No-fault Sexual Misadventure: A Proposal to David Lammy MP

David Lammy MP

David Lammy MP was made Justice Secretary in the recent cabinet reshuffle, Keir Starmer deciding for some reason the role can be managed even if split with being Deputy Prime Minister.

Shortly afterwards, Scotland scrapped the very sane, 300 year-old ‘unproven verdicts’, after the only charge the falsely accused Alex Salmond was found ‘nearly’ guilty of was instead found ‘unproven’. This, evidently, proved intolerable to Nicola Sturgeon (her removal from power irrelevant in these circles) and her legal-dominance feminist friends, and their campaign to abolish one of the few levers stopping more men and boys going to prison has been removed.

You must be aware by now Mr Lammy that this is entirely a device to increase conviction targets for alleged rape and sexual assault - and is presumably part of your government’s much-vaunted target of ‘reducing sexual and violence against women and girls by half this decade’.

But, all the statistics and emotioneering on which these moves are based are artificial. Domestic violence is 50/50, sexual assault criteria has been expanded to include all contested sex, even after the fact or third-party reported, and no one in Parliament has the guts to take on your colleague Jess Phillips and her seemingly all-powerful VAWG (Violence Against Women and Girls) cartel in Westminster.

While no one seems to stay in their cabinet jobs long enough to make any real difference, you could do something to help men, women, the falsely accused and those that love them by adopting a handful of suggestions. While Scotland bins its unproven verdict, England and Wales should introduce a separate, no-fault Sexual Misadventure category, to be tried in inquisitive rather than adversarial tribunals in your new specialist ‘sexual offences’ courts.

The Crown Prosecution Service, College of Policing and CCRC (even though the latter is meant to be independent) need to show a commitment to weeding out anti fair justice identity politics - and a start could be made by vetting judges and government lawyers for historical affiliations with feminist activism. The same applies to critical race theory. You need to make sackings and appoint new heads with this pro-citizen (rather than theory-indulgent) impartiality in mind. The identity politics that have so damaged life in the 21st century so far have no place in the British justice system.

Sex-balanced juries should be selected for all domestic violence, sexual assault and other allegations of ‘new culture crime’, i.e. the selection must still be random (if they indeed are), but from two separate pools, male and female. You must be able to see the problem of having nine female jurors to four men on one rape and sexual assault trial - yes this does happen - how can such juries be infallible when everyone is already bringing such cultural baggage into the jury room?

A few years ago there was a push to change ‘offender’ language across the Ministry of Justice, and this was a good thing. However, the label ‘sex offenders’ is still used by politicians and everywhere else, when this is incorrect: the identity is neither the crime nor the allegation of it. They are people convicted of sexual offences, or PCOSOs. Language is important, as you know well. Your Labour Party used to be champions of non-labelling, people first policies.

As former MP and President of Falsely Accused in the Context of Trust (FACT), Harvey Proctor recently wrote in an article in Spiked, the State has no business interfering the physical integrity of individuals, re chemical castration. While there are a tiny minority of individuals who would benefit from this, and acknowledge it, there must be absolutely no compulsion to do so with the carrot of early release. It should be a multi-checked medical agreement, not a legal protection. Remember national war hero Alan Turing.

On a related point, an American firm, Meta, says that ‘sex offenders’ aren’t permitted on their platforms (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram etc). How is a foreign firm permitted to reference English and Welsh law in this way? And, is the ban lifetime? What of freedom of association? And, what about those maintaining innocence?

In a society increasingly with social media woven into it, this decision marginalises the PCOSO even more - making them more likely to find alternative outlets for their desire to communicate.

So a new category of Sexual Misadventure, sex-balanced juries, vetted judges and lawyers and a corporate change of language away from politically convenient demonisation could be a route to making meaningful change to a broken justice system.

I’m not saying you broke it, but it is broken - and you are in a unique position to do something about it.

By Sean Bw Parker