SECOND SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 47664/99 R. P. against the United Kingdom

The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 4 March 2003 as a Chamber composed of

Mr J.-P. Costa , President , Sir Nicolas Bratza , Mr L. Loucaides , Mr C. Bîrsan , Mr K. Jungwiert , Mr V. Butkevych , Mrs A. Mularoni , judges , and Mrs S. Dollé , Section Registrar ,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 24 February 1999,

Having regard to the correspondence of the parties ,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant is a Zimbabwean national, who was born in 1982 and lives in Margate . He was represented before the Court by Ms Tanya Robinson, a barrister practising in London.

The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.

In early 1998 the applicant, who was then fifteen years of age, had a casual relationship for around a month with a girl, “S”, who was fourteen years old. Their physical relationship never progressed beyond kissing and cuddling. In July 1998, after they had split up, they met by chance in Margate and, after walking, holding hands and kissing for over an hour they moved to a more secluded spot. There, after further kissing and cuddling, the applicant put his hand inside S’s clothing and digitally penetrated her vagina. This continued a short time until S asked the applicant to stop. They walked together back to the main road and then parted. S later became upset and the applicant was arrested and charged with indecent assault.

The criminal proceedings were heard before Margate Magistrates’ Court. On 16 August 1998 the applicant pleaded guilty to indecent assault by reason of S’s age, but maintained that S had consented or at least had given every appearance of doing so. S claimed that the indecent touching had been against her will, and that the defendant had physically forced and verbally threatened her. The magistrates held a hearing on 30 December 1998 to determine the issue of consent for the purpose of reaching a decision on sentence and concluded, after hearing evidence from the applicant and S, that the prosecution had failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the applicant knew or believed at the time of the digital penetration that S was not actually consenting. The magistrates stated that “it was possible that [the applicant] believed S to be consenting”, though they made no separate finding as to whether or not S had in fact consented. The applicant was given a conditional discharge for one year.

As a result of his conviction, the applicant became subject to the notification requirements of the Sex Offenders Act 1997 for a period of two and a half years.

COMPLAINT

The applicant complained that the imposition upon him of the notification requirements of the Act, and the consequent monitoring of his movements by the police, disproportionately interfered with his right to respect for private life under Article 8 of the Convention.

THE LAW

By letter dated 17 January 2003 the applicant’s representative informed the Court that the applicant accepted the Government’s offer of GBP 5,500 in full and final settlement of his claim.

The Court notes that the parties have reached an agreement and that the applicant does not intend to pursue his application further (Article 37 § 1(a) of the Convention). Furthermore, in accordance with Article 37 § 1 in fine , the Court finds no special circumstances regarding respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols which require the continued examination of the case.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases.

S. Dollé J.-P. Costa Registrar President