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154.   Defilement of male or female suffering from mental disorder

Revised Laws of Saint Lucia (2022)

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154.   Defilement of male or female suffering from mental disorder

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    (1)   Every person who is in a position or authority towards a person with a mental or physical disability or who is a person with whom a person with a mental or physical disability is in a relationship of dependency and who, for a sexual purpose, counsels or incites that person to touch, without that person's consent, his or her own body, the body of the person who so counsels or incites, directly or indirectly, with a part of the body or with an object, the body of any person, including the body of the person who so invites, counsels or incites and the body of the person with the disability, commits an offence and is liable on conviction or on indictment to imprisonment for 15 years or on summary conviction to imprisonment for 7 years.

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    (2)   Subject to subsection (3), “consent” means, for the purposes of this section, the voluntary agreement of the complainant to engage in the sexual activity in question.

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    (3)   No consent is obtained, for the purposes of this section, if—

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      (a)     the agreement is expressed by the words or conduct of a person other than the complainant;

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      (b)     the complainant is incapable of consenting to the activity;

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      (c)     the accused counsels or incites the complainant to engage in the activity by abusing a position of trust, power or authority;

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      (d)     the complainant expresses, by words or conduct, a lack of agreement to engage in the activity; or

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      (e)     the complainant, having consented to engage in sexual activity, expresses, by words or conduct, a lack of agreement to continue to engage in the activity.

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    (4)   Nothing in subsection (3) shall be construed as limiting the circumstances in which no consent is obtained.

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    (5)   It is not a defence to a charge under this section that the accused believed that the complainant consented to the activity that forms the subject-matter of the charge if—

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      (a)     the accused's belief arose from the accused's—

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        (i)     self-induced intoxication, or

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        (ii)     recklessness or wilful blindness; or

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      (b)     the accused did not take reasonable steps, in the circumstances known to the accused at the time, to ascertain that the complainant was consenting.

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    (6)   If an accused alleges that he or she believed that the complainant consented to the conduct that is the subject-matter of the charge, a judge, if satisfied that there is sufficient evidence and that, if believed by the jury, the evidence would constitute a defence, shall instruct the jury, when reviewing all the evidence relating to the determination of the honesty of the accused's belief, to consider the presence or absence of reasonable grounds for that belief.

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