Gross Indecency And Buggery

asked the Attorney-General on how many occasions in 1977, and for any earlier year for which figures are available, the Director of Public Prosecutions has exercised his discretion to prosecute in cases of (a) gross indecency and (b) buggery with consent, where one or both of the parties was over 16 years but under 21 years.

The offences to which my hon. Friend refers require the Director's consent to proceedings when committed in the circumstances set out by him if both or all the participants were males, but they may be committed otherwise and in other circumstances in which the Director's consent is not required for proceedings.The Director of Public Prosecutions keeps records only of the number of cases prosecuted by his Department. He does not keep records of the number of cases in which he has consented, as required by statute, to proceedings subsequently conducted either by his Department or by other prosecuting agencies.Such statistics as are available may be found in "Criminal Statistics, England and Wales" published each year by the Home Office.Table 1(

a) of these annual statistics gives details of persons proceeded against at magistrates' courts by offence, sex and result.

Table 1( d) gives details of persons aged 17 and under 21 proceeded against at magistrates' courts by offence, sex and results.

Table 13 gives details of proceedings brought by the Director of Public Prosecutions, cases, persons, and charges by offence, court and results.

I have extracted from these tables and set out below the available figures for persons charged with offences of buggery, attempted buggery and gross indecency for the years 1975, 1976 and 1977. These figures must however be read subject to the following observations:

Table 1( d)

Included in these figures will be cases where a young adult will have been prosecuted for buggery with a woman or an animal, but neither type of case is frequent.

Because these figures are for prosecutions of persons between the ages of 17 and 21 only, and do not include those of adults, they represent only a minority of the total number of cases to which the Director has consented.

Table 1( a)

Included in these figures will be cases in which any male of any age has been prosecuted for buggery with another consenting adult male in "public", or with a woman or an animal. These figures will also include cases of gross indecency between adult males in public. The Director's consent is not required in such cases.

Table XVIII of 1975 and 13 of 1976 and 1977

This table gives information similar to that in table 1(a), except that it also

				1975			1976			1977
				All cases		DPP cases Both sexes	All cases		DPP cases Both sexes	All cases		DPP cases Both sexes
				Males			Males			Males
				17–20	All ages		17–20	All ages		17–20	All ages
				Table 1d	Table 1d	Table XVIII	Table 1d	Table 1a	Table 13	Table 1d	Table 1a	Table 13
1. Buggery	…	…	…	37	301	113	35	263	62	21	266	71
2. Attempted Buggery			…	93	917	25	93	809	21	83	821	18
3. Gross Indecency		…	…	67	1,578	49	88	1,680	50	79	1,646	65

Volume 961: debated on Monday 22 January 1979