Absolutely. I completely agree. Men are using the narrative of women’s sexual enjoyment of being injured to escape murder charges and face only manslaughter charges. Instead of being imprisoned for life, they are out in just a few years. The woman’s grieving family, though, are never free from their loss or the stain on her reputation. What an irony it is that the narrative of women’s sexual empowerment is being used by men who inflict fatal injuries. It is what I describe as the “Fifty Shades of Grey” defence.
The killing of Natalie Connolly is the worst case that I have come across, but it is far from the only case. In that case, not only were the relatives absolutely distraught, but the jurors were dismayed that the man had not faced a murder charge. They approached the relatives on the steps of the court and said, “What on earth happened?” They even approached me, which was unprecedented: jurors had never come to me before. We can change the law in the Bill. There is case law on this. In 1993, in R v. Brown, the House of Lords, which preceded the Supreme Court, ruled that if injuries are serious a defendant cannot claim as a defence that the victim consented. We need that in statute, so that it is right there under the noses of the Crown Prosecution Service and the judges.
For years, men got away with murder, claiming, “She asked for it.” Now we have to shut down this modern version of the defence. I want to say to the relatives of Natalie Connolly that we can see that she was a wonderful young woman. We can see that she was a precious daughter, a devoted mother, a twin sister, a beloved granddaughter. We recognise who she was, and that is what we want them to remember. We will get justice for her in a change in the law.