Enough: The Violence Against Women and How to End It

Introduction

‘Not all men practice violence against women but all women live with the threat of male violence every single day. All over the Earth.’

– Fuad Alakbarov

It is impossible to talk about violence against women in the UK without mentioning the case of Sarah Everard. Her disappearance and the revelation of her murder in March 2021 was a terrifying reminder of the dangers faced by women going about their ordinary lives on a daily basis.

When the details around her death emerged, grief turned to anger.

The revelation that she had been kidnapped, raped and murdered by a serving police officer.

The fact that he had used his warrant card to get her into his car.

The fact that he had been previously reported for indecent exposure.

The fact that his colleagues had nicknamed him ‘the rapist’.

The fact that he was part of a WhatsApp group that shared racist, misogynistic and homophobic content with other police officers.

The violent arrest of women who turned out in their silent thousands to mourn their lost sister, to share their collective grief, to stand for change.

The revelation that an officer tasked with guarding the site of Sarah’s body had shared joking memes with colleagues showing the abduction of a woman by a police officer.

The fact that this officer has kept his job.1

The subsequent advice from the police, which placed the responsibility for women’s safety squarely with women; which told them not to go out alone.2

For those of us working in the field of women’s rights, each new revelation was all too familiar. We have seen them before.

We have seen police officers committing violence against the women they are supposed to protect. We have seen them use their authority as police officers to do it. We have seen red flag after red flag ignored until it is too late. We have seen police officers mocking, ignoring and belittling women who they are tasked with supporting. We have seen them use racist, misogynistic and homophobic language when they do so. We have seen officers who are policing protests behave aggressively to women; using close bodily contact to intimidate them; exposing their breasts while restraining them.3 Nothing about the horrific circumstances around Sarah Everard’s death was anything less than familiar.

Sarah Everard was not the first. Before her, there was Bennylyn, and there was Jellica, and there was Katie, and there was Tina, and there was Judith. After her there was Geetika, and there was Imogen, and there was Wenjing, and there was Karen, and there was Stacey. Their deaths should each be a stain on the national conscience.

My work as a barrister began in the criminal courts. I had (and have) no agenda in a criminal trial: my responsibility is solely to make sure that everyone I represent, no matter who they are or what they’re accused of, has a fair trial. I learned quickly that it is only in fiction that lawyers are on the ‘right’ side in every case. But early on, I started to notice the hallmarks of a subtler injustice. The prosecutor who joked to me about the likely sexual preferences of his witness. The judge who locked up my client without warning halfway through her trial and, when I raised her caring responsibilities for her disabled son, blithely told me she had ‘better give someone her keys’. The police officers who were called to reports of a domestic argument and arrested my client for being ‘hysterical’, ignoring her bruises and preferring the account of her ‘sensible’ partner.

More and more, my work has come to focus on representing women, whether that be defending women charged with serious violence in the criminal courts, or bringing civil cases to try to get justice for women who are failed by the police and other public bodies. I have seen how the law can be used to effect real and meaningful change, and how it can fail those who need it the most. I have seen the justice system work to hold the powerful and violent to account, and I have seen those who work within the justice system critically undermine it.

Historically, the law has been slow to keep up with contemporary attitudes to women’s rights. As recently as December 1989, a man was acquitted of rape because of the historic presumption in criminal law that a husband could not be guilty of raping his wife.4 It was not until 1991 that the House of Lords ruled that marital rape was indeed illegal.5 Even when the appropriate laws are in place, the enforcement of them can render the laws themselves meaningless: at the time of writing, just 1.6 per cent of reported rapes result in a suspect being prosecuted.6

Many women of colour, disabled women, homeless and other marginalised women know all too well that the justice system will not help them. It should not take the violent death of another innocent woman for the broader public to realise how dire the situation is. It should not take personal experience of the justice system to learn that it is failing. A functioning justice system is the safety net of a fair society. As with the NHS, we each hope never to really need it, but we must know that if we ever do, it works.

This book looks at the stark facts about violence against women. It examines what we can learn from the data and where the statistics are letting us down. It discusses the failings within the justice system and how we can, and must, implement meaningful changes to make it work for everyone.

It is an appeal for action.

It is a call to arms.

This book does not:

provide legal advice. The law is a thing of nuance, caveats and distinctions. Where it has been necessary to explain the law, I have done so briefly – if I had done so fully, it would have added several hundred largely irrelevant pages to this book. It goes without saying, I hope, that nothing in this book should be taken as legal advice.

use only one type of language. I have worked with, and continue to work with, many women who have experienced violence and abuse of all kinds. Some prefer to be called victims, in recognition of the violence they have suffered. Some prefer to be called survivors, to acknowledge their own power over their trauma. In recognition of this I have used both words. In a legal context, before an allegation has been formally proven, the person making that allegation is called the complainant; there are occasions when I have used that. It is not intended to suggest doubt about what is being alleged; it is simply a lawyer’s need for accuracy.

In some cases names, places and other details have been changed to protect anonymity.

Part One

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS: THE REALITY

Homicide

She provoked him

The Law

Murder: Where a person of sound mind unlawfully kills another person with the intent to kill them, or to cause them really serious harm.

Relevant law: Contrary to the common law.

Maximum sentence if convicted: Life imprisonment (mandatory for all murder convictions).

Manslaughter (diminished responsibility): Where a person kills another intending to kill them or cause them really serious harm but was suffering from an ‘abnormality of mental functioning’ at the time of the killing so as to reduce their responsibility for it.1

Relevant law: Section 52 of the Coroner’s and Justice Act 2009.

Maximum sentence if convicted: Life imprisonment.

What the Statistics Say

In the UK, 93 per cent of murders are committed by men.2

An average of two women a week are killed by a partner or ex-partner.3

Sixty-two per cent of women killed die at the hands of a partner or ex-partner.4

Between 2009 and 2018, 23 per cent of the women over 60 who were murdered were killed by their own son.5

During the same period, in 79 per cent of cases where a woman was murdered by a man, the ethnicity of the victim was not recorded.6 Where the ethnicity of the victim was recorded, the language used ranged from the meaningless (‘Dark European’) to the outdated and offensive (‘Oriental’).7

Of all female homicide victims, 71 per cent are killed at home.8

In 55 per cent of cases where a woman is murdered by a man, there is evidence of ‘overkilling’ – the use of excessive, gratuitous violence beyond that which is necessary to cause death.9

The Fuller Picture

On New Year’s Eve 2017, just before midnight, David Clark dialled 999 and told the operator he had killed his wife, Melanie. They had argued. She had told him that she wanted him to leave and that she would call the police to remove him from the property the next day. He stabbed her to death.

At his trial, Clark – a former military medic – claimed that he had suffered a loss of control and so was guilty only of manslaughter, not murder. He claimed this loss of control had arisen after Melanie had taunted him about the size of his penis and as a result of a lesbian affair that he alleged she’d had. Melanie, of course, could not respond to these allegations.10

During the trial, newspaper headlines read:

‘Murder suspect accused of stabbing wife to death because she belittled the size of his penis claims lesbian affair at centre of argument’ – Daily Record11

‘Husband killed wife after she mocked the size of his penis’ – Metro12

‘Man murdered wife after sending messages to relatives alleging lesbian affair, court hears’ – Independent13

‘Estate agent stabbed wife to death in rage after row about her lesbian affair and taunts over his small d**k’ – Mirror14

‘First picture of lover in lesbian tryst row which saw estate agent kill wife over small penis jibes’ – Birmingham Mail15

‘Pictured: the daughter of estate agent’s best friend whose tryst with his wife led to murder after she taunted him about his failings as a man’ – Daily Mail16

Each headline, even those published after his conviction, focused on David Clark’s story – a story that was rejected by the jury when they convicted him of murder. His false allegations were, seemingly, more interesting than Melanie’s silence.

Melanie Clark was the last of the 139 women known to have been killed by men in 2017.17 Rarely do statistics tell us the full story where violence against women is concerned. When