The Supreme Court will today give its detailed reasons for granting the appeal by the State against a High Court decision to free a man sentenced for the statutory rape of a 12-year-old girl.
This followed the court striking down the law stating it was an offence to have sex with a girl under 15.
That case concerned a man, known as Mr C, convicted of having sex with a 14-year-old girl when he was 18, who claimed the law was unconstitutional because he had not been allowed present a defence that he was mistaken about the age of the girl.
On May 23rd last the Supreme Court found that the law was unconstitutional in that it did not allow for any such defence.
As a result the other man, known as Mr A, a 41-year-old man who had raped a 12-year-old girl after plying her with alcohol, sought his release in the High Court on the basis that the law under which he was convicted did not exist. The High Court allowed his release. He had served 18 months of a three-year sentence following a guilty plea.
The State appealed this ruling to the Supreme Court on June 2nd last, where the five-person court ruled that Mr A had not argued he was mistaken as to the age of the girl, and so was not denied his constitutional right to make this defence.
In allowing the appeal, the Chief Justice, Mr Justice Murray, said that Mr A had fully acquiesced in the jurisdiction of the court by entering a plea of guilty. It ordered his immediate re-arrest and said it would give a detailed judgment later.
The release of Mr A led to a number of other applications, brought under Article 40 of the Constitution, for release by men serving sentences under section 1 (1) of the 1935 Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, which made it an offence to have sex with a girl under 15. This section was struck down by the Supreme Court, and Section 2 of the same law, which made it a similar offence to have sex with a girl under 17 is now regarded as questionable.
Those applications were adjourned pending the outcome of the Supreme Court appeal.
Meanwhile, over 50 cases of sex with underage girls are being examined with a view to prosecutions being brought under other laws dealing with sexual offences. Under a still extant section of the 1935 Act, consent cannot be a defence to sex with a girl under 15. Other, more recent, Acts prohibit various forms of sexual assault.
According to legal sources, this makes it likely that people in positions of trust charged with offences against young girls are still likely to face a successful prosecution.
However, young men who had sex with young girls in circumstances where they can argue they made a mistake as to their age, for example, if they met the girl in a pub or night-club, will be able to put forward a viable defence.