Queensland Consolidated Acts

CRIMINAL CODE 1899 - SECT 216

216 Abuse of persons with an impairment of the mind

(1) Any person who engages or attempts to engage in unlawful penile intercourse with a person with an impairment of the mind is, subject to subsection (3) (a) and (b) , guilty of a crime, and is liable to imprisonment for 14 years.

(2) Any person who—

(a) unlawfully and indecently deals with a person with an impairment of the mind; or

(b) unlawfully procures a person with an impairment of the mind to commit an indecent act; or

(c) unlawfully permits himself or herself to be indecently dealt with by a person with an impairment of the mind; or

(d) wilfully and unlawfully exposes a person with an impairment of the mind to an indecent act by the offender or any other person; or

(e) without legitimate reason, wilfully exposes a person with an impairment of the mind to any indecent object or any indecent film, videotape, audiotape, picture, photograph or printed or written matter; or

(f) without legitimate reason, takes any indecent photograph or records, by means of any device, any indecent visual image of a person with an impairment of the mind;

is, subject to subsections (3) (c) and (3A) , guilty of a crime, and is liable to imprisonment for 10 years.

(3) If the person with an impairment of the mind is not the lineal descendant of the offender but the offender is the guardian of that person or, for the time being, has that person under the offender’s care, the offender is guilty of a crime, and is liable—

(a) in the case of the offence of engaging in unlawful penile intercourse—to imprisonment for life; or

(b) in the case of an attempt to engage in unlawful penile intercourse—to imprisonment for life; or

(c) in the case of an offence defined in subsection (2) —to imprisonment for 14 years.

(3A) In the case of an offence defined in subsection (2) , if the person with an impairment of the mind is, to the knowledge of the offender, the offender’s lineal descendant, the offender is guilty of a crime, and is liable to imprisonment for 14 years.

(4) It is a defence to a charge of an offence defined in this section to prove—

(a) that the accused person believed on reasonable grounds that the person was not a person with an impairment of the mind; or

(b) that the doing of the act or the making of the omission which, in either case, constitutes the offence did not in the circumstances constitute sexual exploitation of the person with an impairment of the mind.

(5) In this section—

"deals with" includes doing any act that, if done without consent, would constitute an assault.