15 case is the effect of the absence of a penalty provision on the offences created by the Act. Before turning to address that issue I will briefly indicate why it is clear that the Act creates criminal offences in chapters 2, 3 and 4 thereof. The Act creates criminal offences and contemplates offenders being sentenced [18] There can be no doubt that the Act in express terms created criminal offences in ss 2 to 26 thereof, all of which are couched in similar terms. My starting point is the statement of the objects of the Act in s 2 thereof, which reads: ‘Objects The objects of this Act are to afford complainants of sexual offences the maximum and least traumatising protection that the law can provide, to introduce measures which seek to enable the relevant organs of state to give full effect to the provisions of this Act and to combat and, ultimately, eradicate the relatively high incidence of sexual offences committed in the Republic by: (a) Enacting all matters relating to sexual offences in a single statute; (b) criminalising all forms of sexual abuse or exploitation; (c) repealing certain common law sexual offences and replacing them with new and, in some instances, expanded or extended statutory sexual offences, irrespective of gender …’ Each of these objects refers expressly to the creation of criminal offences. [19] The long title to the Act also makes its purpose clear. It is first a consolidating measure directed at bringing together in one piece of legislation all criminal offences of a sexual nature. Second, it replaces and in some respects broadens the scope of existing common law crimes of a sexual nature. Third, it creates a number of new offences. This emerges clearly and without any need for explanation or clarification