
Australian judge says incest will soon become an accepted practice just as homosexuality, once a criminal act is now legal and accepted.
By LOUISE HALL AND NICK RALSTON
July 12, 2014, 4 a.m.Fairfax Media revealed comments made by Judge Neilson, who told a court that, just as gay sex was socially unacceptable and criminal in the 1950s and 1960s but is now widely accepted, "a jury might find nothing untoward in the advance of a brother towards his sister once she had sexually matured, had sexual relationships with other men and was now 'available', not having [a] sexual partner".
He also said the "only reason" that incest is still a crime is because of the high risk of genetic abnormalities in children born from consanguineous relationships "but even that falls away to an extent [because] there is such ease of contraception and readily access to abortion".
Judge Neilson made the comments in April in the case of a 58-year-old man, known for legal reasons as MRM, who is charged with repeatedly raping his younger sister in the family's western Sydney home in 1981. MRM has pleaded not guilty to the charge of sexual intercourse without consent, with an alternative charge of incest, and will face a jury trial in September.
On Friday it was revealed Judge Neilson had in November 2011 ruled the sexual assault of a man against his 16-year-old niece was less serious because there was ''no *'' and therefore the victim had not been put ''at risk of pregnancy or disease''.