Cross-examinations on sexual history blocked

David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, said he did not expect men to keep a pencil and paper by their bedsides every time they had sex.

But his proposed changes to the law of rape will impose a tough burden on the defendant to show that he had reasonable grounds to believe that the woman had consented to sex of her free will.

In the past men have abused the rules of consent. By saying that they honestly believed that the woman had consented to sex, despite all the evidence to the contrary, they were entitled to drag up the complainant's sexual history to bolster their claim. Lawyers are often accused of using this tactic to get women to drop their complaint.

It was thought by many lawyers that the recent Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act would restrict use of the tactic. But the new legislation was promptly challenged in Regina v Y last year when the Court of Appeal accepted that cross-examination of a woman's sexual history was admissible if an accused maintained not that the woman consented, but that he honestly thought she had consented.

Defence lawyers will argue that the new test for consent switches the burden of proof from the prosecution to the defendant. But it has always been the case that the defendant has to prove that his belief about consent was an honestly held one.