R v Olugboja [1982] QB 320
The meaning of consent under amended Sexual Offences Act 1956, s 1
Facts
The defendant and the co-accused met the complainant and her friend at a discotheque and offered to take them home. However, the defendant took the complainant to the co-accused’s bungalow. The girls refused to go into the bungalow but, when they walked off, were followed by the co-accused who proceeded to have sexual intercourse with the complainant. Both of the girls were then forced back to the bungalow where the defendant told the complainant that he was going to have sexual intercourse with her. The complainant asked him to leave her alone, but did what he told her.
Issue
The Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1976, s 1 removed the need for sexual intercourse to have taken place as a result of force, fear and fraud from the definition of rape under Sexual Offences Act 1956, s 1. The issue in this judgment was how the new definition of lack of consent on the part of the victim and a lack of reasonable belief in consent contained within the 1976 Act was to be applied.
Decision/Outcome
Although consent is an ordinary, common word, its definition under the 1956 Act should not be entirely left to the jury. This is because consent can range from enthusiastic willingness to reluctant acquiescence. In cases where it is suggested that the sexual intercourse was through force or fear of force, it is unlikely to be necessary to direct the jury beyond explaining the meaning of the word. However, where the issue is less clear the jury should be directed to consider the state of mind of the victim immediately before the act and the events leading up to it.
Updated 20 March 2026
This article discusses R v Olugboja [1982] QB 320 in the context of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 and the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1976. Readers should be aware that both of those statutes have been repealed and replaced. The law of rape and consent in England and Wales is now governed by the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which introduced a statutory definition of consent (s 74), a list of circumstances giving rise to conclusive presumptions about consent (s 76), and a list of circumstances giving rise to evidential presumptions about consent (s 75). The 2003 Act also replaced the ‘reasonable belief’ test with a subjective test of whether the defendant reasonably believed the complainant consented, assessed in light of all the circumstances including any steps taken to ascertain consent (s 1(2)).
Olugboja retains historical and academic significance as a leading case on the pre-2003 approach to consent, and its broad conception of consent — encompassing the spectrum from genuine agreement to mere submission — influenced the drafting of s 74 of the 2003 Act. However, it is no longer a directly applicable authority for the current law. Students should ensure their analysis is primarily based on the 2003 Act and subsequent case law interpreting it, such as R v Bree [2007] EWCA Crim 256 (capacity and consent) and R v McNally [2013] EWCA Crim 1051 (deception and consent).
