Leisure centre call police on one woman with a hand sewn #redflag banner

I swim at a pool with a changing village that feels safe. It has a low wall separating it from the pool, the lifeguards are seated next to the wall so you always have staff who can hear what is going on in the changing area, nothing other than people getting changed. It always seems to work well.

Should have given a description and not just the URL. This is the Women's Rights Network's short video cataloguing some of the sexual offending in mixed sex changing villages

‘He was also made subject to a Sexual Offences Prevention Order for five years, banning him from owning recording devices or being in a public place unsupervised where females are undressing.…’

this was the Hexham offender’s PUNISHMENT?! All men, with the exception of little boys with their mums, should be banned from public places where females are undressing. Just what exactly is so difficult about this?!

thank you OP for your stance - my little nieces live in gosforth and i dread to think.

Crikey, all those individual crimes and none of the bastards got jail. It's very worrying, it's absolutely no deterrent at all. My 12 year old uses Hadrian Road, Waves and Tynemouth pool.

and that's just the tip of the iceberg

In just one small part of the UK!

So many incidents - and that's just the tip of the iceberg - and still nothing is done. Truly disgusting how unimportant the privacy and dignity of women and girls is.

@MrsM1ggins
Thank you for doing this.
I hate those changing villages. There was one at a pool near me when I was a teenager. There used to be holes in the partitions where men had drilled in with keys (it was this crappy fake metal material). The holes were stuffed with gum or toilet paper, but as you changed the toilet paper would fall on to the benches and floor as the men on the other side pushed it through to enable them to watch you change.
When my friend and I wised up to this we would change together - one getting changed under then towel, the other keeping watch for the perverts. You would see their eyes, and when they got really desperate they just stuck their heads under the partition. This was a regular occurrence. When we mentioned it to pool staff they half heartedly looked for the men (who of course had gone) and shrugged it off.

This was decades ago, so when it was over it was over. Now those men would have cameras, can re watch the girls getting changed, and distribute the images and film to thousands on the internet. If a girl now suspects that someone has watched her, she knows that video could have been seen online by any man she deals with - at work, at the pub. It needs to be taken seriously.

The pool closed shortly after this and had a complete refit. Still has changing villages (mixed), you can't make holes in the partitions, but you can stick a camera underneath.

What a woman MrsM1ggins is!
Thank you so much xx💖

Told him about this thread and the one on X.

We've agreed that he will run our conversation and our objections up the chain and we will have a follow up meeting.

Just had a sit down with the leisure centre manager. Was good of him to make the time. 🙂

I talked him through the objections, told him about Morgan/Dennis and also pointed out that the toilets are shocking. He now knows whst a menstrual cup is because I explained to him how a woman using the toilet would need to leave the cubicle and wash the bloody cup in the sink in front of the other patrons before returning to the cubicle to reinsert it.

That's the way they're all going thanks to Swim England and Sport England who suggest it in their design guidance. I FOId Sport England and they confirmed that they haven't risk assessed this guidance, but in their view it's not 'best practice' it's just a suggestion and nothing to do with them if it results in voyeurism, sexual assault etc.

Most that are more recently built are planned as mixed, so they have cubicles that offer greater privacy then what you would find in a changing room that was designed and built to be single sex. Mix sex 'changing villages' also have separate toilet areas for each sex attached, whereas it sounds like this one just has one set of toilets, because it was only designed to be used by one sex.

Are all changing rooms for swimming not mixed sex? I think every leisure centre or gym with a pool I've been to around here has just one big changing area with cubicles, I never really thought about it. Same location too. Haven point, all the everyone active leisure centres, the aquatic, waves x

@MrsM1ggins thank you for doing this!