison sentence. The law also applies to those under 18 but above 15 with a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison. Similarly, the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000 prohibits a person in a position of trust from performing sexual acts with someone who cannot consent, which includes minors and "very vulnerable people". It is primarily used for the protection of those who are above the age of consent but under the age of 18, or who have mental disabilities.
Advocacy
Reduction
1970s
The decriminalisation of sex between men over the age of 21 convinced some paedophiles that they might soon be able to change the law and social attitudes to allow for their desire to have sex with children. The Paedophile Information Exchange was an organisation with around 300 members which used its links inside government and the civil liberties movement to lobby for the decriminalisation of sex with children as young as four years old. Arguments around relaxing age of consent laws relating to adolescents in particular did also have a wider reach. Sociologist Matthew Waites, author of The age of Consent – Young People, Sexuality and Citizenship, observed that:By the mid-1970s the case for a lower minimum age for all was finding wider support, with questions being posed concerning the merits of lowering the legal age for male/female sexual behaviour – not only within grassroots sexual movements, but also within religious organisations and liberal intellectual circles. [...] Significant sections of liberal opinion in the political mainstream, including prominent campaigners for children’s interests and sexual health, support at least some selective decriminalisation of sexual activity between young people under 18.In August 1971 young members of the Gay Liberation Front organised a public rally in London to protest at the age of consent for gay men.
In April 1972, the Society of Friends Social Responsibility Council (a Quaker conference), passed a resolution in favour of lowering the age of consent in Britain from 16 to 14. In July of that year, Dr. John Robinson, Dean of Trinity College, Cambridge, and chair of the UK's Sexual Law Reform Society, defended an age of consent of 14 in a lecture at a Methodist Conference.