English Law Commission Report on Kidnapping and Child Abduction

The Law Commission of England has released a report on the Simplification of Criminal Law: Kidnapping and Related Offences:

"In line with the model favoured by consultees, we recommend the creation of two distinct statutory offences to replace the existing common law."

"We recommend that false imprisonment be replaced with a new statutory offence of unlawful detention (a label which we believe better captures the nature of the offence). The elements of the new offence would closely follow the existing common law."

"The new statutory kidnapping offence would be somewhat narrower and more focussed that the existing common law offence. Kidnapping would have fewer, more closely defined, elements and a clearer relationship with the offence of unlawful detention. The new kidnapping offence would be committed where a person, D:

• without lawful authority or reasonable excuse;
• intentionally uses force or the threat of force;
• in order to take another person V, or otherwise cause them to move in his company."

The report also recommends reforms in relation to child abduction:

• The seven-year maximum sentence for child abduction  should be increased to 14 years. 
• The child abduction offence be extended to those cases where a child is lawfully removed from the UK, but then unlawfully retained abroad.