Ending "Rough Sex" defences - Harriet Harman is taking action

[WomanDaresTo]

Hello. I have some very hopeful news on ending the successful use of "rough sex" as a defence to the death or injury of women and girls (with 56 killed, and many more injured, in the UK)

Harriet and Mark Garnier, the local MP for Natalie Connolly and her family, have published a piece today on rough sex defences. They propose to add to the Domestic Abuse Bill to explicitly consider these cases.

"For years, men got away with murder claiming that “she asked for it”. Cynically known amongst barristers as the “nagging and shagging defence” this excuse for violent men was shut down only as recently as 2009. We now have the modern version of “she was asking for it”. It’s time we shut that down too and we can by adding it to the Domestic Abuse Bill."

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/rough-sex-murder-harriet-harman_uk_5d309e09e4b020cd9940533c

I'm THRILLED to see this, and once we understand more on the proposals, will make sure we organise to give this the best chance of success. (lots of caveats to come - e.g. it's a long way from law yet, and it won't apply to Scotland- but still thrilled)

to all of you who've helped We Can't Consent To This so far.

It's good the article was illustrated with a photo of Natalie Connolly's killer. It shows what he got away with.

If any good can come of this, it will be that sadistic murderers of women get real justice. Torture should be an aggravating factor, not a defence.

I said on the other thread I don't see why there should not be strict liability- if you insert anything which isn't a body part into your sexual partner, or you gag, restrain, or hit them and they die it is culpable homicide.

Glad to hear someone is looking into this. What do we need to do in Scotland to get similar?

Oh please let this happen, I am so sick of hearing about another poor beaten woman's death and her character assassinated by some murdering shit.

Totally agree Lass. You can play these sex games but the onus is then on you to make sure you don't kill your partner, accidentally of course. They are taking a risk by letting you do potentially dangerous things to them, so too should the partner carrying them out.

It's not just about putting a stop to the rough sex defence. I'd like to see a specific crime of strangulation like they have recently introduced in New Zealand.

It's late and I have had so I will have to look for links and a better explanation tomorrow.

Lass I said on the other thread I don't see why there should not be strict liability- if you insert anything which isn't a body part into your sexual partner, or you gag, restrain, or hit them and they die it is culpable homicide.

Or indeed if you insert a body part into your partner and they die, bearing in mind the "choke on my dick" comments women with opinions get. If someone dies during sex or shortly after, there should be a post-mortem exam. If the post-mortem shows that the death was caused by the sex act (e.g. it wasn't a coincidental death from natural causes), the other party or parties should be up for manslaughter at the very least and "she was asking for it/she consented" must not be a defence. Note that in my link there is NO SIGN of CPS guidance for cases where sex/misogyny is an aggravating factor, only race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and transgender identity. (Why don't those characteristics match the nine in the EA2010? Why do they say "transgender identity" and not "gender reassignment"?)

Yes yes you're all right - there is much more to ask for. What would be our wishlist?

here's some starters I threw together recently:

• We are concerned that being strangled without consent is now a common part of sex for women. We want strangulation to be appropriately recognised as a serious assault.
• We ask whether violent assaults should be prosecuted in addition to manslaughters, rapes and sexual assaults, as a matter of course, and not bundled as part of a rape charge.
• We are further concerned that non-consensual strangulation led to the deaths of two girls, despite this, the men who killed them were convicted only of manslaughter and culpable homicide.
• We believe that embedded myths surround “sex games” – in particular that women commonly consent to sexual activity that kills them. We want policy commitments to challenge myths in the criminal justice system – so women are not failed by police, crime scene or pathologists, coroners, or prosecutors.
• We want significantly better data collection in the criminal justice system. We want a commitment to collecting relevant data in all cases of violence against women and girls, so issues like this are identified.
• We want there to be a review of prosecution and sentencing of these cases across the UK jurisdictions. Should evidence of previous sexual activity be relevant in the violent death of a women or girl? Should prosecutors ever accept a manslaughter charge? Should violent sexual assault of a woman be accepted as mitigation in sentencing for her murder, because on the say so of her murderer, “she consented to it”?
• Finally, any policy on this must consider the impact on women and girls – who are overwhelmingly the victims of these assaults.

I'd like to see a specific crime of strangulation like they have recently introduced in New Zealand.

AGREE:

Strangulation charges have been laid nearly five times a day since it became an offence under new family violence legislation.

Non-fatal strangulation became an offence on December 3, and the first person to be charged with it was arrested that same day

www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/02/over-400-strangulation-charges-in-three-months.html

Also now a specific offence in a couple of Australian states

The systemic misogyny within our UK Judicial System is terrifying!
YY
The fact this is even being debated (women being killed with "rough sex" as a defense, and actually resulting in no justice for these women) is fucking outrageous. Anyone, any ordinary person with two brain cells can see how wrong it is.

Women don't matter at all

56 women! 56! It is not possible in this country to consent to being severely assaulted or murdered, unless you are a women who is having sex? What possible public policy good can result from that? So glad someone it pushing back.

wish-list addition

• We are concerned that "knifeplay gone wrong" is used as defence when women are murdered by stabbing or throat-cutting during sex and we want that defence disallowed. Consent to knifeplay is not consent to being killed and the person holding the knife must take responsibility for their actions. Just because she agrees to it, doesn't mean you have to do it. Alternatives to sharp blades exist, as any theatre actor will confirm. The same argument should be applied to firearms and any other weapon or device used as a weapon (e.g. tools).

erishkigal Yup, when two kinky people both consent to doing something that's very dangerous to one of them (the sub), and the one at risk ends up dead, the justice system shouldn't let the other one (the dom) walk away. The one not at risk of harm didn't have to consent to the act if they weren't happy risking jail.

Genuine doms won't object to this, because they are already taking steps to safeguard their subs and so subs are at minimal risk of harm and doms are at minimal risk of jail. The people who will object are the ones who use kink as an excuse to harm others.

*WomanDaresTo
*
Thanks for supplying the links. So shocking how common strangulation is - first arrest the day it is made law!

ACTION KLAXON!!

This has a really good chance of becoming law - Harriet Harman and Mark Garnier MP have proposed an amendment to the Domestic Abuse bill.

As a reminder, 58 UK women have been killed by men who said they asked for the violence, and many more injured. No women have used the "sex, gone wrong" defence in the killing or injury of a man.

Can you all please please write to your MPs and ask them to support

find your MP www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/

some draft text, please adapt:

Dear MP,

I am a constituent and my postcode is [postcode]. I am writing to ask you to back the proposed amendments to the Domestic Abuse bill which aim to end the use of "consent" defences to domestic violence against women. Harriet Harman and Mark Garnier have worked together to propose that case law is put into statue, and these cases must be reviewed by the Director of Public Prosecutions before a lesser charge is pursued.

58 UK women have been killed, and many more injured, in violence which the men accused claim in court was consensual. Please back these proposed clauses to amend the Domestic Abuse bill: publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/2017-2019/0422/amend/domestic_rm_pbc_1007.1-3.html

UK cases: wecantconsenttothis.uk
briefing on this issue and the scale of the problem: wecantconsenttothis.uk/s/WCCTT-briefing-Consent-Defences-2019-09.pdf

And if you hear back, please let me know

Hope this gets support. - bumping

this is hopeful news

Can I recommend the excellent Write To Them website? www.writetothem.com/?a=westminstermp Also helps you write to every level.of politician from county councillor to MEPs (whilst we still have them).

Please write in your own words instead of using a template, MPs pay less attention to template letters.

About bloody time. Nobody consents to what happened to Natalie, and even if they did the other person should have said no. Consent should not be a viable legal defense to GBH or to murder.

All you really need to do is reverse the burden of proof, surely. Perfectly standard methodology.

Removing "she was asking for it" as a permissible defence is not reversing the burden of proof. The prosecution would still have to prove that his actions caused her death and that a reasonable person would deem his actions intentional (for a murder charge) or grossly negligent (for manslaughter).

Removing "she was asking for it" prevents juries from being misled by silver-tongued defence barristers into thinking that choking someone during sex isn't grossly negligent behaviour, when in reality it is enormously negligent and has completely foreseeable fatal consequences.

Even if a woman asks to be choked, the man doesn't have to act on her request and should be liable for the consequences if he does. The law already understands this concept: assisting someone with suicide is illegal and this principle has been upheld in the Diane Pretty case and others like it, to the degree that accompanying a terminally-ill patient to Dignitas will get you criminally charged on your return.

And we know that in at least some of these cases, the woman will not have asked to be choked. Of course, she's dead, how convenient for him that she can't contradict his version of events.

It'll interesting following the amendment proposed by Harriet Harman, only to see if there is anyone in the HOC that'll point out the obvious that there is no such defense in the first place.

Really worth reading our briefing and site on consent defences, if anyone hasn't already.

And you can hear the MPs themselves on the horror of "rough sex" defences, here: twitter.com/Wecantconsentto/status/1179461570184830977

Thank you so much to those who have written so far - it will make a huge difference.

There is an easy guide here too wecantconsenttothis.uk/actnow

Thank you so much for highlighting this. I've written previously but I'll write again to my MP with this having been proposed.

have they had the debate though? is it too late to contact MPs?

Just wrote to my MP. Thank you for the stellar work you've done.