“A pervert who raped a pensioner was yesterday banned from having sex with any woman over 65 for the next 21 years. Paul Bailey, 39, was told by a judge that he presented a serious and on-going threat to vulnerable, elderly women. Bailey was jailed for 10 years for tying up, gagging and raping a victim of 63… A psychiatrist told Bournemouth crown court it was ‘inevitable’ that Bailey would attack again.” — Daily Mirror (UK)

Obviously this judgement mirrors the one often inflicted upon child molesters. Pedophiles should keep away from children, so why shouldn’t gerontophiles keep away from old people?

Probably this is the right judgement, from a practical point of view, but the bizarre thing is that it is not intrinsically illegal to have sex with someone over the age of sixty-five. It is quite conceivable that a thirty-nine-year-old man could have consensual relations with a septuagenarian — which is not the case in pedophilia, since even if a minor agrees to sexual relations the act is still illegal. The sentence therefore attempts to prevent a crime (rape) by suppressing an otherwise perfectly legal relation (contact — not just sexual contact but any contact — between a middle-aged man and an older woman).

Even if this might be the right thing to do from a practical viewpoint, it forms a bizarre legal principle. Imagine its extension to other crimes. If you were convicted of running a stop sign, you would henceforth be forbidden from approaching intersections — because every intersection would be an enticement to blow the sign. Or if you were a bank robber, you would not be able to have a bank account after serving your sentence — because every bank would present a temptation to steal.

In other words, although the sentence has a certain obvious efficacy, its principle is absurd. It assumes you can legislate not just actions but temptations and therefore intentions. It assumes that the accused is beyond rehabilitation and will automatically respond in a criminal fashion to any opportunity — which is tantamount to assuming that he is guilty, rather than that he is innocent until being proven so.

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