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Original poster

Why ignoring indecent exposure is deadly

33 replies

IwantToRetire · 03/03/2024 22:30

I haven't see a thread about this, but am really posting as I heard Lady Angiolini being interviewed after her report came out about Wayne Couzens. The interviewer, perhaps obviously asked why the police had let someone known as the rapist to continue to be in the police.

She said they had not found anyone who had said or had every heard him called that, but that everyone knew about his consistent indecent exposure. Which she felt, as others have also said, is a common indicator of a man who is likely to commit an act of sexual violence against a woman.

Lady Angiolini makes many important recommendations about police vetting, but about two thirds of her report focuses on a long-ignored issue: that masturbatory indecent exposure is both a serious offence in itself and often a gateway to even graver crimes. Four months after scaring that cyclist, Wayne Couzens abducted and murdered Sarah Everard.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-ignoring-indecent-exposure-is-deadly-mgl098582

Do the police / CPS even bother to pursue men who expose themselves or is just seen as a minor crime.

I thought it had now become well known that is was a sign of a potentially dangerous man.

Or is it just another of those issues that are ignored because only women are impacted by it? Or one of those boys will be boys responses? Angry

Article can be read here https://archive.ph/Z6sVv

Why ignoring indecent exposure is deadly

Women who reported Wayne Couzens for sexual offences weren’t taken seriously — he went on to murder Sarah Everard

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-ignoring-indecent-exposure-is-deadly-mgl098582

OP posts:
WellThatEsculatedQuickly · 04/03/2024 02:31

I am glad this is being talked about and I'm glad to share my experience....but I'm gonna hide this thread now, because it's still upsetting to think about over two decades later.

WellThatEsculatedQuickly · 04/03/2024 02:28

This happened to me.

As a school girl I was regularly exposed to by a stranger. I brushed it off as something that happens when you grow older and become a woman. I didn't tell anyone or report it to anyone, because I believed it was just part of life. It ended up with him seriously sexually assaulting me. That had a devastating impact on my life. Indecent exposure needs to be taken very seriously.

bombastix · 04/03/2024 00:11

I agree. This is sex offending in many cases and is being downgraded.

Actually, it could easily be given a minimum sentence like other sex offences could. The government never seems too keen on that. Wonder why...

Rainallnight · 04/03/2024 00:11

A man exposed himself to me one night near my home a few years ago. I reported it to the police and they took it very seriously, sent an officer to the house, followed up to ask if I’d seen him again (they didn’t find him though)

OP posts:
Original poster
IwantToRetire · 04/03/2024 00:04

I appreciate that there are of course the issues of men identifying as women to get into women's spaces, but the vast majority of women are being harrassed and worse by men who are only too condifent that as men they can intimidate and scare women.

Are they any statistics on how many men expose themselves in public? Do women report to the police, or have they been so conditioned that they too think boys will be boys and just brush it off?

How many schoolgirls have been made to feel unsafe walking home because a man follows her and then exposes himself.

Obviously this being known about a man in the police by other police is deeply troubling, but there are men every where doing this.

Experience of sexual harassment

Overall, 5% of people aged 16 and over reported experiencing at least one of the forms of sexual harassment we asked about within the last 12 months. Prevalence was approximately three times higher among women (8%) compared with men (3%).

The likelihood of experiencing sexual harassment was highest among younger age groups. This was particularly the case for women, with 23% of those aged 16 to 24 and 16% of those aged 25 to 34 experiencing some form of sexual harassment in the previous year compared with 5% of those aged 35 and over.

There was a similar pattern among men with 8% of the youngest 16-to-24 age group experiencing sexual harassment in the last 12 months, compared with 2% of men aged 25 years and over.

Figure 4: A quarter of women aged 16 to 24 experienced sexual harassment in the last 12 months

Prevalence of sexual harassment in the last year for adults aged 16 years and over, by age and sex, England and Wales, year ending March 2023
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/experiencesofharassmentinenglandandwales/december2023

There's chart further down the article that imples men exposing themselves is a tiny %

Even if it is a small number it would be good to know if they ever actively pursue this as a crime and take it to court.

Experiences of harassment in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics

Estimates on the experiences and nature of harassment from the Crime Survey for England and Wales.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/experiencesofharassmentinenglandandwales/december2023

OP posts:
Karensalright · 03/03/2024 22:59

A a long term participant in them “harm reduction partnerships” it was a given that flashing was a starting point for sexual predators.

I do wonder if., that now men can parade naked in women’s spaces, the police have back pedalled from that to accommodate them funny looking women. As obviously the two are incompatible.

pronounsbundlebundle · 03/03/2024 22:54

Well women know it's a gateway crime and will often lead to worse things - ESPECIALLY when they get away with it the first time. Couzens is a classic example of this.

But others too - e.g. Katie Dolatowski first committed voyeurism, wasn't really punished for that so then escalated to attacking little girls.

If the police really wanted to reduce violence against women, the most obvious and easy thing to do - alongside preventative risk-based safeguarding like single sex spaces, obviously - would be to crack down hard on indecent exposure.

Of course your common or garden flasher now only has to say he feels like a woman and can follow any teenage girls into any lav or changing room up and down the country now, without challenge. What progress!

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