Latest Research from the Criminal Law Research Group
Research update: Trinity Term 2026
Angelo Ryu, Trenton Sewell, 'The Actus Reus of Attempts' 89(5) The Modern Law Review, 2026
This paper gives an account of the actus reus for a criminal attempt. Conduct that is more than merely preparatory, we argue, intrudes on the same protected domain as the complete offence. This takes a normative approach to actus reus, focusing on the reasons that the defendant acted against. It therefore breaks from the standard approach, which is to descriptively assess the causal proximity between the defendant's conduct and the completed offence.
Andreas Vassiliou, 'Reasons, Mistakes, and Excuses' 89(3) The Modern Law Review, 2026
Drawing on the theory of practical reasons, John Gardner has offered a seminal account of excuses in criminal law. His proposal is that an excuse asserts that the defendant acted for what she justifiably believed to be sufficient reason for her to perform the offending act although she had no such reason. Despite its theoretical insights, I argue that this account leads to untenable results in certain cases which gives us a strong reason to reject it; this is because it is built on the view that what we have reason to do is determined by all facts relevant to the choiceworthiness of our actions regardless of our epistemic perspective about these facts. Interestingly, Gardner had once anticipated this potential response to his proposal but had dismissed it as a ‘nuclear option’. This article triggers it.
Genevieve Couvret, 'The Origin of Everything": Sex against Social Convention in Sally Rooney’s Normal People and Intermezzo', Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 2026
This article explores the representation of sex in Sally Rooney’s Normal People and Intermezzo as an affective, embodied form of intersubjective communication with the power to reshape, rather than be shaped by, social conditions including class, gender, and age. Rooney’s depiction of intimacy thereby destabilizes normative conceptions of relationality and/in heterosexual relationships, both challenging and incorporating the presence of patriarchal structures and contemporary heteropessimism. This article also addresses frequent criticisms of both novels which have long vexed feminist literary theory – in particular, the sexualization of masochism and unrealistic picture of heterosexual relationships.
Genevieve Couvret, 'The algorithm of desire: Why Bonnie Blue doesn’t want you to be satisfied', Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2026
The former OnlyFans star —who has since moved to Fansly after being permanently banned for her “extreme challenge content”— tells young men that they have a right to sex, that she wants them to degrade her and makes specific appeals to the sexually stale or uninitiated (as she put it in an Instagram post following her feat with 1,057 men, “the barely legal, the barely breathing and the husbands”). The criticism is obvious and the outrage is endless, but Bonnie Blue’s antics also conceal the bigger picture. While there’s surely much cause for moral panic when a woman gains notoriety for having sex with over one thousand men in a day, the real cause for concern isn’t misogyny or incel culture — it’s big tech and the attention economy.
Jonathan Herring, Sorcha McCormack, Shifting the Spotlight in the Law of Rape: The Responsibilities of Penetration, Anthem Press, 2025
All is not well with the law on rape. It is rarely reported and even when it is, it is rarely prosecuted. Victims are deterred for a range of reasons, but these include a fear that it will never be possible to prove the rape has occurred and that the trial will be traumatic. Even when the case proceeds to trial, victims perceive that it is they, rather than the perpetrator, who is the one on trial. The past sexual behaviour of the victim,; the clothes she was wearing,; the people she socialised with and the places she visited are all used as tools to claim that in fact the victim consented to the rape. Reforms are needed.
In this book, we explore how changing the definition of rape will help tackle some of these problems. We argue there needs to be a shift in the focus of the rape trial: away from asking whether the victim consented, to focus on whether the defendant. Rather than focusing on the way the victim dresses, behaviour in response to the rape, the focus will be on what the defendant believed justified him engaging in a sexual behaviour.
At the heart of our proposal is the claim that having sex comes with responsibilities. In particular, a responsibility to ensure you have reasonable grounds to believe the other consents. Without that consent, a very serious wrong is being done. The central legal focus should therefore be on whether the defendant had sufficiently good reasons to proceed with having sex.Emmanouela Kritikou, 'Book Review: Andrew Ashworth, Juan Ignacio Piña Rochefort, Altruism and the Criminal Law - Duties of Rescue and Tolerance', The Art of Crime, 2025
Can criminal law require citizens not only to refrain from causing harm, but also, at times, to act for the benefit of others? And if so, what form should such positive obligations take, and where should their limits lie, so as not to undermine the fundamental right to personal autonomy of those subject to criminal norms? These critical questions lie at the heart of the recent monograph by Andrew Ashworth and Juan Ignacio Piña Rochefort, Altruism and the Criminal Law: Duties of Rescue and Tolerance (Hart Publishing, 2025), which offers a systematic contribution to the debate on the criminal treatment of positive obligations.
Megan Smith-Dobric, 'I research the dehumanising treatment of young offenders – Netflix’s Adolescence gets it spot on', The Conversation, 2025
Adolescence, a new Netflix crime drama, is powerful and thought-provoking. It explores a range of issues affecting young people today, including the rise of toxic masculinity, “incel” culture, social media bullying and the struggle for identity in school. But it also raises critical questions about how the UK treats young offenders.
Genevieve Couvret, 'Affirmative Consent is Not Enough: A Feminist Critique of the NSW Reforms and the Limits of Consent under Patriarchy', 50(2) Australian Feminist Law Journal, 2024
On 1 June 2022, long-awaited reforms to the law of sexual consent came into force in NSW. The central feature of the amendments is the introduction of affirmative consent – a ‘yes means yes’ standard which requires positive communication for sex to be lawful. In the context of national conversation around the prevalence of sexual assault, instituting affirmative consent is an important step – but is it enough? This paper considers the NSW model and introduction of affirmative consent in the context of feminist theory, particularly the arguments raised by Catharine MacKinnon in Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Engaging with the limits of the consent framework as a product of a liberal, patriarchal system is critical to improving the legal recognition of the spectrum of sexual assault experienced by women.
Saarrah Ray, 'Sister, Is this Mutilation?', 32 Feminist Legal Studies, 2024
Explanatory Note to ‘Sister, Is this Mutilation?’: Reader, what does ‘mutilation’ mean? You are invited to reflect on this as you read this poem. I have written this poem from an anti-female genital mutilation (FGM) activist perspective. It is inspired by the feminist debate on whether ‘Designer Vagina’ surgery (otherwise known as female genital cosmetic surgery (FGCS)) is the same as or at least similar to FGM. One might argue that these practices are different because FGM is forced upon girls and women against their will while women elect to undergo FGCS. Indeed, FGM is used as a patriarchal weapon against women, to inscribe into women’s bodies what Womanhood means and to control how women exercise their sexuality within the confinement of the male gaze. However, it is worth appreciating that FGCS and FGM seem not so disanalogous if we take seriously the depth and harm of socio-cultural pressures, deriving from a shared system of women’s oppression, that inform women how to feel what their vulvas and vaginas should look like and whom they service.
Saarrah Ray, 'The British Campaign to Ban Virginity Testing and Hymenoplasty', in: Maria Jaschok, U. H. Ruhina Jesmin, Tobe Levin von Gleichen, Comfort Momoh (eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Harmful Cultural Practices, Routledge, 2023
This chapter dismantles and denounces “virginity” myths that legitimize virginity testing and hymenoplasty, carried out by health-care professionals upon girls and women often against their will. The medical legitimacy underpinning both practices is fabricated on prejudice, misogyny, and misconceptions about the value and purpose of female genitalia. Aprecious accessory for men to claim, sell, and purchase as their entitlement in the 21st century, female virginity (also known as sexual ignorance, inexperience, and vulnerability) is promoted by patriarchal communities where violence and oppression enforce compliance. Modern-day virginity – in a male-dominant world – as sexed and sexualized is discriminatory; women only are expected toprove and repairtheir virginity to appease others. When certified clinicians are bound to perform virginity tests and hymenoplasties, they perpetuate the “honor-based” patriarchal prerogative to negate women’s sexual autonomy. Engaging in fraud and arguably sexual assault, they imperil girls and women, subjecting them to unnecessary pain, degrading treatment, and at worst, death. These doctors, nurses, and staff should be held accountable not only for breaching their professional ethics but also for perpetrating violence. Whilst documenting the recent campaign to ban virginity testing and hymenoplasty in the United Kingdom, this chapter justifies why they deserve and need to be banned together.
If you have any publications you would like to share on this site, please contact the editors, Megan Smith-Dobric and Emmanouela Kritikou.