Sexual Offences Act 1956


The Sexual Offences Act 1956 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that consolidated the English criminal law relating to sexual offences between 1957 and 2004. It was mostly repealed by the Sexual Offences Act 2003 which replaced it, but sections 33 to 37 still survive. The 2003 act also added a new section 33A. These sections create offences to deal with brothels.
Although the rest of the act has been repealed, the repealed sections still apply to sex crimes committed before the repeal, such as in the Pitcairn sexual assault trial of 2004.

The act today

Sections 33, 34, 35 and 36 create summary offences. Section 33A creates an aggravated version of the offence in section 33, and is an indictable offence. Section 37 prescribes the penalties.

Sections 33 and 33A

Section 33 reads:
Section 33A reads:
The difference between these offences arises because the definition of a brothel in English law does not require that the premises are used for the purposes of prostitution, since a brothel exists wherever more than one person offers sexual contact, whether for payment or not.
"Prostitution" is defined by section 51 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 as follows:
"Payment" is defined by section 51:

Section 34

Section 35(1)

Section 36

Penalties

Section 37 gives effect to Schedule 2 to the act, which sets out the penalties for the above offences. For sections 33, 34, 35 and 36 the penalty is imprisonment for three months for a first offence, or six months "for an offence committed after a previous conviction" for any of those offences.
The maximum sentence for the offence under section 33A is six months in a magistrates' court, or seven years in the Crown Court.

Succeeding Sexual Offences Acts

Comparative table