The Sexual Assault: A Study of the Element of Crime and the Extension of the Sexual Assault

Abstract

This research paper aims to (1) study legal element(s) of Sexual Assault offences in Thailand (2) to study English’s criminal elements of Sexual Assault offence (3) to compare elements of Sexual offence between Thai and English laws (4) to integrate the research results into a teaching material for the class of the Criminal law of Thailand associated with criminal offenses. The research finds that; (1) The definition of the Sexual Assault in Thai law has been given ambiguity, it leads to two line of judment delivered by the Thai supreme court. The first line of judment pays its legal attention and underscores such Sexual Assult requires to take part in physical contact; while the second line of judment does not require so. Accordingly, this reserch is of the opinion that more-precise definition thereof is highly recommended. (2) Should the said recommendation will unlikely take place, both the Section 278 and Section 279 of the Penal Code of Thailand should be revised that criminal elements of such crime would be more precise and certain in order that a criminal may realize that each misconduction is being satisfied all required those elements. (3) Additionally, a part of the criminal offenses pursuant to the Thai Penal Code needs to append the concerned Sexual Assault for the purpose of criminalizing alike transgression(s) where the physical contact connection is not required in case of a victimized youth whose age is not more than 15 years old; such youth is a subject matter of sexual purity. (4) If there have no amend whether (1) or (2), the existing the provision of Thai Penal Code Section 388, 397 paragraph 2 and/or Section 280/1 should be applied according to the facts of the particular situation, as these provisions do not require the non-physical contact with a victim in the sense of Intimate violence and sexual offence.