Notes 4 Heterosexuality and the age of consent 1. My general approach to the law is to reject legal positivism and proceduralist conceptions of criminal law as a coherent unitary system, in favour of a critical, interpretative approach which is sociologically and historically informed, and hence able to recognise the inconsistencies and disjunctures in law that have existed (for an introduction to this view of criminal law, see Lacey and Wells, 1998). 5 Homosexuality and the age of consent 1. Some references to this and other reports include paragraph numbers, given in the form (CHOP, 1957, p. 1, #1). 2. ‘Wolfenden Debate’, editorial, The Guardian, 26 November 1958. 3. ‘What they say about the Vice Report’, Evening News, 5 September 1957. 4. According to the documentary A Bill Called William, Channel Four, 3 July 1997, 9–10 p.m. 5. See also the records of the Homosexual Law Reform Society in the Hall-Carpenter Archive, Library of the London School of Economics and Political Science. 6. It has been claimed that the leading Conservative Lord Robert Boothby and Labour MP Tom Driberg, both known homosexuals, were protected from the press and police by a cross-party agreement when their links to gangland killers the Kray twins emerged in 1964. Boothby was involved in a friendship, possibly a sexual relationship, with Ronnie Kray, while also the lover of Lady Dorothy Macmillan, the wife of former Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. The events were discussed in a Channel Four documentary Secret History: Lords of the Underworld, 23 June 1997, 9–10 p.m. See also Independent on Sunday, 15 June 1997, magazine; Pink Paper, 20 June 1997, p. 2. 7. Leo Abse, quoted in interview for A Bill Called William, ibid. 8. The enduring influence of these positions in structuring debates over law in the UK is evident in the inclusion of a philosophical summary framed in these terms as an appendix to the Law Commission’s consultation paper Consent in the Criminal Law (Law Commission, 1995, Appendix C). 9. This led to Home Office–funded electric-shock ‘treatment’ programmes being inflicted upon homosexual prisoners: ‘Gay prisoners given shock treatment, papers reveal’, The Guardian, 28 November 1997, p. 1. 10. A further recent study of the Wolfenden committee by Patrick Higgins has also been presented as a critique of liberal commentaries on the report, claiming that ‘Commentary on the report has tended to be favourable to its contents, accepting a liberal spin, and has tended to elevate the importance of Wolfenden. By the time of his death in 1985, Wolfenden had been elevated to the status of a liberal saint, the emancipator of the British homosexual’ (Higgins, 1996, p. 12). Yet Higgins provides no references to his ‘liberal’ targets, other than Sir John Wolfenden himself; nor does he engage with existing critiques of liberal readings of Wolfenden (Weeks, 1977, 1989; Bland, McCabe and Mort, 1979; Hall, 1980; 242 Notes 243 Mort, 1980). Consequently Higgins tends to reproduce the liberal mythology he is ostensibly against, and in fact gives a more liberal reading of the motives for instigating Wolfenden and of the committee’s report than these existing commentaries. 11. However, it is noteworthy that radical critiques of the Wolfenden Report have been primarily concerned with addressing public assumptions rather than other academic commentaries; liberal interpreters of the report have not been easy to find for radical critics. In an extensive review, Tim Newburn has identified sev- eral writers who he describes as providing ‘liberal-historical’ interpretations of legislation and social trends associated with ‘permissiveness’ in the 1950s and 1960s, yet characterises their commentaries, in contrast to conservative interpret- ations, as ‘generally more sceptical of the extent of permissiveness’ (Newburn, 1992, p. 7). He is unable to identify liberal theorists who argue that the Wolfenden Report and subsequent legislation represented a wholehearted endorsement of individual freedoms. 12. ‘Sutherland vs. the United Kingdom: Report of the European Commission of Human Rights’, application 25186/94, 1 July 1997. 13. Quoted from a filmed interview in A Bill Called William, Channel Four, 3 July 1997, 9–10 p.m. 6 Sexual liberationism and the search for new sexual knowledge 1. Records of GLF’s activities are held in the national lesbian and gay Hall-Carpenter Archive, at the British Library of Political and Economic Science, London. For GLF papers, diaries, correspondence, photos and memorabilia, see the Gay Lib- eration Front files and the John Chesterman papers. See also gay periodicals: London GLF’s journal Come Together, issues 1–16 (HCA file 253); Gay News, July 1972 to July 1974, issues 1–50 (HCA file 294); Gay International News (HCA Chesterman file 8). 2. For example: ‘Age of consent: A vital issue’, letter from CHE chairman, Gay News, no. 14, 1973, p. 9. 3. ‘Age of consent’, Come Together, issue 8, August 1971, p. 1 (HCA file 253); ‘GLF Youth Group’, flyer describing group and its basic aims (HCA GLF file 3). 4. For the debate in Gay News over Paedophilia, see Peter Kelsey ‘Pederasty’, Gay News, no. 8, p. 8; ‘Pederasty and you’ – letters, Gay News, no. 10, p. 7; Mark Adams, ‘Re-building the image – views on boy-lovers’, Gay News, no. 12, p. 10; ‘Of men and little boys’ and ‘The body politic affair’, Gay News, no. 14 (New Year 1973), p. 7; Letters, Gay News, no. 16, p. 2; ‘Boys for sale in New York: All prices, all ages’, Gay News, no. 18, pp. 7, 10; ‘Hello young lovers’, editorial, Gay News, no. 49, p. 2. 5. The situation in Scotland was subsequently changed by the Age of Legal Capacity (Scotland) Act 1977, which set the age of legal capacity at 16. The Marriage (Scotland) Act 1977 gave young persons aged 16 the capacity to marry without parental consent. 6. ‘Age-of-consent idea “naive” ’, Sunday Times, 26 May 1974; ‘Row over call for “consent at 12” ’, The Scotsman, 28 May 1974; ‘CHE sack Vice-President’, Gay News, no. 48, 6 June 1974. The CHE’s Working Party on Law Reform had recom- mended a basic age of consent of 16, but 12 in cases where a defendant could prove the existence of meaningful consent; see ‘CHE Report angers reformers’, Gay News, no. 46, 9 May 1974, p. 3. 244 Notes 7. On the internal debate, and review by the CHE’s Working Party on Law Reform, see ‘CHE Report angers reformers’, Gay News, no. 46, 9 May 1974, p. 3. 8. See ‘Equal means sixteen’, report on CHE’s Malvern Conference, Gay News, no. 48, 6 June 1974, p. 1; on the conference see also ‘A new pride’, editorial, p. 2; ‘Don’t ask-demand!: The theme of Malvern’, p. 3; ‘New sex laws’, p. 5. Internal debates over a lower target nevertheless persisted into the 1980s (CHE Law Reform Committee, 1980). 9. During the campaign the three main party leaders, Jeremy Thorpe (Liberal), Edward Heath (Conservative) and Harold Wilson (Labour), were interviewed by Gay News on equality issues including the age of consent. Each gave non- committal answers, emphasising that homosexuality was an issue for individual MPs, not party policy, see Gay News, no. 41, 28 February 1974, p. 3. 10. On the campaign launch, see ‘Homosexuals to seek further reforms’, The Times, 3 July 1975. 11. See criminal statistics in England and Wales for 1975–1977, provided in the Attorney General’s Written Answer to a parliamentary question (HC 22 January 1979, cols 18–20). 12. ‘Quakers make 14 age of consent’, Sunday Express, 16 April 1972. 13. ‘Dr. Robinson puts case for age of consent to be 14’, The Times, 6 July 1972; ‘Consent to what?’, editorial, New Law Journal, Vol. 122, no. 5554, 13 July 1972, pp. 621–622. 14. Antony Grey continued to advocate the Sexual Law Reform Society’s solution for many years, see A. Grey ‘Free to choose sex’, letter, New Statesman and Society, 30 June 1995, p. 28. 15. The Policy Advisory Committee subsequently referred to public controversy over campaigns by the SLRS and CHE in contextualising its own creation (PAC, 1979, p. 1, #3). For criticism of the decision to set up the inquiry, see Ronald Butt ‘Who really wants a change in the age of consent?’, The Times, 22 January 1976. 16. Quoted by Boris Johnson ‘The final twiumph’, The Daily Telegraph, 22 July 1998, p. 22. 17. On the wider political and social context structuring debates over sexuality during the 1970s and early 1980s (Weeks, 1989, pp. 273–306; Durham, 1991; Jeffery-Poulter, 1991, pp. 109–175). 18. The occupations of members are listed in CLRC, 1984, Appendix A. 19. These submissions provide vital evidence, given that standing committees (at this time) received no oral evidence (Grey, 1997, p. 50). For a list of those who made written submissions, see PAC, 1981, Annex II. Press reports from the Hall-Carpenter Archive provide a rich source of data on written submissions received by the Policy Advisory Committee from various interest groups, and public responses to their work, in a context where access to committee records is prohibited due to the ‘thirty-year rule’ governing the availability of official documents. The Hall-Carpenter Archive press-cuttings collection is based at the Art and Design Library, Middlesex University (Cat Hill campus). 20. Margrit Schwarz (Secretary, The Josephine Butler Society), ‘The age of consent’, letter to The Times, 30 January 1976. 21. Police Superintendents Association of England and Wales (1975), submission to the Criminal Law Revision Committee; quoted in ‘Liberalism has gone much too far’, Police Review, 12 December 1975, p. 1581. 22. ‘BMA against change in age of consent’, Ipswich Evening Star, 16 August 1976.