Rape: Criminal Prosecutions

Fay Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I worked with the hon. Lady on the Domestic Abuse Bill and I know how committed she is to ensuring that victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence secure the justice they deserve. The whole of this Government are committed to this piece of work, from the very top. From the Prime Minister down, this is an absolute priority for the Government. I welcome scrutiny—I welcome hon. Members asking me questions at the Dispatch Box—but I also ask please that we acknowledge it when there are early signs of progress, precisely because I want to encourage victims to come forward and get the support they need.

[Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

Yesterday, I met the Chief Crown Prosecutor for Wales, who singled out my police force, Dyfed-Powys police, for its early engagement with the Crown Prosecution Service as it seeks to secure charging decisions. The CPS is urging police forces to be proactive and to seek advice as early as possible so as to improve the number of cases that can progress. Will the Minister join me in congratulating Dyfed-Powys police on this and urge other police forces across the country to adopt this practice?

[Victoria Atkins]

Very much so. My hon. Friend has enjoyed the success of ensuring that cyber-flashing will become a criminal offence when the Online Safety Bill is passed. In relation to her police force, this is precisely why we are publishing local data dashboards. I genuinely want Members across the House to scrutinise what is happening in their local area so that they can help us to hold the police, the CPS and others to account for decisions such as taking a police referral to the CPS. We will be trying to disaggregate that data even further, so that where there is a request for advice as opposed to a charge, for example, we are making that clear. This is a whole-system effort to improve at every single stage of the criminal justice system, and I would like to thank the police, the CPS and the courts for all their efforts.

Cyber-flashing

Fay Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of cyberflashing-related harms.

It is a pleasure to see you in the chair, Mr Gray. Let me start by explaining the perverse act of cyber-flashing. In essence, it is where a person is sent an unsolicited sexual image. There are two currents to this, and the first is through social media. More often than not, indecent images are persistently sent to Instagram, Snapchat or Twitter accounts. The second, more perverse angle, is where an image is received in a public place on someone’s device, just because their Bluetooth or AirDrop happens to be on. It often happens in public places such as on trains and buses or in lecture halls, where someone is in close proximity to people they do not know. It happens to men and women of all ages, and, sadly, is only increasing.

Cyber-flashing can be intimidating and distressing but, more than that, if someone receives an indecent image from a stranger in a public place, they are in a very vulnerable position. They are often alone with their perpetrator. Sometimes, the perpetrator is there, deliberately watching them, waiting for their reaction. It is a way of creating anxiety, a feeling of being watched and lack of safety, with the inherent threat that it could be followed up by a physical act of sexual harassment or violence.

There is evidence that cyber-flashing in this way is a gateway offence to more serious acts of violence. The man who killed Sarah Everard was accused of flashing before he went on to commit his horrific crime. It is time we made cyber-flashing a criminal offence on a par with its physical counterpart, to ensure the law catches up with technology.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has done incredible work highlighting the seriousness of cyber-flashing. Does she agree that it needs to be a specific criminal offence, alongside public sexual harassment? I would love to hear the Minister’s views on that.

[Fay Jones]

I thank the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee not just for her intervention, but for her work in this area. I agree with her, and I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response later on.

At present, if someone is a victim of cyber-flashing the avenues to seek justice are limited at best. The Indecent Displays (Control) Act 1981, which criminalises the public display of indecent matter, is little known and likely to be little used. Laws on image-based sexual abuse are not based on an understanding of power and entitlement as the factors behind sexual harassment. They focus too narrowly on perpetrator motivations and do not provide the protection of anonymity for complainants, which I think is crucial.

Cyber-flashing is not an entirely new or recent problem. I am not the first to raise the need to criminalise cyber-flashing in this place. I pay tribute to hon. Friends who have partnered with the magazine Grazia, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) who has endorsed this campaign.

Since I have started talking about making cyber-flashing an offence in its own right, I have received not just many messages of support, but countless emails and social media messages from women who have been subjected to this cruel act. I pay particular tribute to the television actor and personality, Emily Atack, who was invited to Parliament by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) to talk about her experiences. I explained that I had sent her a message on Instagram asking to work with her on this campaign; she apologised to me, explaining that she never saw the message because her account is deluged with indecent images. I congratulate Emily, and others, for having the courage to speak out.

One field in which cyber-flashing is extremely common is online dating apps. I have been working with the app Bumble, which says that cyber-flashing is shockingly prevalent in the UK and disproportionately affects young women. According to a Bumble survey, in the past year alone 48% of millennial women said that they had been sent an unsolicited sexual image. One in four of those surveyed found that the prevalence of unsolicited lude images had got worse during the covid-19 pandemic, while one in three believed that cyber-flashing had become part and parcel of online behaviour. I do not know about you, Mr Gray, but I find that shocking. If we can agree on one thing this afternoon, it is that the unsolicited sharing of lewd images is not a part of normal courtship.

Education is one way in which we can seek to address this growing problem—making young people aware of the harm that this act can inflict on someone. This is already happening, thanks to campaign-led organisations such as Brook, which provide relationships and sex advice in schools throughout England and Wales. Its campaigners are also spending this freezing-cold Tuesday afternoon sitting on College Green with their advertising van. I encourage all Members, if they have a moment, to go and show their support for the campaign to ban cyber-flashing. I credit them for being hardy enough to stay there all afternoon.

Brook’s campaign to raise awareness of the harm caused by cyber-flashing is based on changing people’s behaviour and educating around consent. It is illegal to send someone younger than 18 an indecent image, yet almost half of millennial women who have received such an image were younger than 18 the first time that it happened. This figure rises to 71% when looking at 18 to 24-year-olds. What is illegal offline should be illegal online, and the law needs strengthening to achieve that. In June 2018, the Government introduced the Voyeurism (Offences) Act 2019, which sought to make upskirting a specific criminal offence. This is a prime example of how the law is involved in catching up with technological advancement.

[Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and on her fantastic campaign. She is talking about the law keeping up; it seems to me that one of the key problems when it comes to offences using digital technology is the speed with which criminals exploit technology—in this case to sexually harass people, and mainly women—far outstrips the speed of our legislative process. While it is important that we get things right, does my hon. Friend agree that we need to take steps to speed up our response to new sexual offences such as upskirting, threats to share intimate images and cyber-flashing, so that we can better protect people sooner?

[Fay Jones]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. This is an area where Government and technology companies need to work hand in hand and at pace, in order to catch up. Until the specific offence of upskirting was properly legislated for, the best alternative offence of outraging public decency was used to prosecute offenders. Victims deserve better.

In 2018, the Women and Equalities Committee recommended that cyber-flashing must be addressed by Government. It said:

“The Government should introduce a new law on image-based sexual abuse which criminalises all non-consensual creation and distribution of intimate sexual images, including altered images, and threats to do so. This should be a sexual offence based on the victim’s lack of consent and not on perpetrator motivation, and include an automatic right to life-long anonymity for the complainant, as with other sexual offences.”

Four years on, if the Government want to make their Online Safety Bill a gold standard for internet safety—I commend their ambition—they must include legislation against cyber-flashing. I was concerned by the report published yesterday by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which said that, as currently drafted, it is not robust enough to tackle some forms of illegal and harmful content.

The Online Safety Bill is the vehicle to give victims the power to seek prosecution and hold perpetrators to account for their actions. That has been backed by the draft Bill Committee, and by the Law Commission’s recommendations. I was delighted at the end of last year when my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, when questioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), agreed that cyber-flashing should be a criminal offence. That was later echoed by the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. We are on the right track, but I press the Minister to go as far as she can, and to say when we can see more detail of the Online Safety Bill.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for all that she is doing. As we know that most cyber-flashing is sent from anonymous accounts, making it scarier, particularly when the perpetrator might be in the same vicinity as the victim, does my hon. Friend agree that tackling anonymity online and anonymous abuse is a key part of dealing with cyber-flashing, as is being able to track perpetrators?

[Fay Jones]

We are in danger of all agreeing with each other, which is a very good thing. I pay particular credit to my hon. Friend, who has done so much work on anonymity through her ten-minute rule Bill. That is crucial. Social media companies also have a huge role to play in this.

Going back to the point on consent, which I touched on earlier, I put on the record my thanks to Professor Clare McGlynn, who has been a leading figure in the campaign to legislate for a consent-based offence. It is critical that any new law is comprehensive, covering all forms of cyber-flashing, and therefore giving all victims the reassurance they need.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate; we all wait for the Minister’s response. She touched on the issue of a consent-based approach. That touches on the core wrong, which is that it is a non-consensual sexual act. Does she join me in urging the Minister to look at what is happening in Texas, California, New York, Virginia and Wisconsin, all of which are adopting a consent-based approach when legislating for this offence?

[Fay Jones]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. Looking through the prism of consent empowers victims and lowers the threshold for people to take this forward. Consent is extremely important. The lawful consensual sharing of images between adults is fine and appropriate if it involves free choice, but it is important to recognise when that crosses the line, and that is through consent.

To my hon. Friend’s point, a consent-based offence covers all forms of cyber-flashing, regardless of the motives of the sender. Motive requirements create an unjustified hierarchy of abuses and victims, which does not reflect victims’ experiences. Technology companies, the media, politicians and employers all have a part to play in developing policies and practices to challenge everyday sexism, structural sexism and harmful sexual behaviours.

I want to point out the work that Bumble is doing. Bumble is a dating app on which women initiate the conversation, and its ethos is around protecting those who use the app. Not only does Bumble have a one-strike-and-out policy for people who are reported for lewd activity, but it has “private detector” technology that recognises and blurs explicit images, and offers recipients the chance to view the images or block the senders. That is industry-leading technology, and I commend those at Bumble for taking that approach. They have been involved in other initiatives around the world, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke said.

I had best draw my remarks to a close because I know that we all want to hear from the Minister. It is imperative that we criminalise cyber-flashing in England and Wales as soon as possible. Every day without an offence in place means that victims are denied an effective route to justice. Let us lead the way by continuing the progress that the Government have already made, and make cyber-flashing illegal once and for all.

Domestic Abuse Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Fay Jones Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 11th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 17th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Christine Jardine]

I thank the hon. Lady. That is exactly the nub of the new clauses. We should not be regarding these women as migrants; we should be regarding them as women who deserve our support. No one who has been through domestic abuse and survived it should have to hear the two words, detention or deportation. That is inhuman.

[Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

I have been listening very carefully to the hon. Lady’s speech and those of other colleagues. I have no doubt that the new clauses are very well intended, but I am concerned that they could create a perverse incentive and actually perpetuate instances of domestic abuse. New clause 36(6)(g) could be so easily ignored that it facilitates abuse. We really must be alive to the unintended consequences of the new clauses.

[Christine Jardine]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. I hope she will forgive me, but I would accept any number of false claims in order to save one person who has been through domestic abuse. I do not think it is enough to say that people could abuse the system. We have to make sure that we have a good system that is not easily open to abuse, but its prime focus has to be on supporting victims of domestic abuse, whoever they are, wherever they come from, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or immigration status.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

No. I am sorry—can I just try to bring the tone down? Thus far, we have managed to discuss this incredibly emotive subject in a responsible and constructive way. I shall try to continue to do that. I do not for a moment say that people who apply are lying. I absolutely do not say that. What I am worried about, and what I see with modern slavery, for example, is that the people who manipulate, exploit and take advantage will use every way they can find to do it.

[Fay Jones]

rose—

[Christine Jardine]

rose—

Domestic Abuse Bill (Eighth sitting)

Fay Jones Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 11th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Cheltenham, and I have talked many times about the sorts of things that we feel have been innovative for victims in the courts of law in our country. Sometimes, something small that we do in here changes the tone in a court case, and both he and I agree that the victim’s personal statement has certainly done that over the years. For many years, we have been hearing terrible things about the family courts, but I feel that a change of tone could be brought about in those courts. The special measures we seek through our amendments would certainly change the tone, by putting the onus on the family courts to consider the importance of victims of domestic violence and their vulnerabilities.

[Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

The hon. Lady mentions some improvements that could be made, but does she welcome our election manifesto commitment about integrated domestic abuse courts?

[Jess Phillips]

Perhaps I am being a bit premature, but I look forward to the progress on that, because the sectors have been crying out for the integration of different court systems for years and years. As we have said about a million times during these debates, the approach of the specialist domestic violence courts have been patchy across the country. In some areas, they have dwindled, but in others they have come to the fore because of the covid-19 crisis. I would very much welcome anything that would standardise the situation in courts for victims of domestic violence, especially in respect of their experience of the courts, whether they be civil, criminal or private.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Fay Jones Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con) [V]]

I am honoured to have the chance to speak in the debate. Having listened all afternoon, I am proud of so many colleagues for their brave testimony, but I particularly applaud my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Sara Britcliffe), who made an historic maiden speech. I congratulate both Front-Bench teams on the dedication they have shown to this issue. We have heard from strong Welsh voices on both Front Benches, but I am proud to be the first female Welsh speaker in the debate.

The Bill could not be more timely. While most of us take refuge in our homes from covid-19, it is important to recognise that the virus is not the biggest threat to those enduring the lockdown with an abuser. At the heart of the Bill is a new definition of domestic abuse that will ensure that all domestic abuse is properly understood, as it is evident that abuse can be perpetrated in many forms and knows no bounds.

As I am sure is the case for many colleagues, I have been contacted by several different organisations with views on the proposed definition. Particularly compelling was the call to include so-called honour-based violence. Although it is important not to limit the understanding of domestic abuse to specific acts, I hope to see recognition of the abuse experienced by specific groups and communities included in the Government’s guidance for the Bill. I am pleased that the Government have begun a review into what support can be provided to migrant victims of domestic abuse, but I ask that the Government revisit there being no recourse to public funds for victims with certain immigration statuses. I congratulate the Government on the Bill’s gender-neutral status, thereby including the 2.9 million men who have experienced domestic abuse in their lifetime—a figure thought to be considerably under- reported—and reiterating the Government’s commitment to seek to protect everyone from abuse.

I am particularly pleased to see the new definition include economic abuse. An incredibly brave constituent recently contacted me who had moved to my constituency to start a new life after leaving an abusive marriage. She was subject to physical and mental abuse from her ex-husband, and left with nothing but the clothes on her back when she fled. It took her three years to obtain a divorce, but a divorce in and of itself will not address the financial relationship that arises in a marriage and that can often continue after separation. This lady’s ex-husband would not agree to a fixed period to address their joint mortgage. In her words:

“It has been over 7 years since we parted, and I am still tied to the person who emotionally broke me. It is like a hold still over me—something he always wanted.”

Her story convinces me that we must review the financial ties that can exist within abusive relationships and find ways to help victims free themselves completely. We must ensure that the Bill helps those in situations such as my constituent’s. Our courts cannot simply allow financial ties to facilitate coercive control over victims long after relationships end. I have spoken to the Minister about this privately, and I look forward to working with her on this point.

My constituent had the courage not only to leave her abusive relationship but to find herself a new career, in the Dyfed-Powys police force, where she deals with domestic abuse reports almost every day. I know my constituent is watching this debate, and I take this opportunity to repeat that I find her courage and service a genuine inspiration, and I know that others do as well.

I also applaud the work of Welsh Women’s Aid, which has been supporting women and campaigning for change in Wales for more than 40 years. One area where I agree with it is around reforms to the family justice system. The Bill will ban perpetrators from being able to cross-examine their victims in family courts, and will also provide domestic abuse victims with automatic eligibility for special measures in criminal cases, but I believe that we could go further. I urge the Government to look at extending the ban to any family, criminal or civil proceedings in domestic abuse, sexual abuse, stalking or harassment cases.

I have one final point. The beauty of areas like Brecon and Radnorshire can often mask issues such as domestic violence. I know that the safeguarding Minister represents a heavily rural constituency, as I do, so I urge her to give careful consideration to the challenge of policing and safeguarding in rural areas as the Bill goes through its later stages.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak. I give the Bill my firm support. It gives me huge pride to be part of a Government who, at this time of national crisis, prioritise legislation that protects vulnerable people from harm.