Re: Really?
"To be honest, the way this law has been written and implemented it can only ever have had entrapment as a goal exactly because of the glaring nature of the deficiencies."
What was to be the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (England and Wales) was published for public consultation with many clauses that appeared to have extremely low thresholds of evidence. The justification was that the police and single-issue campaigners who had guided those clauses felt that there weren't currently enough successful prosecutions.
Some of the more egregious clauses were eventually improved after informed criticism from various quarters. However - the overall tone still remained draconian. The loose drafting - like so many criminal laws in modern times - left it to the Appeal Courts to refine the awkward details later by establishing (expensive) case law precedents.
It is full of subjective judgements - yet the principle of English Law is that it should be clear what is illegal. This gives the police and CPS plenty of room to push the boundaries of what they purport to be illegal. The public have become understandably paranoid.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
