Introduction: Sex, Sexuality and Sexual Forensics

Abstract

One summer’s evening in 1894, a young girl named Rose Buckland went to St George Park in Bristol for the purposes of listening to a live band and socialising with her friends. This enjoyable day out turned rapidly into a nightmare for the girl when, she claimed, two youths began ‘pulling her about’ and lifting up her clothes.1 Buckland complained to her mother and a case was brought before a magistrate in October of the same year, but was dismissed before trial. The dismissal of this case at first seems surprising. It had a number of direct witnesses, with testimony that supported Buckland’s claims to distress and her efforts to escape from the accused boys. However, witnesses also raised questions about the girl’s status as a victim. The law on sexual consent assumed Buckland — as a girl aged 12 — to be sexually immature, both in behaviour and body, but witness testimony indicated that she had been flirtatious with boys in the park. One friend of the prisoners stated that Buckland was only ‘pretending to cry’ and that she had previously encouraged him ‘to go and lie on her’.2 This testimony destabilised Buckland’s status as an innocent victim at the hands of two older boys.