256.—(1) Where in a charge or indictment for an offence under this Part or any offence mentioned in Schedule 1, except an offence under the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885, or the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1935—

(a) it is alleged that the person by or in respect of whom the offence was committed was a child or was under or had attained any specified age, and

(b) the person appears to the court to have been at the date of the commission of the alleged offence a child or to have been under or to have attained the specified age, as the case may be,

the person shall for the purposes of this Part be presumed, unless the contrary is proved, at that date to have been a child or to have been under or to have attained that age, as the case may be.

(2) Where a person is charged with an offence to which subsection (1) applies in respect of a person apparently under a specified age, it shall be a defence to prove that the person was of or over that age.