In Northern Ireland (NI) consent is a key concept in the law on sexual offences. Despite its centrality to determining the existence of a criminal offence, it is a concept that is subject to different and competing interpretations. This becomes even more complicated when the guilt or innocence of a defendant rests not only upon whether there was consent or not but whether the defendant’s belief in consent was reasonably held.
Drawing from a Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA) funded project undertaken by Dr Dowds, which
included semi-structured interviews with individuals working in the sexual violence sector in NI, this paper situates NI’s approach to sexual consent within broader trends towards ‘affirmative models of consent’.
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