The Bill is a radical revision of sex crime law in Scotland and
broadly follows last December's recommendations of the Law
Commission of Scotland. Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill described
it as a "once in a generation" opportunity to create a clear legal
framework for sex crimes.
The Bill, though, could result in the jailing of people who send
text and picture messages with sexual content for up to 10 years.
The Bill opens the door to convictions for people whose flirting is
ill-judged or goes too far.
The Bill creates a new offence of communicating indecently.
The offence will be committed if someone sends an unsolicited
text message to someone else which a court finds was designed to
give the sender sexual gratification or to humiliate, distress or
alarm the receiver.
Causing a person to see or hear an indecent communication is
also an offence. It can be committed by reading "a passage in a
book or magazine" or by communicating the sounds of actual or
simulated sexual activity or by communicating in sign language.
It will be up to prosecutors and courts to decide which
communications are serious enough to warrant the heavy jail terms,
but ill-advised flirting or joke messages could come under those
definitions and expose senders to the long jail terms.
The Bill also bans the sending of images of a person or an
"imaginary person" engaging in sexual activity without the
receiver's permission. Again if the court finds that the message
was designed to give the sender sexual gratification or humiliate,
distress or alarm the recipient then the sender could be jailed for
up to 10 years.
That person could be found guilty of another new offence, that
of coercing a person into looking at an image of a sexual
activity.
The Scottish Law Commission's Colin Tyre told The Scotsman
newspaper that the new offences were designed to address a growing
problem.
"We wanted to make sure all forms of communication were covered
by a single law. Sending offensive e-mails in the workplace has
become more common, as have text messages," he said.
