Sexual Offences Act 2003

The Sexual Offences Act 2003 is an Act of Parliament that was passed in 2003 and became law on 1 May 2004. It replaced older sexual offences laws, including the Sexual Offences Act 1956, with more specific and explicit wording. In Victorian times it was deemed immoral to define offences such as gross indecency.

Group homosexual sex was decriminalised by section 12 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 being omitted, removing the offence of homosexual sex “when more than two persons take part or are present”.

Schedule 4 to the Act allowed men convicted of obsolete offences to apply to be removed from the sex offenders register.