The Government is considering calls to change the age of consent and make it illegal for adults to have relationships with 16 and 17 year olds. The move follows an allegation by Mia Latter, now 37, that she was raped by Russell Brand when she was a teenager and he was aged 30.
Latter called for the introduction of a staggered age of consent. Louise Haigh, the de facto deputy prime minister, told the newspaper that "Mia's heart-breaking story" meant a law change deserved consideration.
Deputy PM backs consideration of law change
Haigh said: "We need to listen to Mia and other victims like her who have been through these experiences, because it's really important that as lawmakers their experience is at the heart of what we consider.
"It clearly would be a massive step to change the age of consent, but it deserves proper consideration and scrutiny. I can absolutely understand why she is calling for it."
Under UK law, adults of any age are legally able to have sex with 16 and 17-year-olds. Brand was jailed last week and sentenced to over ten years in prison.
Victim speaks out on age gap
Ms Latter told the Sunday Times: "It's shocking to me time and time again that whenever the news comes up again about him, it's always in the comments about the relationship with a 16-year-old.
"That's not the most heinous bit. But why is that the thing that everybody collectively gets stuck on? I think we all sort of agree that ... adults shouldn't be allowed to have sexual relationships with children, with somebody under the age of 18. That really doesn't seem like a gigantic leap to take."
Ms Latter was referred to under the pseudonym of Alice in previous reporting by the Sunday Times, The Times, and Channel 4 Dispatches documentary.
Details of the alleged assault
She was 16 when she first met Brand in Leicester Square, central London, while she was on her way home from a shopping trip. He took her number, later messaged her, and asked if she wanted to go for dinner.
She told the newspaper that Brand, who worked at MTV at the time, still asked her to meet after she had confessed her age to him. Ms Latter alleges Brand orally raped her towards the end of their three-month relationship.
Ms Latter spoke to the police after the documentary, but the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided not to include her case in Brand's trial at Southwark Crown Court.
She said: "They [the police] wanted me to be part of a subsequent trial, but they said that the decision was made [not to include her in the first trial] after he had done the Megyn Kelly and the Piers Morgan interviews…
"I was told that I wasn't actually going to make it to the October trial because... they didn't want it to become 'the Alice show', which was my pseudonym in the article. I was devastated by it."
In an interview with conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly earlier this year, Brand had said that the age of consent in the UK is 16, and he did sleep with a 16-year-old when he was 30.
