Sex With Consent Can Still Be Rape, London High Court Rules

A High Court panel led by England and Wales' most senior judge has ruled that consensual sex can still be rape.

The court ruling follows a case in which a woman challenged prosecutors' refusal to place rape and sexual assault charges on her husband, who impregnated her against her will.

The panel overturned the prosecutors' decision and decreed that, if a man "deliberately ignored" a woman's wishes during intercourse, he could be convicted of rape even if his partner consented to have sex with him.

However Lord Judge, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, added that rape charges should not be brought against men who try to withdraw in time, but fail.

Judge said: "These things happen - they always have and they always will. No offence is committed when they do. They underline why withdrawal is not a safe method of contraception."

'He ejaculated against my will'

The woman who took the case to the High Court claimed her husband ignored her demand that he not ejaculate while they were having sex.

According to a report in The Sun, the unidentified university student also claimed her domineering husband forced himself on her for several years. She even alleged the man often woke her up in the middle of the night and asked her to put on stilettos and handcuffs for aggressive intercourse.

She was forced to e-mail her husband to beg him to stop, and one occasion he replied: "I am sorry for raping you. I can think of no other word....I degraded you, humiliated you from the first day and you played along because you felt you had to do it."

Eventually, during the night in question, the couple, married under Islamic law, had sex on the conidition that he would withdraw, as she did not want another child.

However, the man did not adhere to the agreement and the woman ended up pregnant.

Prosecutors originally ruled it would be "impossible" to prove the man's actions were not "spontaneous" on the night in question. However the decision was overturned after judges decided the case fell "within the statutory definition of rape."

According to a report by the BBC, the ruling stated: "She believed that he intended and agreed to withdraw before ejaculation. (He) knew and understood that this was the only basis on which she was prepared to have sexual intercourse with him.

"In short, there is evidence that he deliberately ignored the basis of her consent to penetration as a manifestation of his control over her."

The panel also asserted that the woman "was deprived of choice relating to the crucial feature on which her original consent to sexual intercourse was based. Accordingly, her consent was negated."