This Appeal Court judgment concerned the meaning of 'for the purposes of sexual gratification' in section 12(1) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. There was no requirement on a charge of causing a child to watch a sexual act for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification, that such gratification had to be taken immediately and could not be part of a longer term plan.

The defendant had shown the 13-year-old complainant a pornographic video (the offence alleged in count 3) and later the same day the defendant had pulled down the complainant’s trousers and touched his penis (the offence alleged in count 4). At trial the judge directed the jury that they had to be satisfied that the defendant showed the complainant pornographic images either because he derived enjoyment from seeing him watch the images or to put the complainant “in the mood” for future sexual abuse.

On the appeal it was argued on behalf of the defendant that that direction went beyond a reference to immediate gratification and incorporated an element of future gratification and was therefore too wide, in particular in the context of s 14 of the 2003 Act, which dealt with arranging or facilitating a sexual encounter and which was the appropriate offence to charge where a defendant was alleged to be “putting a child in the mood” for a sexual encounter.

Their Lordships did not agree. Provided the purpose was sexual gratification it might comprise any of the myriad ways in which sexual thrills might be achieved. Whatever form it might take there was nothing in the section which suggested that sexual gratification had to be taken immediately and that it could not be part of a longer term plan. The purpose might involve short and longer term, immediate or deferred, or immediate and deferred gratification. That was a question for the jury. Whether the showing of pornographic matters was a precursor to sexual activity with the complainant the conclusion that it was to the defendant’s purpose obtain sexual gratification was inevitable.