The Director of Public Prosecutions is facing a High Court challenge from campaign group Sex Matters over Crown Prosecution Service guidance addressing what prosecutors term “Deception as to Sex” in sexual offence cases, with a two-day hearing listed for 8 and 9 July 2026.
The case was filed in the King’s Bench Division of the Administrative Court under case number AC-2026-LON-000781. It centres on whether CPS guidance is lawful in directing prosecutors that a person’s gender identity may be relevant to the legal concept of intentional deceit capable of vitiating ostensible consent. Sex Matters contends that only biological sex can be legally relevant to that question.
Mrs Justice Heather Williams DBE has already made one order in the matter, issued on 1 July 2026, dealing with media and public access to the hearing.
That order sets a deadline of 10am on Monday 6 July 2026 for any non-party wishing to watch or listen to the proceedings remotely to submit a transmission direction request to the Administrative Court List Office, with specific procedural requirements attached to each application.
The court’s accompanying reasons note explicitly that the case “may attract media attention,” a signal that the Administrative Court anticipates significant public and press interest ahead of next week’s hearing.
For criminal law practitioners, the case sits at the intersection of two areas that rarely collide so directly: the law of consent in sexual offences and the ongoing legal debate over the treatment of gender identity in statutory and common law contexts.
A ruling either way will bear directly on CPS charging guidance used daily by prosecutors handling deception-based consent cases, and by extension on the advice defence solicitors and barristers give clients facing such charges.
In-house counsel at organisations with safeguarding or HR policies referencing CPS guidance in this area should also treat the outcome as one to monitor, given the potential for downstream policy implications.
The listing of a full two-day hearing, rather than a rolled-up permission hearing, suggests the Administrative Court has already concluded the claim is arguable and substantial enough to warrant detailed argument on both sides.
Judicial review claims against the DPP are relatively uncommon and rarer still when they target internal prosecutorial guidance documents rather than a specific charging decision, which raises the stakes for how CPS policy is drafted and reviewed in future.
A ruling is unlikely before the hearing concludes, but the outcome will determine whether CPS is required to amend its “Deception as to Sex” guidance or defend it as currently drafted. Criminal and public law practices advising on charging decisions in this area should factor the pending judgment into guidance until it lands.
Read the full order: Sex Matters -v- The Director of Public Prosecutions, judiciary.uk, 1 July 2026