R v Tabassum [2000] 2 Cr App R 328
INDECENT ASSAULT – CONSENT – DECEPTION
Facts
The appellant had deceived a number of women into participating in what was claimed to be a breast cancer survey, for the purposes of helping the appellant to prepare a software package for sale to doctors. On this basis, the appellant induced the women to allow him to demonstrate how to carry out a self-examination, which required that the victims remove their clothes and allow the appellant to feel their breasts. Each victim was adamant that their consent was predicated on the belief that the appellant possessed the qualifications he claimed to hold, and that the procedure was medical in nature.
Issues
Consent will be negatived if a person is deceived as to the nature or quality of the act performed. The appellant claimed that, as he had done no more than was ostensibly consented to by the victims, their consent remained operative, and therefore that his conviction for indecent assault should be quashed as a consequence.
Decision/Outcome
The acts of the appellant were indecent if they were performed without the consent of the victims. On the facts, there could be no true consent as the women had consented only to acts of a medical nature, when in fact the actions of the appellant were without any medical significance. The nature of the act consented to, a breast examination, was so fundamentally different that it rendered any apparent consent entirely inoperative. On this basis, the appeal was dismissed and the conviction of the appellant upheld.
Updated 20 March 2026
This case summary accurately reflects the decision in R v Tabassum [2000] 2 Cr App R 328. The principle that consent is vitiated where a victim is deceived as to the nature or quality of an act remains good law.
Readers should be aware of two important developments. First, the offence of indecent assault (under the Sexual Offences Act 1956) was abolished by the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which introduced a new framework of sexual offences including sexual assault (s.3) and assault by penetration (s.2). Cases arising today on similar facts would be charged under the 2003 Act rather than as indecent assault. Second, the 2003 Act addresses consent and deception directly: s.74 defines consent, and ss.75–76 set out evidential and conclusive presumptions about consent, including a conclusive presumption where the defendant intentionally deceives the complainant as to the nature or purpose of the act (s.76(2)(a)). The reasoning in Tabassum is therefore of continuing doctrinal relevance but must now be read alongside the statutory consent framework in the 2003 Act. The case retains value as an illustration of the underlying principle and is still regularly cited in academic and legal discussions of consent and deception.
