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

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

It is good of you to be here and spare your time.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Q Good morning. Thank you for coming. You said that your experience demonstrated the need for a specific victim-centred offence to cover upskirting. To what extent do you think the Bill achieves that aim?

Gina Martin: When I was upskirted—when it happened to me—it was obvious that it was to humiliate me. The pictures were taken up my skirt and passed to people around me, and it was done in response to my rebuffing their sexual advances. My aim, from the beginning, was to work on a Bill with everyone here to cover different situations. I believe the Bill does that because it covers humiliation, distress or alarm.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Q Do you think the Bill strikes the right balance between protecting the victim and protecting individuals who accidentally take such images?

Gina Martin: I do, yes.

[Ross Thomson (Aberdeen South) (Con)]

Q Thank you very much for coming in, Gina, and for everything you have done to campaign on this issue and to raise awareness—that is the reason we are here today.

Do you think the impact of the Government seeking to bring in this new legislation as soon as possible will be on the side of victims? Do you think this is the right direction to go? I would like to hear your views on whether you think we are doing the right thing, essentially.

Gina Martin: I do, yes, and I think the point you made that the speed at which we do this should be as quick as possible is really important. Upskirting happened to me at a festival a year ago yesterday, and yesterday, Sunday, I received a message from a 16-year-old girl who went to the very same festival, where it happened to her twice by the same person. That shows that this is happening as we sit here and are dealing with it. What we are doing now is absolutely imperative.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Wera, you indicated that you wanted to come back—or has the moment passed?

[Wera Hobhouse]

Q The moment has sort of passed, but the issue has not. Would you not have felt as humiliated and distressed if somebody’s motivation for taking the image was just financial gain?

Gina Martin: Can you repeat the question?

[Wera Hobhouse]

We were talking about motivation. The Bill covers two different motivations: to humiliate and cause distress and for sexual gratification. We are also looking at the possibility of other motivations, for example if somebody says, “I didn’t even know that person. I didn’t want to humiliate her and I don’t get very excited about the image, but somebody offered me money.” Would it not have distressed you in the same way if it had been done with another motivation?

Gina Martin: I do not want to sit here and imagine how I would feel if I were the victim of that exact scenario. That has been a big problem that I have dealt with—people trying to guess exactly how I felt during the situation—but it is important to remember that there could be a lot of unintended consequences from looking for solutions to the monetary gain situation.

We do not want the paparazzi to be charged as sex offenders for doing their job. We can all agree that that is not a great job to do—I do not agree with it—but they could be charged as sex offenders. They should be able to be prosecuted for outraging public decency, which they can be, and I have worked closely with celebrities who have been through that. They have talked to me in confidence about it, and they have said that because of this campaign, they have considered prosecuting for outraging public decency, which is great.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Q But we have just established that outraging public decency would not have properly covered what was done to you. Is going back and saying, “Well, they can be covered under outraging public decency,” not the same as saying, “I don’t care about anybody else because this specific thing has happened to us.”?

Gina Martin: No, not necessarily. I could have prosecuted under outraging public decency, because there were two or more people there to witness what happened to me, but I did not because the police were confused about the grey area of the law. I never did this to cover my own situation; I did it to cover every instance and help other women as well. I could have prosecuted under outraging public decency, if I had chosen to.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Q We have just established that we are introducing a new Bill because that was not good enough to help you to prosecute somebody who committed an offence. Should we not then look at another group of women? I understand that you had a particular issue yourself, but is this law not there to cover not just the individual case that you experienced, but other victims who are not exactly like you but who would feel similarly distressed if it happened to them?

Gina Martin: Yes, absolutely, but having worked with women who it has happened to for monetary gain, I believe that there is a way of doing it that is just as valuable but that does not delay this Bill or mean looking into it in this Bill. That is the truth.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Q Are you saying that you are just worried about the delay of the Bill?

Gina Martin: I am absolutely worried about the delay of the Bill. I do not think we should delay this protection being afforded to women in order to look at that, because it needs to be looked at in detail. Also, it would take one celebrity to table a report of outraging public decency to stop this happening. I have discussed that at length with the media and people this has been done to by the paparazzi.

[Alex Chalk]

Q On the paparazzi point, the Bill says that a person commits an offence if he

“does so with the intention”

that he, or another person he has passed it on to, will look at the image

“for a purpose mentioned in subsection (3)”—

that is, for sexual gratification or “humiliating, alarming or distressing” the person. In other words, if a pap takes the image and sends it on to somebody who thinks, “Hey, look at her! Look at what underwear she is wearing,” or, indeed, uses it for some perverted reason, do you think that that meets the concern that is being raised from your point of view?

Gina Martin: Again, I do not want to sit here and give legal advice, because I am not a lawyer, but there is an argument that although it does not say, “personal gain from publishing those images and other people gaining sexual gratification from them,” there is a way that the Bill covers that situation, because it covers all people in England and Wales. There is an argument that that could be covered as well in this Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

Q Thank you, Assistant Commissioner, for your answers this morning. You mentioned the desire not to unnecessarily criminalise younger people. I am keen to close this legislative gap in a proportionate way, drawing a distinction between the stupid occasion and the repeated pervert. How do the police tackle the existing offences, such as sexting, for those who are under 18?

Assistant Commissioner Hewitt: You look at all the circumstances. When the figures are produced on other sexual offending, for example, there will often be a lot of criticism levelled at us about people who get cautioned. We will, on occasion, caution people for rape offences, but if your victim and your offender have mental health issues or a mental impairment, we will take decisions based on all the circumstances. You are looking at the circumstances of the victim and of the offender, and on that basis, you will make a judgment. If you have an adult offender and a child victim, that is clearly an aggravating factor, but you will also have mitigating factors, as I said. If you have two 15-year-olds or 14-year-olds, there are mitigating factors around that, but as you alluded to in your question, if it emerges that that 14-year-old offender has done it on numerous occasions, or there is a repeated pattern of behaviour, again, that would clearly be an aggravating factor.

We would then work with the Crown Prosecution Service to identify what the correct disposal and the correct charge would be—probably the charge would be the same—and whether we would dispose of it in a charge way or whether we would use some other form of control. It is difficult to come up with a clear line. It is about individual cases and looking at the circumstances, including the nature of the offence, the nature of the victim and the circumstances of the victim and the offender. When you work against those three areas, in the centre of those criteria or questions, you come up with what you think the most appropriate position is.

We are facing that a lot with people who are sharing images. If a teenager takes an image of another teenager, having possession of that is an offence. Once you pass that around, that is another offence. We have to constantly ask the question, proportionately, what is the right thing to do? Is that the ill-advised behaviour of a 15-year-old who needs to learn some lessons and change what they do, or are they someone who needs to end up in the criminal justice system? That is a constant balancing act, particularly when you bring juveniles into play. Equally, you could get someone who does it and who has a mental health condition. They may be a 30-year-old, but they may not have the capacity of a 30-year-old. Every case will have to be dealt with on its own merits.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Q Thank you again for coming in, Assistant Commissioner. We all understand that we do not want to create legislation that puts massive burdens on the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, for which reason the main thing is that it acts as a deterrent so people do not do it in the first place—so they see that if they do any of it, it is a criminal offence.

Is it not very important, therefore, that the law is clear and that it makes all upskirting a criminal offence, full stop—no ifs, no buts? You have described a situation where you could say that an image had been taken accidentally, but someone would still end up in a court situation. Would it not be much better if the law was so clear that every upskirting was an offence—so that you would not get all these people in—because we all know it? Is that not the case?

Assistant Commissioner Hewitt: Absolutely. We always seek very clear laws, which make our job a lot easier. Defences will always be run, and some of them will have some credibility, although I would guess that most will not in this sort of instance. For me, that is absolutely right. Having that clarity around an offence that we know is taking place—and, as I said, with the kind of access people have to their phones—is really important.

Equally, the other reason that I think that is important is that this does not sit in isolation; it is part of a continuum of sexual offending. Of course, it is not a contact offence, but it is part of that continuum, and it is absolutely right that we send a clear message that it is unacceptable to do any acts that are motivated by sexual gratification and have a victim on the other end. That starts with this, but it works through sexual assault and right into rape offences. We need that clarity, which will allow us to deal with it. As I say, you deal with it proportionately once you have the investigation.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

Q You talked about clarity. From a slightly different perspective, do you think that it is important to keep the Bill focused on this specific offence, in being a deterrent for the public and getting the message out there? At all festivals next summer, I would like to see signs saying, “You will go to prison, if you commit this offence.” I would like to see clarity for officers on the beat. To widen the scope of this legislation to include other acts could mean upskirting somehow getting lost and officers not quite being as focused as perhaps they would be if the Bill were clear and simple.

Assistant Commissioner Hewitt: I agree with that entirely. As I just said, if you can reach absolute clarity in legislation, which makes it very clear where the line is and whether you have stepped over that line and that that is an offence, that is absolutely beneficial from our perspective. As we said, we can work out fairly clearly the kind of place where this happens. There has been lots in shops and supermarkets, on transport, and, as you say, at festivals, nightclubs and pubs. Having legislation that makes it very unambiguous for the people running those licences and events, so that they can be clear to everybody who comes into that place, is where we should aim to be. The more we hang things off and spread it, the harder it is to explain it to police officers and others.