What is the state of our grooming laws?

Time and again since the international explosion of the "Me Too" movement in 2017 against sexual violence against women and girls, politicians have been pushed on whether we in the UK have an adequate list of crimes in place to deal with all manner of incidents.

Those demands for reviews and rethinks have come back again with the conviction of one comedian Russell Brand for rape and sexual assault - and separate accusations of sexual misconduct against another one, David Walliams. He denies being a sexual predator and is not facing a criminal investigation.

The modern landscape of sexual offences in England and Wales is complicated - but it is far more nuanced than it once was because of major changes over the last two decades.

There is some confusion in public debate over what counts as grooming - but in general it's understood in the criminal courts to refer to situations where a predator builds a relationship of trust with a child target in order to prepare the ground for sexual activity. Given the end goal, that relationship will often involve a great deal of manipulation - usually emotional, often subtle and regularly coercive.

Since 2003 it has been an offence for an adult to meet a child "following sexual grooming" and the maximum sentence is 10 years.

The crime is committed when an adult has met or communicated with someone under 16-years-old on at least one occasion and then intentionally meets them, or travels to meet them, with the intention of committing a sexual offence.

'I felt like I was being manipulated': Woman alleges Walliams groomed her as a teenager

There are other offences which generally cover some of the ground of grooming: arranging and facilitating a child sex offence, sexual communications with a child, causing a child to watch a sexual act or inciting an under 13-year-old to take part in one.

The offence gets little media attention, but analysis from the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, an independent body funded by the government to provide insights, shows that grooming offences are regularly turned to by the police and prosecutors.

Its latest report on crime statistics shows that 7,197 sexual grooming offences were recorded by the police across England and Wales in 2024/25.

Nearly a third of those ended up in a charge - and in 2024 just over 2,000 defendants were convicted. The rate of prosecuting suspects for grooming has more than doubled in seven years.

One final offence to highlight is the crime of abusing a position of trust for a sexual purpose with a child. This covers young people up to the age of 18 because the abuse may be taking place in a care environment.

Since June, grooming has been a specific element of sentencing law. Judges who are deciding a sentence for a child sex offender to consider how the contact came about - and if there was evidence of grooming, that becomes a factor to increase the length of the sentence.

Room for improvement?

So does that mean that the law is entirely settled and accepted? Well not quite.

Some campaigners have been calling for the law to clearly define what grooming means.

ThirtyOne:Eight, a charity consultancy that works on improving safeguarding in religious settings, said last year that its work had led it to conclude that the intention to groom - whether or not sexual abuse takes place - should become a self-standing crime.

And Baroness Louise Casey, who carried out a national audit of grooming gang abuse, highlighted another issue.

Sexual offences law includes a subtle exception for teenagers who have not yet reached the legal age of consent at 16 but who are in a relationship with each other. That nuance is designed to avoid needlessly criminalising 13 to 15-year-olds who seemingly know what they are doing.

But, says Casey in her report, there were "examples of perpetrators being charged with the lesser offence of 'sexual activity with a child', rather than rape, because of a belief that the child involved had 'consented' to having sex."

Speaking to the BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, she said that it was "staggering" that adults who have sex children aged 13, 14, and 15 are not automatically charged with rape, as is the case in France.

She has asked for that gap to be closed and told the BBC she had received an assurance from ministers this it would happen.

"The recommendations from the grooming gang audit that I did last year are works in progress," she said. "They're not completed yet, and obviously, I would like the government to press on with those."

The Ministry of Justice has been contacted for comment.

All of that is aimed at dealing with crimes against children and young teenagers. So is there space for changes elsewhere?

Some argue that the UK should have a "staggered" age of consent.

This became a talking point in 2023 after allegations against Russell Brand exploded over the media.

One of his alleged victims told BBC's Woman's Hour at the time that we should consider changing the law so that people over 18 would not be allowed to have sex with 16 and 17-year-olds.

"There's a reasonable argument [that] individuals between the ages of 16 and 18 can have relations with people within that same age bracket," she said. "You're allowed to make mistakes as a teenager, they should be with other people your own age."

The counter-argument to that is once someone is over the age of consent, the law already makes clear that they have the maturity to consent to sex. And if they have not given it, the law is clear: the act is not one of love, but rape.