My view is, not in the way that we typically look at sexual offending. It's true that right now it's placed in the sexual offences sort of grab bag category of the code. It's in that little section there; it comes after children, but it doesn't exclusively deal with children. It's in what used to be the morals offences, the part of the code that has been the morals offences. They've been stripped down year after year as Parliament continues to remove them.
It's in the same place as buggery used to be, and that's now gone. It's in the same place as other acts prohibiting abortion, etc. All those things have just been removed one after the other to the point where bestiality is sort of standing there alone in its own category. I can't sit here and say before this committee that it's not a sexual offence. It involves sexual conduct, but it's a sexual offence with a non-human being. As a result, it seems to have more in accord in its modern conception with animal protection than it does purely with sexual offending.
That's why I have to say it covers a little bit of both of those things.