We Can't Consent to This: all the "sex game gone wrong" defences

[WomanDaresTo]

Hello - doing this under my semi-public NC.

On FWR we've been grimly collating the stories of women killed by men who claim they've died in a "sex game gone wrong". Given Natalie Connolly's killer's sentence has received rightful outrage, and given even the excellent Harriet Harman thinks this is an unusual defence, I thought it time to pull them together in one place:

www.wecantconsenttothis.uk

It's not a fun read, of course. I know it's not also complete - will keep updating but do of course let me know of other cases, and mistakes.

But perhaps we can help get to a place where women are not deemed to have consented to bodily harm, or to death.

and unmumsnetty Christmassy hugs to the families and friends of these women.

if anyone wants me I'll be having a humungous

Marking place to come back later x

There is such a disparity in the length of sentences listed there. Do judges give shorter sentences if the man and woman are in a relationship, rather than either a stranger attack or a one-night situation?

It’s very effective, gathering the cases together like that, OP, it really debunks the ‘tragic accident’ ‘sex game gone wrong’ assertions.

There was a group of cases in the 1990s to do with consent and assault. They ended up in the ECHR (Laskey v UK springs to mind) which ruled that criminalising assault where the victim consented to such assault did not violate art 8 because there was a societal benefit in protecting such victims. How did we get from there to a situation where men are now getting away with murder on the grounds that their victims consented?

I think a murder verdict is more likely if the accused man:

changes his story
was in a LT relationship with the woman
has cheated on his wife
otherwise seems a "wrong un"
is able to find anyone who may have had any non-vanilla sex chat with the dead woman

And often the defence works if it can be presented as moment of madness between young lovers - perhaps through inexperience, who are we...

I think we are missing many cases though so implore you to search your local newspaper for any of these "kinky sex" "bondage" "sex gone wrong" "strangle" type terms.

This is a challenging read but necessary to see the stark horror of sexualised violent behaviour towards women that resulted in their death at the hands of a male. The obfuscation of perpetrator's violence into BDSM, kinky sex etc is unbelievable and frankly shocking. Thx OP for compiling this - must have been challenging on a number of levels.

What I noted was the difference in the sentencing.

It's been proven that many people believe rape myths and will not change their mind despite any weight of evidence to the contrary. So either jurors, judges and the like must be psychologically tested or jury trials for crimes against women and children abolished and replaced by an expert panel. There's no other way. Education won't alter that thinking error.

Thanks for putting this together op.

WomanDaresTo thank you for all you are doing.

IHATEPeppaPig

"1. How many of the recent murders are young women. Violent porn has a lot to answer for in today's society as well as 50 shades of Grey that glorifies DV and violent sex."

Yes in deed, very true. I've not read '50 shades of Grey' (or as I call it '50 Shades of Shit') but I am pretty sure no one died in it. So this book is, like the rest of the crap, no excuse what's so ever.... I totally agree with you.

and

"2. I can't help feeling that men feel entitled to do this to women as punishment for sexual liberation - you wanted sexual freedom well
Here it is." absolutely.

I think 1 is used as an excuse for the law/society etc to wash their hands of these women by kind of making a 'plausible' (fucking implausible) excuse for these shit bag men. And 2 is the real reason men do it, because they hate women (in the case of Natalie I believe her killer was jealous). But also, 1 affects 2 because if they think they can get away with it, they are probably more likely to fucking do it!

Sorry for swearing

OP I hope you do not mind my posting.

There are two separate petitions on Change.

Her Name was Natalie Connolly

www.change.org/p/attorney-general-her-name-was-natalie-connolly

Criminal punishment to fit the crime in domestic violence cases.

www.change.org/p/correspondence-attorneygeneral-gsi-gov-uk-criminal-punishment-to-fit-the-crime-in-domestic-violence-cases

Many thanks

I'd never mind you posting Italian

WomanDaresTo

Good point about local papers. I was at an A.A meeting years ago and a bloke turned up drunk and started talking about how much he thought about putting his hands around his GFs throat when she nagged him. He even made the gesture.

I was young, new, speechless with horror. It did prompt the forbidden "cross talk" when another man strongly suggested he get some help but nothing else was done, and in A.A, confidentiality is key.

Every time I think of it I feel sick for her and I rage at my cowardice because he frightened me before he even said anything.

We must be missing lots as "man kills woman" seemingly doesn't always rate national news.

We must be missing lots as "man kills woman" seemingly doesn't always rate national news.
Few murders make the national news. about two killings a day
Bearing in mind the ones followed up by national press normally report the crime first, then the arrest, then some time later the trial, if every murder/manslaughter case was reported nationally we'd hear about little else.
We hear a bit about knife killings in London (but little detail, it's more of a running total thing) and we hear if children or young women are killed, but there's a clear ranking system of victims in terms of newsworthiness, with exceptions for killings with particularly salacious details.
The parachute sabotage case (fortunately she survived) was one with plenty of salacious detail so we got plenty of coverage on that one.
If only we had a publicly funded broadcaster with a mandate to report all the news, we might hear of all the other crimes.

charis "I was young, new, speechless with horror."

"Every time I think of it I feel sick for her and I rage at my cowardice because he frightened me before he even said anything."

Do not feel bad, what could you do. You had no idea who the woman was. People cannot be prosecuted for what they want to do.

I've failed to speak up a few times in the past when I saw things that troubled me. But I think the key thing is to move on.

Campaigning for victims and supporting the rights of the vulnerable in the future is a good way to go. Please do share the petitions if you can.

The law on this particular category of murder is a mess. It relies on case law to do with negligence, consent, risk taking, incapacity due to drink or drugs and other complicating issues.

There needs to be a new criminal offence, committed by intimate partners, leading to death.

Thank you Italiangreyhound 💐 I do what I can. Sign and share petitions, slate Little OJ on Facebook 😁 and I'm almost ready to throw my hat into the ring on Twitter. I've even peak-transed a few including XH!

There needs to be a new criminal offence, committed by intimate partners, leading to death

This!

And it needs to acknowledge that the fact IPV usually involves the perpetrator gaining and abusing the trust of the (usually) woman as an aggregating factor, making the crime more serious, not less, as it seems to be now.

Another ten, TEN, women since added to the list:

www.wecantconsenttothis.uk/

Jesus :(

Do you think @mumsnethq could invite Harriet Harman to a q & a session on this?
I'm interested that New Zealand has introduced new laws against throttling, the article I read quoted research that this is often a factor in domestic abuse to maintain fear and dominance as well as often escalating to murder.
What happened to the thread about the barmaid who was casually throttled in front of everyone by a co worker? I assume the thread was pulled for legal reasons as police are investigating the man concerned but this case must not be forgotten as it was so blatant and he was clearly a dangerous man for women to be around, he looked like he had done it before and knew exactly what he was doing.
Also someone on that thread mentioned their DD being afraid of a boy at school who talked about doing this but the school were not concerned.

This is awful.

I know a woman who was contacted by someone on a dating site asking her if she would consent to taking a sleeping pill so he could have sex with her when she was unconscious. He jumped straight into asking. Porn has done so much damage. She blocked him and he managed to track down her facebook and started sending her messages there.

OMG Gendercritter That is shocking. There should be a database somewhere that you can keep records of screen grabs of these sorts of messages to be used as evidence in the event of future criminal proceedings.

WomanDaresTo
Such awful stories and evidently the defence of 'she consented to me brutalising her and murdering her' is being used by men all over the UK and tragically, being believed in some cases. Dreadful.

Thank you OP

I think you need to get a lawyer involved in this unless all you want is a random collection of women who died in a sexual context. What are you hoping to achieve exactly? Are you looking to reverse the legal position to the former prohibition on consensual violence? Are you looking to increase minimum sentencing? Are you hoping to create a higher standard for manslaughter cases within this context? Are you looking to create a higher evidential burden for indivuals seeking to use a sex game gone wrong as a defence?

Racecardriver are you a lawyer and is this something you want to get involved in?

The first aim is to show that it is not rare (as Harriet Harman thought) for men to claim women died in a sex game gone wrong.

Second is to find ways to reduce the success of these defences, as they are, on the evidence here, a load of old cobblers. They also seem to be working more recently, and we need to find out why.

All suggestions for the mechanisms to do that are welcome - whether legal, political or social campaigning.