Sexual Offences Act (with its many variations) is a stock short title used for legislation in the United Kingdom relating to sexual offences (including both substantive and procedural provisions).
The Bill for an Act with this short title will have been known as a Sexual Offences Bill during its passage through Parliament.
Sexual Offences Acts may be a generic name either for legislation bearing that short title or for all legislation which relates to the criminal law. It is a term of art.
Famous quotes containing the words offences and/or act:
“A strong argument for the religion of Christ is this—that offences against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made—not to understand—but to feel—as crime.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“but when lust
By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,
But most by lewd and lavish act of sin,
Lets in defilement to the inward parts,
The soul grows clotted by contagion,
Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite loose
The divine property of her first being.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)