Britain updated its sex crime laws for the 21st century, toughening measures against child sex abuse and Internet grooming while sweeping away a Victorian-era ban on intercourse between men.

Described by the government as the most radical reform of sex offences in 100 years, the Sexual Offences Act will also simplify prosecution in rape cases to help increase the rape conviction rate, a mere seven per cent.

The legislation, which came into effect on Saturday, is meant to reflect changing attitudes towards sex and to combat new types of crimes made possible by the Internet and Britain?s more open borders.

?Until now our sex offences were based on the Victorian era, their values and the world they lived in,? Home Secretary David Blunkett said in a statement.

?New laws offer increased protection, especially to children and vulnerable people, combat modern crimes such as grooming and, for the first time, do away with discrimination by applying the law equally to men and women,? he said.

To combat the modern sexual predator, a new grooming offence means that anyone convicted of contacting a child ? on the Internet or otherwise ? with the intention of committing a sex crime will face up to 10 years in jail.

The changing structure of the family is recognised with new incest laws that include not only a child?s blood relatives but also foster and adoptive parents and live-in partners.

On the day 10 new countries, mainly from central and Eastern Europe, join the European Union, Britain is introducing a new offence of trafficking people for sexual exploitation, which carries a jail sentence of up to 14 years. Many of Britain?s sex workers arrive from poorer countries in Eastern Europe.

Rapists will have to be ?honest and reasonable? in their belief that they took reasonable steps to ensure their partner consented to sex. Juries can assume there was no consent if the rape victim was asleep, unconscious, disabled or if threats were involved. Men previously convicted of sodomy and indecency with a consensual partner aged over 16 will have their names struck from the sex offenders? register.

Jason Hopps