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)
“We must not suppose that, because a man is a rational animal, he will, therefore, always act rationally; or, because he has such or such a predominant passion, that he will act invariably and consequentially in pursuit of it. No, we are complicated machines; and though we have one main spring that gives motion to the whole, we have an infinity of little wheels, which, in their turns, retard, precipitate, and sometime stop that motion.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)