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

Jessica Morden Excerpts

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

[The Chair]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We will follow the usual house-keeping arrangements. The shirt-sleeve order is in order. Will Members and anybody in the Public Gallery—who I cannot see because I am not allowed to—please make sure to switch their mobile phones off? We will now hear oral evidence from the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller). We have until 2.30 pm to ask questions. I thank you for joining us, Mrs Miller.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

Q 49 Hello. You have tabled several amendments to the Bill. Can I start by asking you to explain their purpose, what they are about and why, in your view, they will make the Bill better?

Mrs Miller: Thank you very much for allowing me to give evidence as we consider the Bill, Sir Roger. The amendments I propose, which have support from Members of every single political party, including some Members here, seek to do two things: first, to change the purposes mentioned in the Bill, and secondly, to introduce a new item to the Bill covering distribution.

Several people feel that the listed purposes are too tightly drawn. I have worked on the amendment with Professor Clare McGlynn, who is a professor of law at Durham University. It is her clear concern that recognising offences only if they are for the purposes of either sexual gratification or the humiliation of the victim would mean that a number of cases could never be tried. That is important, because the Government have made it clear from the start that the Bill is intended to close a loophole in the law. It does not do that as presently drafted. It will need to be more broadly drafted and not simply focus on those two different purposes.

The amendments have been drafted after my having looked at comments from people such as David Ormerod, a law commissioner who has clearly set out that “motive is irrelevant to liability” in criminal law. “Smith and Hogan’s Criminal Law”, which I understand is the bible on criminal law issues, sets out that motives form an element of an offence only in exceptional circumstances when it comes to criminal law. The example given in that book is of racially aggravated offences in which racism is an element.

In many ways the Bill is anomalous, inasmuch as it sets out purposes, whereas three quarters of offences in the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which, after all, the Bill amends, do not require one. The Minister asserted during the Second Reading Committee that the amendments would

“reverse the burden of proof”.—[Official Report, Second Reading Committee, 2 July 2018; c. 18.]

David Ormerod, a law commissioner, does not agree, hence my belief that the amendment should stand.

The second amendment relates to the distribution of material. Shortly after Scotland passed a similar law to outlaw upskirting, they realised that they had no way of stopping the distribution of those images. They had to pass a subsequent piece of legislation—the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016—so I found it quite surprising that the Government would bring forward the Bill based on the Scottish Act but not include the subsequent legislation on distribution.

To finish this final point—sorry my answer has been so long—at the moment the revenge pornography law, section 33 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015, would apply to stop the distribution of upskirting images only in cases where they would cause distress. It would not stop the distribution of those images in any other circumstances. There is clearly a loophole in the law around distribution. I believe that this amendment would close that loophole.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

Q May I take up the issue about motive? The offence in the Bill requires one or other of two purposes:

“obtaining sexual gratification (whether for A or C)”—

in other words, for the taker or for a third party—or

“humiliating, alarming or distressing B.”

What are credible additional or alternative motives for someone taking a photograph up someone’s skirt?

Mrs Miller: Professor Clare McGlynn has set this out in evidence to the Committee, having looked at this issue since 2015 when she first thought there was an upskirting loophole that needed to be filled. I commend that evidence to the Committee as giving a full answer. She feels strongly that there are clear cases where it would not be easy to prove sexual gratification or humiliation as a motivation of the perpetrator. She gave two particular examples for posting images: for financial gain or simply having a bit of fun. The individual may not be recognisable, so humiliation would not be caused. If those images were then posted to a WhatsApp group, that would not be caught by this law.