Voyeurism (Offences) (No. 2) Bill

Helen Whately Excerpts

Second reading committee: House of Commons
Monday 2nd July 2018 General Committees

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck, and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham, who effectively brought to life how things may play out in the courtroom.

I intend to speak briefly in support of the Bill. I remember being groped on the underground aged 18. It was over in a moment, but the memory of the experience lives on. I remember feeling violated and exploited. I remember the anger, the shock and the feeling of powerlessness as the man who did it just melted away into the crowds in the station. I remember the feeling of absolute helplessness, but I think about how much worse it would have been had it happened now and involved a camera, and had there been footage that could have been shared, disseminated and sold on the extraordinary scale we have heard about.

Like other Members, I praise the hon. Member for Bath for her work and Gina Martin for her campaign, which has brought so much attention to this issue. I also praise the Minister, who has clearly listened and taken swift action.

I welcome the thoughtfulness in the Minister’s approach. She seeks a balance between effective action and clear penalties and not being too heavy-handed, particularly with young perpetrators of this offence. However, we still need to send a strong message to young people. We must bear in mind, for instance, the level of sexual harassment in schools, which I hear about particularly from sixth-formers. We have a generation who are growing up with phone cameras and, I am afraid to say, easy access to pornography online, and who face extraordinary sexual peer pressure on social media. Those things combine to create a toxic environment for young people.

In short, I welcome the Bill, both for its practical effect and for the message it sends about what is okay and what is not okay in our society.

Voyeurism (Offences) (No. 2) Bill (Second sitting)

Helen Whately Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th July 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We are running out of time. We will take one very quick question from Helen Whately and then we have to draw this session to a close.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

Q Thank you, Sir Roger. Maria, you described a scenario in which somebody would be seeking financial gratification and therefore, you believe, would not be picked up by the current drafting of the Bill. You described somebody selling the image on to an online site to receive £100 for doing so. Could you say what you believe the customers of that online site would be seeking if they were not seeking sexual gratification?

Mrs Miller: You are asking me to speculate, Ms Whately. There is anecdotal evidence that the sharing of these images in WhatsApp groups can very readily be for “mate” reasons—group interest, perhaps a little bit of prowess.

[Helen Whately]

Q But you talked specifically about somebody being paid for the image, so one imagines that someone is then paying to use the site, and what would the customer of the site be paying for if it was not sexual gratification?

Mrs Miller: In that case, it could well be sexual gratification, but why are we making the police’s life so hard because we want to capture only those people where we can prove beyond reasonable doubt—because it is a criminal charge—that this is for sexual gratification, when, frankly, taking a picture up your skirt, Ms Whately, would be as offensive to you, whether that person was seeking sexual gratification or whether they were simply doing it as a lark, so that they could put it on their WhatsApp group and share it with their mates. It is the same impact on you as a victim as it would be if they were getting sexual gratification or seeking to humiliate you.

We know from the police that, with many of these images, people do not know the victims and it would be impossible to prove humiliation. We know, again from the police, that trying to prove sexual gratification is far more difficult. Should we not try to look at this from the victim’s point of view, as three quarters of sexual offences already are, and simply set it out as a crime in its own right and stop being obsessed about why people do it?

[The Chair]

That, Mrs Miller, is a question we are going to have to leave in the air, because we have run out of time. Thank you for coming. We appreciate that you are an extremely busy lady. The Committee is indebted to you.

Mrs Miller: May I thank the Committee for allowing me to speak today?

Examination of Witness

Lisa Hallgarten gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Chalk]

Q But would you agree that that is a key part of how this sort of legislation operates on the ground—namely, how it is enforced and the discretion that is applied to its terms?

Lisa Hallgarten: I would agree and I would say that it is really important that people understand the point of the legislation. Whether that can be described through the wording of the legislation, I do not know.

[Helen Whately]

Q You have talked very helpfully about avoiding unnecessary criminalisation of young people. That is helpful because some witnesses have argued for a more heavy-handed approach, with a much more blanket criminalisation of people. It would be helpful if you said more about the consequences of criminalising a young person when, in some of the circumstances you have described, they might not know the full seriousness of what they are doing. What do you think the best alternatives would be?

Lisa Hallgarten: It is interesting that we are going from lots of schools not even excluding a child who has been proven to be involved in sexual bullying or harassment to moving to prosecution. It would be good to think about the different steps that are appropriate at different ages for a child and different kinds of offence.

There have been situations where young women who have been raped in school—a very serious sexual assault—have had to go to school when the same children are still in the school—the people who were guilty of the offences. It feels to me that there is a big gap between ignoring the offence and prosecuting the child. There must be some sensible steps that we could take.

None of this is to say that this law should or should not happen. I am not really commenting on whether the law should exist, but I think, long before a child is prosecuted, far more steps should be taken, and much earlier. It is very unlikely that somebody would go to a serious offence from nothing. It is very likely that a child who ends up taking photos, sharing sexual images or physically assaulting somebody will have done what we would consider to be more mild offences, which will not have been picked up or taken seriously.

I know that the Women and Equalities Committee report found that lots of cases were dismissed. Lots of complaints, mainly from girls, were very easily dismissed in their school and not taken seriously. You wonder whether those boys just did not get the message that it is completely unacceptable to behave like that.

[The Chair]

Are there any further questions? No. In that case, Ms Hallgarten, thank you very much indeed for affording the Committee the benefit of your experience and knowledge. We are grateful to you.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Amanda Milling.)

Voyeurism (Offences) (No. 2) Bill (Third sitting)

Helen Whately Excerpts

Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 12th July 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Stella Creasy]

We are going to come on to some of the broader questions underpinning the offence. The sad truth is that this is not the first time that people have tried to humiliate, and to humiliate mainly women. This is not the first time that there has been a sense of entitlement to see, to judge and to talk about the privacy of a woman’s body. Do I have confidence that there would be people on the jury who would think, “Well, fair play”? Sadly, that is the society that we live in and we are making legislation in that society. I wish I could be with the hon. Gentleman in having confidence that in the 21st century people would recognise that treating women as pieces of meat for their entertainment is no longer acceptable, but, sadly, both case law and modern society tell us that we still have a long way to go.

The risk for all of us is that we create a loophole in the legislation, where people quibble about whether it was entertaining or not, rather than ask the simple question: did she say yes? Did she say she was happy for it to happen, because it was something she was doing for her career, or whatever? I wager him that we would have a case where we would have that kind of discussion, and ask him to think what it would be like for the victim in that circumstance to have motivation pored over in court, rather than the simple question of whether she said yes or no.

We are not pushing these amendments to a vote today, but we have to recognise that there is a risk that there could be a loophole. There is a risk that we are sending a message from this place that our focus is going to be all about the ins and outs of motivation, rather than on saying that, in 2018, consent and equality are what matters in our legislation and we will introduce legislation accordingly.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

I rise to speak briefly on the question of motive, which we are all clearly thinking about. Although there is widespread support for the Bill, this is an important question on the detail.

I certainly feel that the weight of evidence we heard was on the side of victims, and victims arguing that motive should not matter. If someone were a victim of upskirting, whatever the reason for doing it, it would still feel awfully humiliating and degrading for that person. We have heard the concern that someone might argue in defence that it was just for a laugh or high jinks. I do not think any of us believe that that is appropriate, because it would be deeply humiliating, but there is a concern that that might be argued as a defence—even though, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham, who has expertise in the area, has said, it would be highly unlikely that that would be permissible as a defence as the intention would clearly be to humiliate somebody.

The weight of evidence has been in support of the principle that motive should not matter. We should just think about the other side. Who would give evidence on the other side of the argument? There are lots of people who are standing up for victims, and we heard very compelling cases from people who have been victims, including a very powerful one that we have been asked not to quote from.

There was only one witness who gave the other side of the story very strongly. Lisa Hallgarten from Brook said:

“It is interesting that we are going from lots of schools not even excluding a child who has been proven to be involved in sexual bullying or harassment to moving to prosecution. It would be good to think about the different steps that are appropriate at different ages for a child and different kinds of offence.”––[Official Report, Voyeurism (Offences) (No.2) Public Bill Committee, 10 July 2018; c. 32, Q73.]

What she brought to light is that we are going from nought to 60 here. The Government are absolutely doing the right thing and I have huge respect for the hon. Member for Bath for pushing this—we must urgently plug this loophole in the law—but there is a question of proportionality and of making sure that we do not unintentionally criminalise people. Being a criminal would have such a huge impact on lives—I think about teenagers. As I say, it is totally inappropriate to do this for a laugh, and the level of sexual harassment and bullying in schools concerns me. The Minister mentioned that 10-year-olds and upwards may be criminalised by the Bill, so we must be mindful of the need to get the balance right.

Many of us have an instinct to be campaigners. We stand up for the women of the world and we want to put an end to such horrendous, degrading offences, which technology has made possible—the law has not necessarily kept up with technology—but in this room we are not so much campaigners as legislators. We must be conscious of the enormous power of Government, which has certainly struck me since I became a Member of Parliament, and ensure that our decisions are proportionate.

[The Chair]

If no one else wishes to speak, I call Liz Saville Roberts.

Voyeurism (Offences) (No. 2) Bill

Helen Whately Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 5th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Third time.

I am very pleased to have this opportunity to speak. I cut short some of my comments on Report to ensure that I covered all the points. I would like to mention something that I did not say when I addressed the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope). It was suggested at one stage that he had opposed the legislation that will criminalise upskirting. I know that he never opposed it as a matter of substance, but objected to it as a matter of procedure, as we have heard today. Like other Members, he has made it clear that he supports criminalising this inappropriate behaviour. I spoke to him about his amendments, and I am very pleased to be able to address them at this stage.

I wish to highlight the fact that this is a simple but important piece of legislation with a very clear purpose—to fill a gap in the law in the prosecution of those who upskirt. I am grateful to Members across the House who have engaged with this Bill as it has progressed, and I hope that that spirit will continue in the other place. We can all be rightly proud of this Bill, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who has contributed to it.

There has been much discussion about the sharing of upskirting images. This is an important issue and one that we need to tackle as a Government. However, the Bill is narrow, and is not the right place to solve the many issues that have been raised. We will work with the Law Commission to look at legislation in relation to the sharing of intimate images.

We have welcomed the opportunity to debate the purposes of the Bill and whether it will capture all those who commit this offence. The Bill should catch those who should be criminalised and ensure that the reach of the criminal law does not extend to where it should not extend to. The post-legislative review in two years’ time will help ensure that the offences that the Bill will introduce are as effective and as comprehensive as intended. I am grateful to the House for its support.

I want to touch on the notification requirements, which are an important aspect of the Bill. It is not an issue that we take lightly, which is why we have committed to place those who commit this offence for reasons of sexual gratification on the sex offenders’ register, subject to certain thresholds to ensure proportionality, focusing resource on those who pose a significant risk to the community. I am confident that the Bill strikes the right balance in this regard.

We have had an interesting debate on hate crime. Although these are important issues, this Bill focuses on a narrow issue and it is not the right place to bring forward small, narrow legislation. However, hate crime is an area that the Government intend to look at closely, and we will be asking the Law Commission to conduct a review of hate crime.

Let me conclude by thanking once again and paying tribute to the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for introducing the Bill and Gina Martin who first raised awareness of this important issue. I also wish to mention the important work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) both in her work as Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee and more broadly to ensure that the important issues in this Bill have been debated in this House. It is also important to recognise the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch who put forward ideas in relation to the sex offenders’ register. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and the Opposition for their support in getting this important Bill through the House so quickly.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

I agree with my hon. and learned Friend about the good work done by campaigners in this area. I want to make one specific point: so often women and girls have been told that it is their fault if they are harassed, because it is their fault for choosing to wear a short skirt, for example. Does she agree that the Bill puts into law the important point that the person at fault is not the woman or girl who chooses to wear the short skirt, but the person who chooses to harass them and makes the poor choice to take a photo up their skirt?

[Lucy Frazer]

That is a very important point, and such legislation sends a message about how people should act in relation to women.

I was mentioning those who have played a significant part in this Bill’s progress. My hon. Friend served on the Committee, and I also thank the other members of the Committee; we had an interesting debate on the provisions before the recess.

I thank, too, the other parties’ spokespeople on justice: the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), and the hon. Members for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly) and for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts). I worked closely with them as this Bill went through the House. I also extend my thanks to our hard-working Bill team, our private offices, our parliamentary private secretaries and the Whips, who can get overlooked at times. I also thank the Clerks and the other parliamentary staff for their sterling work and support on this issue.

It has been an honour to take the Bill from Second Reading through to today, particularly given the strong support from all parties across the House. I wish the Bill a safe and speedy passage through its remaining stages.