An MP has advised the House of Commons that she was raped after an event that she attended as a member of parliament, revealing that she waited 1,088 days for her case to get to courtroom.
Speaking at a debate on Tuesday to debate modifications to the legislation beneath which some jury trials would be limited, Charlotte Nichols mentioned she was waiving her proper to anonymity to discuss her personal expertise and opposition to the invoice.
Nichols mentioned the crime and the almost-three-year look ahead to her trial, throughout which she was focused with abuse by strangers on social media, had left her with PTSD. She mentioned the person she accused had been acquitted after a prison trial, however a compensation order had been made after a “successful civil process” that she mentioned “recognises me as a blameless victim of a violent crime”.
“I care profoundly about rape victims facing intolerable delays for their day in court. I know only too well what that feels like as after being raped at an event that I attended in my capacity as a member of parliament, I waited 1,088 days to go to court,” she mentioned within the House of Commons. “Every single one of those days was agony made worse by having a role in public life. That meant that the mental health consequences of my trauma were played out in public.”
But Nichols mentioned she needed to inform her story as a result of “experiences like mine feel like they’ve been weaponised and are being used for rhetorical misdirection”.
She accused the justice secretary, David Lammy, of utilizing rape victims as a “cudgel” to drive by way of modifications to jury trials and mentioned the federal government ought to deal with introducing specialist rape courts, arguing that the transition away from jury trials in sure instances might take up time “an already overstretched system”.
“It is because I have endured every indignity that our broken criminal justice system could mete out that I care [that] reform will actually deliver justice for survivors and victims of crime more widely,” she mentioned. “Despite their best efforts and the publication of our groundbreaking VAWG [violence against women and girls] strategy, there is so much that we can be doing for rape victims that isn’t the lord chancellor using them as a cudgel to drive through reforms.”
She added: “We need far greater safeguards for those giving evidence, and actually we need a reframing of the fact that legally, you are a witness in your own trial.”
Measures in the courts and tribunals bill – which had its second studying on Tuesday – would create a brand new prison courtroom the place judges would hear instances on their very own; magistrates-only hearings for offences that carry a most sentence of two years or much less; judge-only trials for advanced fraud instances and the remove the automatic right of appeal from the magistrates courtroom.
The Labour MP for Walthamstow, Stella Creasy, intervened to reward Nichols for her “strength” in making the speech. “I want to speak on behalf of everybody in this chamber in saying we are with her every step of the way so damn proud of her,” she mentioned.
