STD GBH IS SEX OFFENCE
David Golding was jailed for 14 months for GBH after recklessly infecting a woman with herpes.
Although the Appeal Court cut the sentence to three months in 2014, judges did not overturn the conviction.
This infuriated campaigners.
They argued that criminalising STDs would discourage sufferers from coming forward and getting treatment.
Golding’s crime was failing to tell her he had the illness – but there is a difference between being reckless and using an STD to deliberately harm someone. Somewhat surprisingly, Crime minister
Victoria Atkins revealed last week that there’s no specific offence for this.
It comes under offences against the person, along with giving someone a bloody nose or a shiner.
The minister says there are no plans to change this. Which means those convicted are not put on the Sex Offenders Register.
That cannot be right, Vicky.
To use an STD as a sexual weapon must surely make it a sex offence.
And sex offenders belong on the register. Creative Industries minister Margot James is “driving lasting change in the workforce” of the film business to improve, among other things, gender underrepresentation on screen. An admirable objective – as long as common sense is also applied.
It would be historically laughable in, say, a movie about D-Day to have half the soldiers storming French beaches wearing brassieres.
Nor would Saving Private Rhiannon quite cut it.