The Law Commission’s “Structured Discretion” Rape Shield: A Second Critique

Two years ago, I published here a critical appraisal of the Law Commission’s Evidence in Sexual Offences Prosecutions Consultation Paper (CP) proposals to reform the admissibility rules for sexual behaviour evidence (SBE). On 22 July 2025 the Law Commission published its Final Report (FR) on this project containing its ultimate proposals for SBE. This article will follow the structure of the first in providing an in-depth evaluation of the Law Commission’s final proposals for SBE, where relevant pointing out changes in approach since the Consultation Paper. Although there are certain areas of improvement, given that the proposed rule is largely identical to that originally proposed it will be argued here that the proposal remains fundamentally flawed.