Spiking Incidents: Prevention

Cherilyn Mackrory Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Member makes good points. I was going to mention this as the first point that was constructive in the Minister’s letter. To be fair to the Home Office—this is the first constructive point in the Safeguarding Minister’s letter—it has

“supported Universities UK and the Department for Education to provide guidance to universities on spiking published ahead of the Autumn term and the ‘freshers’ period.”

That is precisely because of the point the hon. Member made about the sharp increase in spiking before term started in 2021. That is a positive.

It is also positive that the Minister has proposed, subject to consultation, amendments to section 182 of the Licensing Act 2003, which

“could include explicit reference to spiking, providing a government definition of the crime, highlighting the existing offences which can be used to prosecute incidents of spiking including examples of spiking”.

She suggests that the Government could also direct licensing authorities to send a strong and explicit message that

“no matter how you spike someone…it is against the law.”

I agree. That is exactly the message that we need in law through a simple amendment to the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, so why do the Minister for Safeguarding and the Home Office not get it?

The letter then puts out various straw man arguments, which I will deal with in turn. I place the first point the heading, “Existing offences coverage”. The letter goes into considerable detail and concludes that

“all methods of spiking are already covered within the current legislation.”

It highlights section 24, which includes a crime described as

“Maliciously administering poison, &c. with intent to injure, aggrieve, or annoy any other person.”

That could cover, the Minister argues, a potential gap regarding spiking done “for fun”. Personally, however, I believe that proving an intent to annoy could be easily met by the defence, “I didn’t mean to annoy or upset”. Should we not recognise that spiking is, at the least, annoying, full stop, without prevaricating about it? Most importantly, cannot all of these sections of the 1861 Act be grouped under a single, compelling umbrella statement very similar to that proposed for the guidance to the night-time economy?

I place the second point under the heading, “Absence of the word spiking in law”. The Safeguarding Minister recognises, while arguing that existing law already covers spiking, that there is currently no agreed definition of spiking. But she has also suggested that Government provide a definition for section 182 of the Licensing Act, so that point is already dealt with—the Government have already promised to provide that. She goes on to say that introducing a new offence would “overlap with existing offences”, but I am arguing that adding a grouping to include existing offences under the simple term “spiking” would do the job. We do not need a new offence; we need to amend existing law, not create a new law.

The Minister acknowledges that the law does not actually reference spiking, but she argues that, while it can be tempting to “reflect modern terminology”, effectively we should not do so. But we have done exactly that with legislation on upskirting, a term I am confident did not exist in 1861 any more than spiking by needle in nightclubs did. We do reflect modern terminology in law. We can do so and we should do so.

Thirdly, on the name of the offence, the Minister goes on to say that the general public

“believe that spiking is illegal, even if they cannot name the specific offence it comes under.”

If the first part of that were true, I doubt any of us would be here, nor would my and many other Members’ constituents—one victim is here today—be pressing us to action, such as Dawn Dines, founder of Stamp Out Spiking, and our police and crime commissioners and the police lead on this issue would not be saying that they believe action is necessary.

The second part of the Minister’s letter on naming the specific offence shows precisely why an amendment is necessary. The offence is known to the public as spiking, and that is what the law should reflect. Although the detail of a 162-year-old Act may be fine, the law can also play a vital role in behavioural change. An amendment reflecting modern language would do just that, making the law unambiguous, especially for a younger generation, who are largely the victims and sometimes the perpetrators of spiking offences.

Fourthly, on data collection, data is critical to understanding both why we need laws and what is happening in society. The Minister writes that a specific spiking offence would

“add to the existing offences…hence potentially confusing the data analysis picture further.”

But that is not what the Select Committee was told. I will quote from former deputy chief constable and lead for drugs at the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Jason Harwin, who highlighted to the Select Committee that it is near impossible to get reliable data on drink spiking, saying:

“A challenge is that if it goes on to a second offence—rape or other offences—the original offence that could be linked to spiking, while recorded, is no longer identified in terms of how we flag it within our records.”

In answer to a question from the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) about a specific criminal code for spiking helping, he said that

“we cannot get the data together as quickly, because it might be spread over a number of offences.”

He went on to say:

“The reality is we cannot readily connect offences or offenders straight away”,

and that having a separate offence—effectively, as I would call it, an umbrella offence—

“would help us identify the picture quickly now.”

[Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

One of the arguments I have heard about them not needing a separate offence is that section 61 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 makes it an offence for somebody to administer a substance to, or cause it to be taken by, another person without their consent and with the intention of stupefying or overpowering them to enable that person to engage in sexual activity with them. Could my hon. Friend comment on how his proposed offence is different? I would be grateful for further clarification.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. The other aspect of the offences that we are dealing with is committing the offence for sexual gratification. That has undoubtedly been a driver in many cases. I do not have the data to hand, but other colleagues may be able to recall how many instances of rape there have been that started with a spiking offence. In fact, a Government adviser on some of these issues was herself both spiked and raped. This is close to home, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight that.