Facts
- The appellant, Tabassum, falsely claimed that he was qualified to conduct a breast-cancer study and represented himself as a medical professional.
- Relying on that representation, three women allowed him to handle and examine their breasts while he purported to take measurements and record data.
- The complainants believed the touching was exclusively for diagnostic or research purposes and therefore submitted willingly.
- Unknown to them, Tabassum’s sole motive was his own sexual gratification; no genuine research was being carried out, and no medical purpose existed.
- Each complainant testified that she would have refused had she known the real aim of the examinations.
Issues
- Whether the complainants’ apparent consent to the physical contact could be considered valid when it was procured by deception about why the touching was taking place.
- Whether a distinction should be drawn, for the purposes of consent in sexual offences, between deception as to the nature of the act (what is done) and deception as to its purpose or quality (why it is done).
- Whether earlier authority suggesting that deception merely as to an actor’s status might not vitiate consent (e.g., R v Richardson) applied where the deception related instead to the fundamental objective of the act itself.
Decision
- The Court of Appeal dismissed Tabassum’s appeal and affirmed the convictions for indecent assault.
- The court accepted that each woman understood the immediate physical nature of the contact—namely, that her breasts were being touched—but ruled that she did not consent to the true activity undertaken, which was sexual.
- The judges held that consent must extend not only to the bodily act viewed in isolation but also to the act’s real purpose. A consent that is based on a false belief about that purpose is no consent at all.
- Unlike the position in R v Richardson, where the patient knew she was receiving dental treatment and was merely mistaken about the dentist’s professional status, the women here were misled as to the essential aim of the contact.
- Accordingly, the deception went to the “quality” or “purpose” of the act, making the apparent consent ineffective in law.
Legal Principles
- For bodily interference to be lawful, the complainant must be informed—truthfully—both of what will be done and of the genuine purpose behind it. Awareness of one element without the other is insufficient.
- Deception that goes to the nature of an act (e.g., misleading someone into sexual intercourse under the guise of medical treatment) unquestionably nullifies consent. Tabassum confirms that deception that goes to purpose can have the same result even where the complainant accurately perceives the physical nature.
- The ruling clarifies the boundary left uncertain after R v Richardson: misrepresentation of professional qualification alone may not vitiate consent, but misrepresentation of why the procedure is carried out does.
- The case therefore sits within broader common-law doctrine recognising that genuine agreement requires an informed choice; information material to that choice includes the actor’s true objective.
- Courts assessing consent must ask whether the complainant, had the truth been known, would still have agreed to the touching. If not, deception is operative and the consent is void.
Conclusion
R v Tabassum re-affirmed that the law protects bodily autonomy by insisting on fully informed agreement. The complainants consented to what they believed were clinical examinations; they did not consent to sexual activity. Because Tabassum’s lies concerned the very purpose of the contact, the consent was legally ineffective, and the convictions for indecent assault properly stood. The decision remains a significant authority on the limits of consent where deception distorts a complainant’s understanding of why an act is performed.
