Voyeurism (Offences) (No. 2) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-10-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Jonathan Marks (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, upskirting is nasty, predatory, degrading and invasive behaviour. It inflicts significant emotional damage upon its victims, as described by my noble friend Lady Burt and others. While, as my noble friend Lady Barker pointed out, it has similarities to revenge porn, which we rightly and successfully criminalised in 2015, upskirting is markedly different from revenge porn in that its victims are generally unknown to the perpetrators and suffer this appalling unpleasantness, which may leave them with serious emotional scars for years to come, just because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time It is significant and welcome that there has been absolutely no dissent in this short but excellent debate on criminalising upskirting. I too pay tribute to my honourable friend Wera Hobhouse MP for the skill and determination with which she pioneered her Private Member’s Bill and secured the Government’s support that has led to this Bill. I thank the Government for taking it on and the Minister for the clarity of his introduction I also pay tribute to Gina Martin. She was enjoying a visit to the British Summertime Festival, a 26 year-old woman with no political or legal experience, when a man who was with a friend took a photo up her skirt on his phone and then very publicly texted it to all his friends in the surrounding crowd, causing her considerable distress. The police attended and told her there was nothing that she or they could do because upskirting was not an offence in England and Wales, unlike in Scotland, where it was criminalised 2009. That prompted Gina Martin to launch and champion a very successful petition and to campaign vigorously to make upskirting an offence. She has been an example to us all of what individual campaigning can do to secure real change What has horrified many has been not just that upskirting has become so widespread but that it has been accompanied by the development of large numbers of websites where upskirting images have been publicly displayed. This was mentioned by my noble friend Lady Burt, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and others, while the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge talked about dealing with the question of distribution. We must be absolutely sure that legislation captures this type of behaviour I turn to the detail of the Bill. The first issue for consideration has been raised by all noble Lords: whether it is necessary to specify that to constitute an offence the upskirting must be carried out either for the sexual gratification of the perpetrator or another, or in order to humiliate, alarm or distress the victim. The Government maintain that, given the lack of consent requirement in the Bill, all non-consensual upskirting is likely to be committed for one or other of those specified purposes. I acknowledge, and on this I share the view of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, that it is quite difficult to see circumstances where upskirting will be committed without one of those specified purposes in mind. However, I remain to be convinced that there will never be such circumstances or that the specified purposes will always be capable of proof to the criminal standard As one might expect, I do not share my noble friend Lady Burt’s distrust of sneaky defence barristers. Defence counsel have a duty to advance all defences available to their clients. For my part, I would not want to offer those who ought to be convicted a gratuitous and undeserved route to acquittal by erecting artificial hurdles for the prosecution to surmount My concern is that there may be incidents of upskirting where the perpetrator could argue that he had no view to his own sexual gratification or that of anyone else, no intention of humiliating, alarming or distressing the victim and that his interest was mere entertainment or banter with friends We should remember the important fact that any victim who is aware of the upskirting and of the distribution of the resulting images, or even of the risk of distribution, will inevitably suffer humiliation, alarm and distress. But intention to cause it may be difficult to prove. Should we be requiring the prosecution to prove it, allowing a defendant to argue, for example, that his victim was entirely unaware of the incident? For my part, I would regard any such defence as of absolutely no merit, but I can foresee such defences being run and doubt that they should be available The question of financial gain arises in this context also. If the perpetrator’s purpose is financial gain from distributing images on websites, will the prosecution always be able prove that it follows that his purpose was the sexual gratification of another person or persons looking at the websites? That is apparently the Government’s argument, but I remain to be convinced that it is right, or, even if it is right, that it is necessary to import that somewhat complicated and convoluted logic into the Bill. If the purposes provision is to remain in the Bill, the question arises why financial gain and entertainment should not be added to the purposes specified in the Bill Viewing the question from the opposite point of view to that of the Government, if all non-consensual upskirting would fall within the specified purposes, what is the point of specifying them? The Minister argues that only upskirting for sexual gratification should lead to notification—that is, entry on the sex offender register—so that purpose and others must be distinguished. I can see that. However, the Bill could be simply amended to provide that notification followed only where the offence was committed for the purpose of sexual gratification of the offender. We will explore this in Committee Having carefully considered the Government’s position, I agree with other noble Lords who believe that recording upskirting images without the actual or believed consent of the victim should be enough to constitute an offence and the prosecution should not have to prove one of the specified purposes. I will listen, of course, to the Minister’s response, but I invite the Government to think again on this point My noble friend Lady Burt also raised the question of misogyny and whether there should be aggravating factors in the offence under the Bill. I can quite see the argument that an offence that is accompanied by hostile and misogynistic behaviour should be treated particularly seriously by judges when sentencing offenders. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, pointed out that that is precisely what sentencing judges do. Whether or not that should be mentioned specifically in the Bill is open to question and may be considered in Committee However, I have no doubt that the House welcomes the commitment by Lucy Frazer, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Justice, a commitment mentioned by the Minister, that she will be asking the Law Commission to review whether and how far existing hate crime law should be broadened to give greater protection against hostility based on sex and gender-protected characteristics We enthusiastically welcome this Bill; we are proud that it was introduced as a Private Member’s Bill by a Liberal Democrat MP; we applaud the Government for adopting it; and we look forward to considering it further as it passes through the House.