An Act to consolidate (with corrections and improvements made under the Consolidation of Enactments (Procedure) Act 1949) the statute law of England and Wales relating to sexual crimes, to the abduction, procuration and prostitution of women and to kindred offences, and to make such adaptations of statutes extending beyond England and Wales as are needed in consequence of that consolidation.
The Sexual Offences Act 1956 (4 & 5 Eliz. 2. c. 69) 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 It was mostly repealed (from 1 May 2004) by the Sexual Offences Act 2003 which replaced it, but sections 33 to 37 still survive.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Although the rest of the Act has been repealed, the repealed sections still apply to sex crimes committed before the repeal, such as in the Pitcairn sexual assault trial of 2004.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:
It is an offence for a person to keep a brothel, or to manage, or act or assist in the management of, a brothel.
Section 33A reads:
(1) It is an offence for a person to keep, or to manage, or act or assist in the management of, a brothel to which people resort for practices involving prostitution (whether or not also for other practices). (2) In this section “prostitution” has the meaning given by section 51(2) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
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.[1]
"Prostitution" is defined by section 51(2) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 as follows:
In those sections “prostitute” means a person (A) who, on at least one occasion and whether or not compelled to do so, offers or provides sexual services to another person in return for payment or a promise of payment to A or a third person; and “prostitution” is to be interpreted accordingly.
"Payment" is defined by section 51(3):
In subsection (2), “payment” means any financial advantage, including the discharge of an obligation to pay or the provision of goods or services (including sexual services) gratuitously or at a discount.
Section 34
It is an offence for the lessor or landlord of any premises or his agent to let the whole or part of the premises with the knowledge that it is to be used, in whole or in part, as a brothel, or, where the whole or part of the premises is used as a brothel, to be wilfully a party to that use continuing.
Section 35(1)
It is an offence for the tenant or occupier, or person in charge, of any premises knowingly to permit the whole or part of the premises to be used as a brothel.
Section 36
It is an offence for the tenant or occupier of any premises knowingly to permit the whole or part of the premises to be used for the purposes of habitual prostitution.
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.
