Lucy Beaumont has used her Instagram platform to demand an overhaul of UK consent laws after backing a campaign to criminalise sexual relationships between adults and 16- and 17-year-olds.
The comedian, 40, shared a post on the platform last week that painted a stark picture of what she called the “insanity” of current legislation. She wrote: “If you have a 12-year-old daughter, in four years time a man in his 60s can legally have sex with her. It’s hard for me to write this and I’m sure for the majority of us it’s hard for us to read it.”
“But we have to. He is not a criminal. We can’t prosecute him,” she continued in the same post.
Beaumont, who earlier this week identified herself as a whistleblower in the David Walliams misconduct investigation, added: “BUT the insanity of it.. The law agrees with us; she’s still thought of as a child.”
“He can’t legally buy her a drink and he can’t have a nude image of her. But he can sleep with her,” she wrote. “Who is the law protecting? #closetheagegap.”
The post threw its support behind the Close the Consent Age Gap Campaign, which Beaumont also promoted in a second Instagram share. That group is pushing to make it a criminal offence for anyone aged 20 or over to have sex with a 16- or 17-year-old, unless the age gap is no more than three years.
On its website, the campaign states: “We are not trying to criminalise teenage relationships. We are trying to stop grown adults having legal sexual access to children.”
Beaumont’s intervention on consent law comes as she has emerged as an outspoken figure on safeguarding in British television. She revealed herself this week as one of the whistleblowers who raised concerns about David Walliams, 53, following a three-year investigation by The Guardian and ITV News that accused him of sexual misconduct involving young women.
Walliams has denied the allegations and any suggestion of criminality, releasing a statement in which he said: “I am not a sexual predator.”
Appearing on Sky News, Beaumont described how a young staff member on a TV show she was working on had approached her to say Walliams was allegedly bringing young women into his dressing room. She said the women were “definitely” over 16, but she believed they were “vulnerable.”
She added that she had never witnessed any poor behaviour from Walliams directly, but believed major changes to TV safeguarding were needed.
“I did as much as I could do privately,” she told the broadcaster. “Whenever I’ve heard a rumour about anyone, I’ve done everything I can.”
Beaumont continued: “There’s only so much you can do. I’m not the police. Nothing seems to be illegal.”
She also addressed criticism about why whistleblowers speak to journalists rather than official channels. “People are saying, ‘why tell journalists?’ There’s no HR department in TV. There’s no proper duty of care,” she said. “There’s no social services that you deal with and it’s partly because the industry is very well-managed.”
“These things slip through the net because, I think there will be now, but there hasn’t been a process that you can deal with,” she added.
The current UK age of consent stands at 16, meaning sexual activity with anyone that age or above is legal regardless of the other partner’s age, provided no position of trust exists. Beaumont’s campaign call joins a growing debate about whether that threshold offers adequate protection from exploitative relationships involving significantly older adults.