Spiking Incidents: Prevention

Siobhan Baillie Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I rise in support of my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), and I congratulate him on securing this important debate and on his recognition in the recent new year’s honours.

I mainly wanted to join this debate about spiking, date rape and all that comes with it because I and many in my constituency of Stroud are working really hard to tackle violence against women and girls. Our local police, Stroud Women’s Refuge, the Nelson Trust, campaign groups such as This Ends Now, Safe Space, businesses and local schools are all urging for societal and legislative change to protect women and girls and change behaviours, so I know they will expect me to be active on this issue.

According to YouGov, one in nine women claims that they have been a victim of spiking and 6% of men have also been targeted, so it is right that this issue receives some serious attention in this place. The date rape cases are probably quite familiar to most of the public—as covered in the soaps, Rohypnol and GHB are commonly used and are undetectable in drinks—but other drugs are now being used, with people becoming more and more creative in their use of spiking to commit assault. People have long been aware of how to deal with drink spiking. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester, the advice goes out to young women that if they go to a nightclub, they should put their hands over their glasses and not leave their drinks, but it is nigh on impossible for them to protect themselves from somebody brushing up against them with a needle. The police are left literally trying to find a needle in a haystack.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester has previously spoken movingly about his constituent Maisy Farmer. It is anybody’s worst nightmare to not know what happened to them the night before, but then they have to go through the absolute hell of worrying about whether they have contracted HIV or hepatitis and waiting for the results. That is a double horror.

We are dealing with faceless criminals, and the police are really stuck with what to do. We need to raise awareness about reporting incidents, going and getting help, and being tested very quickly, but we also need to help our nightclub staff, police and medics, because it is clear to me that they are asking for support. A legislative change would raise the bar and completely change the game on these offences.

I pay tribute to the Gloucestershire police and crime commissioner, Chris Nelson, who quickly gripped this issue. He was the first in the UK to launch an operation to tackle spiking in the nightclub economy. In Stroud, we are reopening our nightclub after a very long period because of the pandemic, and I will be working with the police to ensure that the police and crime commissioner’s work is known well throughout our towns.

I welcome the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester on this issue, and I will continue to watch closely and to see how we can find more ways to protect men and women in Stroud, Gloucestershire and beyond. I love the fact that we have raised it to an issue of national security by accident and that we have such an eminent Minister in our midst, but this is very serious and I am pleased to see so many Members present. Well done to my hon. Friend for bringing it forward.