Legislation – Domestic Abuse Act 2021
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There are currently no known outstanding effects for the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, Section 71.
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PART 6Offences involving abusive or violent behaviour
Offences against the person
71Consent to serious harm for sexual gratification not a defence
1
This section applies for the purposes of determining whether a person (“D”) who inflicts serious harm on another person (“V”) is guilty of a relevant offence.
2
It is not a defence that V consented to the infliction of the serious harm for the purposes of obtaining sexual gratification (but see subsection (4)).
3
In this section—
-
“relevant offence” means an offence under section 18, 20 or 47 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (“the 1861 Act”);
-
“serious harm” means—
- a
grievous bodily harm, within the meaning of section 18 of the 1861 Act,
- b
wounding, within the meaning of that section, or
- c
actual bodily harm, within the meaning of section 47 of the 1861 Act.
- a
4
Subsection (2) does not apply in the case of an offence under section 20 or 47 of the 1861 Act where—
a
the serious harm consists of, or is a result of, the infection of V with a sexually transmitted infection in the course of sexual activity, and
b
V consented to the sexual activity in the knowledge or belief that D had the sexually transmitted infection.
5
For the purposes of this section it does not matter whether the harm was inflicted for the purposes of obtaining sexual gratification for D, V or some other person.
6
Nothing in this section affects any enactment or rule of law relating to other circumstances in which a person’s consent to the infliction of serious harm may, or may not, be a defence to a relevant offence.