Law Weblog

R v Dica

The Court of Appeal has ordered a retrial in the case of Dica, for the jury to consider the issue of “consent”, not in the sense of consenting to intercourse but not consenting to the nature and quality of the act. The court has resoundingly quashed R v Clarence, which is no longer consider to be good law. Public policy reasons would prohibit the deliberate spreading of disease, including sexual disease, in the same way that it prohibits infliction of bodily harm. However, sexual intercourse often includes some risk, including that of pregnancy, and interference of this kind with personal autonomy, and its level and extent, may only be made by Parliament. The effect of this judgment in relation to s.20 is to remove some of the outdated restrictions against the successful prosecution of those who, knowing that they are suffering HIV or some other serious sexual disease, recklessly transmit it through consensual sexual intercourse, and inflict grievous bodily harm on a person from whom the risk is concealed and who is not consenting to it.
Whole case here