MNHQ here - should we support the campaign to end ‘rough sex’ defences?

[JustineMumsnet]

Hello

As lots of you will already know because their campaign originated on Mumsnet, the group We Can’t Consent To This has been running a campaign to end ‘rough sex’ defences - and we’d like to know what you think about MNHQ signing up as a supporter of their
campaign.

Their aim is to end a situation in which defendants can claim that the death of or injury to a woman was caused by ‘consensual sex games gone wrong’.

They say:

‘We’ve now found 60 UK women who’ve been killed by men who claim a sex game gone wrong - and in the last 5 years the defence was successful in 7 of the 17 killings of a woman which reached trial, with the man being found not guilty or receiving a manslaughter conviction. We've found many more women injured in what the accused men claim was consensual sexual violence.
Yet more women tell us it’s now commonplace to be assaulted and abused by men they’re dating, with 38% of UK women under 40 reporting being assaulted - choked, slapped, gagged or spat on - in otherwise consensual sex. That equates to 3.6 million women under 40 in the UK who have experienced unbidden violence in sex - and we know that women over 40 experience this too.
We do not believe that women can consent to their grievous injury or death, and will campaign until claiming this is no longer a useful defence.’
We Can’t Consent To This is currently lobbying to tackle these ‘rough sex defences’ by adding amendements to the Domestic Abuse Bill that is going through Parliament, meaning that now is the time to get writing to MPs to encourage them to support the changes.

We'd love to get behind this campaign but as ever we said we’d ask you what you thought - so please let us know by adding your thoughts here or voting YANBU for ‘Yes please I’d like Mumsnet to support this campaign’ and YABU for ‘No, I don’t think Mumsnet should support this campaign’. (Apologies for using the AIBU metric for this but it’s the best way we have at the moment to get a snapshot survey of people who’ve read the OP.)

Big thanks

[PumpkinP]

Funny how its never the men who enjoy being strangled is it?

Tbf my ex said he liked this being done to him. I couldn’t participate in anything like that! Not my thing at all.

[HuckfromScandal]

Absofuckinglutely!

[anniegun]

Possibly . However Newbury MP Laura Farris seems to have this in hand and I don't think she will face any opposition (even the PM agreed with her). So if she can push it through it might not need a campaign

[Citybear]

Please do

[Typohere]

Totally behind this.

[SlantyBaws]

Yes yes, thrice yes

[0blio]

100% Yes

[JoeExoticsEyebrowRing]

Tbf my ex said he liked this being done to him. I couldn’t participate in anything like that! Not my thing at all.

Well yeah that's kind of my point. Men are never the ones who seem to get murdered from choking, despite there not being any reason why they wouldn't like choking just as much as a woman.

Also these men are apparently falling over themselves to give their partner exactly what they want sexually, when we know that women's sexual pleasure is normally pretty low down on the list of priorities. It's bullshit.

[Claliscool]

100 per cent yes

[JamieLeeCurtains]

Yes, most definitely. Thank you.

[mbosnz]

Absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

[SpringSpringTime]

yes please do

[PaulineScrambledPhones]

Yes. I’d be pleased to see MN supporting this.

[Tappering]

Yes you should.

And just to emphasise why, I am going to post a copy of an open letter written by 'That Midwife' (on twitter @ThatMidwife) wrote to the Attorney General about Natalie Connelly's case.

Dear Geoffrey,

Regina V John Broadhurst

I am a research midwife in Norfolk and I am married with a 6 year old daughter. This is important because I am a very ordinary person who has never written to the Attorney General before.

I am writing to you today because Natalie Connolly is dead and no longer has a voice.

I am writing to you so that when she is older her little daughter, Maddison, may know that her mother’s terrible death did not go unnoticed.

I write to you at a time when women’s rights and voices are being eroded and silenced on all fronts.

It has never been a more confusing and dangerous time to be a woman in the UK.

There is one thing that I am not confused about. One cannot, in law – with a blood alcohol level of 350-500 mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood – consent to having a plastic trigger bottle of carpet cleaner inserted into one’s vagina.

On the night she died, Natalie was so drunk, and had so much cocaine in her system, that she was at a very real risk of death without the fatal physical injuries she sustained.

I am aware that Mr Broadhurst claimed during his trial that he had left Natalie in similar states before but, as a midwife with many years’ experience, I can assure you that this is absolutely untrue. No woman can possibly survive a vaginal arterial laceration that is left untreated.
Allow me to be very clear: it is a death sentence.

I find it simply staggering that although Mr Broadhurst tried to remove the trigger bottle from Natalie’s vagina, when he was unable to he went to get lubrication. This was considered by the defence expert obstetrician and gynaecologist, Mr Nicholas Morris to be a ‘good idea’.
May I suggest that at this point Mr Broadhurst was sufficiently aware of the situation that he could have had another ‘good idea’ & called an ambulance for Natalie?

By not doing so he effectively killed her.

Mr Broadhurst had to break the trigger bottle to remove it from Natalie’s vagina.

Geoffrey, have you ever had occasion to try & snap a trigger bottle? I have and it is almost impossible. The force required is simply unimaginable when translated to delicate human anatomy.

Within 15-20 minutes of her vaginal arterial bleed commencing Natalie would have been almost beyond help. A vaginal haemorrhage is an extremely frightening and unpleasant manner in which to die.

It did not have to be so. Here in the UK we are uncommonly good at emergency treatment of vaginal haemorrhage.

We assume that at this point Natalie was unconscious as she was so drunk. Nevertheless, she apparently consented to this.

Natalie was 26 years old when she died. She died naked, bruised, battered, with a smashed in eye socket and exsanguinated at the bottom of a staircase.

The news is clear.

Here in the UK, in 2018, the life of a woman is worth just 3 years and 8 months (just half to be served as a custodial sentence).

I ask you to please refer this case to the Court of Appeal. I would ask that you consider a charge of murder for the death of this young woman & mother.

I have copied my MP into this letter & I look forward to your reply.

[anotherFOIrequester]

Yes!

[Langsdestiny]

Yes , thankyou.

[PerkingFaintly]

Yes please, and thank you for doing this.

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

You absolutely should support this campaign!

[Winniefred]

My only question is why wouldn't you? Given your platform is used and supported by more Women than Men, it shouldn't really need asking, however you get a resounding YES from me, for my daughters, Sisters and Women everywhere. X

[Adirondack]

100% yes, please back this campaign

[HildaSnibbs]

Yes absolutely

[yadayadayesokay]

Yes please

[NearlyGranny]

Tapering, that is appalling. I did not know the details of this case.

I can only think the YABU vote was from people confused about which option meant yes.

[quickitsapoo]

I can't consent to grievous bodily harm under english law but I can consent to sex games that can kill me.

Sign up and shout it from the rooftops.

[Iadoremylabrador]

Yes please