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Where necessary, the Police will refer the victim of a sexual offence to other government departments or voluntary agencies for assistance.

The Social Welfare Department provides a wide range of counselling, psychiatric assessment and welfare assistance for victims of sex crimes. Social workers in family services centres or medical social service units provide help to both the victims and their families. Social workers also make appropriate referrals to other Government departments or non-governmental organisations to provide other assistance to victims, such as child care services or rehousing.

Where the victim is aged under 18 and the abuser is a guardian or close relative, the Social Welfare Department may apply for a care or protection order under the Protection of Women and Juveniles Ordinance to protect the victim from further abuse. By virtue of this order, the victim can be placed under the regular supervision of a social worker, and may also be placed in the care of an institution.

Legislation and Sentencing

I would now like to turn to the legislation on sexual offences. This is contained primarily in the Crimes Ordinance. These provisions are regularly reviewed by the Administration. In 1991 several amendments were made to the Crimes Ordinance to update the law relating to sexual offences. For example, the maximum penalty for indecent assault was then doubled from five to 10 years of imprisonment.

I accept that some inconsistencies remain between the penalties for some sexual offences and we shall review these, I do not, however, believe it necessary to conduct The offences are a comprehensive review of the legislation relating to sex crimes. clearly and adequately provided for at present, and in general the maximum penalties adequately reflect the seriousness of the offences. A comprehensive review would be a major law reform exercise,' requiring substantial resources and time. It would be better to act more speedily to revise those provisions which are inconsistent and out- of-date; this we propose to do.

As regards sentencing, I understand that the general public and Members of this Council may sometimes feel that the sentences imposed by the courts for sexual offences are too lenient. However, sentencing is a matter for the Judiciary and the Administration cannot, and should not, infringe upon the independence of the Judiciary in this respect. Where the Attorney General considers that the sentence imposed by court in any particular case is wrong in law, wrong in principle or manifestly inadequate to reflect the gravity of the offence, then he can seek a review of the sentence. I believe that the review of sentence has been sought in four cases of conviction for sexual offences in the past two years.