Sexual Offences Against Young People: Tasmania Law Reform Institute Final Issues Paper No 17

This project arose out of a Tasmanian case in which a twelve-year-old girl was prostituted by her mother and her mother’s male friend. The fact that only one of the girl’s clients was prosecuted gave rise to controversy and criticism of both the Director of Public Prosecution’s decision not to prosecute and the law relating to the crime of sexual intercourse with a young person. The Attorney-General responded to criticisms of the law by referring to the Institute (by letter dated 30 September 2010) a review of the defence of mistake as to age for the crime of sexual intercourse with a young person, together with any other legal issues raised by the case. The Institute’s Board agreed to take on the project, and has also taken on a related project arising out of the same case which considers the law prohibiting the publication of information which identifies a complainant in a sexual offence case (the Institute intends to release an Issues Paper for this project in the near future).