Lying about fertility is not rape - judges
Father of three originally jailed in 2016 COURT OF APPEAL QUASHES COUNTY MAN’S CONVICTION
A MAN who lied about his fertility to a sexual partner should not have been convicted of rape, according to a ruling by Court of Appeal judges.
Former Hinckley businessman Jason Lawrance, 55, was convicted of two counts of rape at Nottingham Crown Court last year for lying to a woman about having a vasectomy.
Although she agreed to have sex with Lawrance, who is in prison for a series of attacks against women, prosecutors argued her consent was invalidated by his deception.
But in a ruling published on Thursday, three judges in the Court of Appeal, including the Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett, called the two convictions “unsafe” and quashed them.
“Our conclusion, in respectful disagreement with the judge, is that the appellant’s lie about his fertility was not capable in law of negating consent,” the judgment said.
“We find that the appellant’s convictions on counts eight and nine are unsafe and must be quashed.”
Father-of-three Lawrance was jailed for life with a minimum term of 12 years and six months at Derby Crown Court in 2016 for sexually violating seven women.
The former self-employed builder went on trial at Nottingham Crown Court in July 2019 accused of sex attacks on a further five women, including the one he lied to about his fertility.
The court heard that, in 2014, Lawrance told the woman, whom he had met on an online dating website, that he had undergone a vasectomy. The woman, who had sex with him twice, said she had agreed to do so on the basis he was no longer fertile or she would have insisted on him wearing a condom.
Despite reassuring her repeatedly, Lawrance messaged the woman the following morning to tell her: “I have a confession. I’m still fertile. Sorry.”
Jurors found him guilty of five counts of rape, including the two counts involving the woman whom he had deceived, one count of sexual assault and one charge of assault by penetration.
His prison term was extended by two-and-a-half years following the trial, in which jurors also cleared him of two rape charges.
Following an appeal by Lawrance’s legal team, which did not appeal against any of his other convictions, the Court of Appeal judges considered section 74 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
This states a person consents “if he agrees by choice, and has the freedom and capacity to make that choice”.
However, the judges said the woman was not deprived by Lawrance’s lie of “the freedom to choose whether to have the sexual intercourse which occurred”.
Previous cases involving deception were also looked at for the ruling. These included Julian Assange’s extradition case in 2011, where the court considered the question of condom removal, and another case which involved a woman and her husband.
The judgment said Lawrance’s case was different from those considered as the woman agreed to sex with him without “imposing any physical restrictions”.
“The deception related not to the physical performance of the sexual act but to risks or consequences associated with it.”
The appellant’s lie about his fertility was not capable in law of negating consent