You may have seen on the news recently that using “rough sex” as a defence to excuse crimes of sexual violence will be banned later this year.
This amendment will rule out “consent for sexual gratification” as a defence for causing serious harm in England and Wales. Labour’s Harriet Harman called the addition to the Domestic Abuse Bill, signed by the Home Secretary Priti Patel and Justice Secretary Robert Buckland, a “milestone moment in battle to challenge male violence against women”.
The Domestic Abuse Bill
The measures in the bill seek to:
promote awareness
protect and support victims
transform the justice response, including by helping victims to give their best evidence in criminal courts
improve performance in the response to domestic abuse across all local areas and agencies
The case which you may have heard or seen on the news, is the case of Grace Millane.
Grace Millane was a British backpacker who was killed whilst in New Zealand. Her killer, a 28 year old man, strangled Grace in a hotel room in Auckland, hid her body in a suitcase and buried it in bushland. He claimed the 21 year old died accidentally after the pair engaged in rough sex and it ‘went too far’. His defence even presented her internet search history and spoke of her previous sex life, in order to show she consented to being strangled.
He was jailed for 17 years.
Natalie Connolly was killed by her boyfriend, John Broadhurst.
In court he claimed she had consented to “rough sex” and was found guilty of the lesser sentence charge of manslaughter and sentenced to 3 years and 8 months.
The judge in the case told Broadhurst that his victim has consented.
Broadhurst inflicted more than 40 injuries on Ms Connolly, including serious internal trauma, fractured eye socket, facial wounds and heavy bleeding. She was left to die at the bottom of the stairs after he failed to call 999 until the next morning. This all happened after a night of drinking and using cocaine.
The court’s decision painted Broadhurst as a man who just misunderstood how injured Connolly was at the end of it all, as if her death was not the direct result of his actions.
Anna Florence Reed, 22 years old from Harrogate.
She was found dead in a hotel room where she had been staying with her 29 year old boyfriend. Her cause of death is suspected suffocation and she suffered from cuts and fractures.
Her boyfriend stated she had died in a ‘sex game gone wrong’.
Chargers are still to be brought.
Dawn Warburton. Her killer was cleared of all charges.
Mark Pickford, 39, was charged with manslaughter after police found him asleep in Dawn’s blood-stained bed, beneath her hanging dead body. He stated it was a ‘sex game gone wrong’.
The jury was told how the two shared texts before the death- one reads “you’re getting tied up, I will treat you like a random victim”.
What is being done?
We Can’t Consent To This is a campaign group who states “this is a response”.
“We are extremely concerned by normalised violence against women in sex”.
There is at least 60 UK women killed who’s killer use the “rough sex” defence. BBC published research that suggests more than a third of women ages 18-39 had experienced unwanted slapping, choking, gagging or spitting during consensual sex.
In the past decade “sex games gone wrong” killings have risen by 90%. Two thirds involve strangulation.
Problems in porn culture
The “rough sex” defence also known as the “Fifty Shades of Grey defence” shows how violence against women is being normalised in porn culture.
The Centre for Women’s Justice told the BBC the figures showed the “growing pressure on young women to consent to violent, dangerous and demeaning acts”. “It is likely to be due to the widespread availability, normalisation and use of extreme pornography”.
We Can’t Consent To This revealed how it is common in “rough sex” defence cases, that the killer often watched violent pornography.
How To Help?
Follow this link or search We Can’t Consent To This. On the campaign’s website you can find information and advice on how to help, including how to email local MPs and petition’s to sign.
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