If youâre a UK-based radical/gender critical feminist interested in irl meetings with other women, please get in touch. Iâm going to try to start organising again.
hello! are you still open to hearing from uk radfems that would like to potentially meet/connect? <3 i am a uk radfem and none of my friends are and itâs very lonely and tough going
Hello - yes, Iâm still putting women in touch and organising, though Iâm only able to update this account occasionally. If youâre interested in meeting other UK-based radical feminists (adults only), please reach out. Thanks!
Inspectorate points to challenges including ban on using washing machines for knickers and difficulties with family contact
Women in prison are resorting to self-harm because of âastonishing gapsâ in basic services including strict time limits when contacting their children and bans from using washing machines for dirty underwear, according to a watchdogâs report.
A survey of women in prisons in England found that âthe frustrations of day-to-day lifeâ and a âlack of basic careâ were driving many to hurt themselves.
Women offenders were struggling to keep in touch with loved ones with a third receiving no face to face visits at all, a report released by HM Inspector of Prisons said.
A âbasic lack of decencyâ compounded these challenges, inspectors found. Women were given ill-fitting prison-issue menâs clothes, while âa bizarre ruleâ prevented them from laundering underwear in a washing machine.
Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector, said: âDisappointingly, this report highlights a lack of basic care to help women cope day by day which, for some, is then a cause of self-harm.â
There are more than 3,600 female prisoners in England, held in 12 prisons. More than half have children under the age of 18.
In three of the four prisons surveyed, about a third of the women were more than 50 miles from home and at one of the sites it was over half of women.
None of the prisons provided transport to and from nearby train or bus stations. Inspectors said that the prisonersâ families were often unable to afford expensive taxi fares to get to the prisons and often attended âshort, inflexibleâ visit sessions.
Secure video calls were available at all four sites, but the women were often frustrated by a limit of one call a month.
âThe calls were not being used creatively to support women, for example in enabling them to read a bedtime story to their child, or to facilitate attendance at parentsâ evenings,â the report said.
It found 84% of women felt unable to cope at some point in prison, and that the needs of women in prison exceeded the capabilities of prison staff and their environment.
None of the prisons allowed women to wash their underwear in a washing machine and instead they had to wash it by hand in a small bowl in their cell, a policy not found in menâs prisons.
One offender told the inspectors: âI wash all my socks and underwear in the same bowl, but you only get one bowl and on a weekend, you get your razor. So, you got to do everything [referring to shaving, washing up and cleaning underwear] in that same bowl ⊠its unhygienic.â
Another woman described arriving with only one pair of knickers. She was forced to hand wash them every night for months as no spare pairs were available, the report said.
Women, in particular those remanded into custody, often arrived with few belongings and relied on what the prison could provide.
In one prison there was no footwear available in sizes four to six, the most common sizes for women, the report continued.
âIt was astonishing to find that most sites were not issuing prison clothing designed for women,â inspectors said.
Across womenâs prisons, the self-harm rate is 5,785 incidents per 1,000 prisoners, which was more than eight times higher than in menâs prisons â 664 incidents per 1,000 prisoners.
In an interview with the Guardian last month, the prisons minister, Lord Timpson, said the government planned to reverse the increase in the number of women being sent to jail. Instead, hundreds of female offenders could be tagged and sent to addiction and rehabilitation centres, he said.
Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, said the report was âshockingâ and âa wake-up callâ for her department.
âWe must do things differently which is why â as part of our Plan for Change to make our streets safer â we have launched a new womenâs justice board to reduce the number of women in prison, and better support those who must still be imprisoned.â
If you might be interested in meeting other young (<40) radical feminist women in the UK, please consider reaching out and letâs see what we can organised!
If you might be interested in meeting other young (<40) radical feminist women in the UK, please consider reaching out and letâs see what we can organised!
Focus is now on LONDON, MANCHESTER, and LEEDS. If youâre based in or around these three cities and would like to connect with other feminist women irl, please reach out! Thanks to everyone whoâs got in touch already.
If you might be interested in meeting other young (<40) radical feminist women in the UK, please consider reaching out and letâs see what we can organised!
Focus is now on LONDON, MANCHESTER, and LEEDS. If youâre based in or around these three cities and would like to connect with other feminist women irl, please reach out! Thanks to everyone whoâs got in touch already.
If you might be interested in meeting other young (<40) radical feminist women in the UK, please consider reaching out and letâs see what we can organised!
If you might be interested in meeting other young (<40) radical feminist women in the UK, please consider reaching out and letâs see what we can organised!
Women Create! Is the worldâs first ever conference exclusively for cancelled female and feminist artists from across the political spectrum
Women Create! Is the worldâs first ever conference exclusively for cancelled female and feminist artists from across the political spectrum
Saturday 14th June : Race, Sex, and Class
Join us for Race, Sex, and Class - a thought-provoking conference on how these factors intersect and how to chart a way forward
Join us for Race, Sex, and Class - a thought-provoking conference on how these factors intersect and how to chart a way forward
Sat 26 July - Sun 27 July : The Global Silencing of Women
This conference will help us share information about how to defend women's rights. The conference theme will be the Global Silencing of Women. If you canât attend in person you can join us online.
The Global Silencing of Women
WDI International Conference 26-27 July 2025 London, UK
WDI invite you to a women only, hybrid in...
10th-12th October : FiLiA
Learn about Womenâs Rights and Global Feminism
Meet the women who are challenging sex-based injustices across the world.
Build your Feminist Network. Leave inspired.
Book your tickets today to participate in the larges annual feminist conference in Europe. Learn about global feminism and be inspired by th
Please feel free to add any events I have missed. I am not affiliated with any of the above organisations and cannot guarantee any of the events.
Women Create! Is the worldâs first ever conference exclusively for cancelled female and feminist artists from across the political spectrum
Women Create! Is the worldâs first ever conference exclusively for cancelled female and feminist artists from across the political spectrum
Saturday 14th June : Race, Sex, and Class
Join us for Race, Sex, and Class - a thought-provoking conference on how these factors intersect and how to chart a way forward
Join us for Race, Sex, and Class - a thought-provoking conference on how these factors intersect and how to chart a way forward
Sat 26 July - Sun 27 July : The Global Silencing of Women
This conference will help us share information about how to defend women's rights. The conference theme will be the Global Silencing of Women. If you canât attend in person you can join us online.
The Global Silencing of Women
WDI International Conference 26-27 July 2025 London, UK
WDI invite you to a women only, hybrid in...
10th-12th October : FiLiA
Learn about Womenâs Rights and Global Feminism
Meet the women who are challenging sex-based injustices across the world.
Build your Feminist Network. Leave inspired.
Book your tickets today to participate in the larges annual feminist conference in Europe. Learn about global feminism and be inspired by th
Please feel free to add any events I have missed. I am not affiliated with any of the above organisations and cannot guarantee any of the events.
Adam Dennis, 39, and Robert Morgan, 33, 'hunted' for teenage girls in pools around East London and Surrey for over four years and made catal
A gang of voyeurs hid in changing rooms at swimming pools to secretly film more than 5,000 young women getting undressed, a court heard.
Adam Dennis, 39, and Robert Morgan, 33, 'hunted' for teenage girls and made catalogues of their pictures to share and trade online.
Father-of-one Dennis even made 'profile documents' of his victims using social media and swimming pool club records.
Inner London Crown Court heard the gang spent days hanging around the pools in East London and Surrey for over four years between April 2013 and November 2017.
Their sick videos were only discovered when police raided fellow conspirator Miguel Jose Sainz's home and were horrified to find thousands of pictures on his devices.
The whereabouts of fellow voyeur Sainz is not known while the fourth conspirator, Declan Golden, has fled to the United States.
The court heard that the voyeur gang would sneak into changing rooms during the day and lock themselves away in cubicles, lying in wait for unsuspecting victims.
The conspirators would then conceal a small hidden camera in a bag and push it underneath the cubicle partition, allowing the camera, which was recording, to film young women undressing.
The technique, which the four called 'hunting' meant their victims would only ever see the bag partially poking out.
After capturing footage, the four would then select and edit their favourite clips into short videos and share them amongst themselves.
Morgan and his companions discussed their techniques online and even met up in person to carry out their twisted fantasies together.
They discussed 'hunting' for 'OTs' which referred to older teenagers who had reached puberty but were below 18.
Messages read out in court from Dennis to Golden said: 'I wish I could have seen some of my OTs from my school days as they were then.
Golden told Dennis: 'I have another OT on the lower end of the spectrum if you know what I mean, not really my cup of tea but it might be good for trading material.
'Mr Golden told Mr Dennis that it was 'kind of exciting to find a whole new side to you, especially one I have myself.'
'I think it's because they would be more embarrassed than anyone else.'
Gang leader Dennis, who has a 19-month-old son, and the group also cross-referenced their videos with swimming pool visitor logs and researched their victims, creating a huge database.
The group regularly discussed their sick activities, describing their enjoyment of having 'power' over their victims and getting a thrill from stalking them online.
Judge Benedict Kelleher told the two men said: 'You engaged both of you in a conspiracy which involved two other men as well.
'It aimed at obtaining images of women and girls getting undressed in changing rooms principally in swimming pools, and then storing them, editing them, sharing them with each other and in your case Mr Dennis matching them up with other information you had discovered about the women that you were photographing.
'The principle locations were two public swimming pools.
'Both of you, it appears, regularly went to those places with covert photographic equipment and spent many hours hiding in changing rooms waiting to photograph women and girls who came into the adjacent changing room or cubicle.
'You plainly both put a great deal of effort into the planning of this kind of offending.
'You put a lot of thought and consideration into the kind of equipment that you needed.
'Indeed both of you discussed also going with other conspirators, together referring to it as 'hunting'.
'The scope of this was frankly enormous.â
'Both of you were frequently visiting locations and taking pictures, and its suggested by prosecution creating...5,000 separate sets of images.
'You, Mr Dennis put a huge amount effort into collating them.
'You could create effectively a profile of each of the women and girls you had photographed for further depraved satisfaction on your part.â
Ringleader Dennis was jailed for 22 months while Morgan, who describes himself as a part-time musician and senior webcast producer, was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment suspended for two years.
in South Korea there's a big issue of spy cams who film women and girls as you're aware and post them online. there are also hundreds of forums posting explicit material of female celebrities. men who do this are NOT punished. meanwhile there was a woman who posted a leaked (i tihnk?) video of a male celebrity masturbating in front of a camera and she was severely punished . porn is an instrument of misogynistic humuliation
Five women have told the BBC about Judge Philip Lancaster's behaviour at employment tribunal hearings.
Five women have accused a judge of bullying and sexist behaviour during employment tribunal hearings.
One woman told BBC News Judge Philip Lancaster had shouted at her at least 16 times, while another said she feared for any woman appearing before him.
The women, who encountered him in separate cases, said they wanted to highlight his "degrading behaviour".
Mr Lancaster has not responded to questions from the BBC.
All the women we have spoken to lost cases heard in Leeds in front of Judge Lancaster, although some of them have been fully or partially successful on appeal.
Employment tribunals are specialist courts that rule on disputes between employers and employees. There are about 30,000 hearings in England, Scotland and Wales each year, centring around issues such as unfair dismissal, discrimination or redundancy payments. Northern Ireland has a separate system.
Dr Hinaa Toheed, a GP, appeared before Judge Lancaster at an employment tribunal in February 2022, while bringing a case of maternity discrimination against her former business partner.
She says that on the first morning of her hearing the judge described her case as an "omnishambles".
Dr Toheed says as soon as she started giving evidence, the judge took over cross-examining her from the barrister representing her former partner, and tried to bully her into conceding points that supported the other side's case.
"If I didn't agree with anything that he said, he would shout at me," she says.
At the end of the first day, Dr Toheed's legal team became concerned that Judge Lancaster was behaving in an intimidating and aggressive manner towards her.
They noted down each time he shouted at Dr Toheed while she was giving evidence, counting 16 separate occasions over three days.
Dr Toheed says that her lawyers considered asking the judge to stand down from the case but concluded that such a move would almost certainly be unsuccessful and might well simply antagonise him further.
She lost her case but is appealing against the tribunal's findings.
Dr Toheed complained to the Courts and Tribunal Judiciary about Judge Lancaster, accusing him of "an inappropriately hostile attitude" towards her.
Her complaint was considered by a higher judge, Stuart Robertson, in 2022, but his conclusion is being kept "in abeyance" [on hold] until Dr Toheed's appeal is decided.
Judge Robertson justified his decision on the grounds that her complaint covered similar points to her appeal and he wished to "avoid possible embarrassment" to the employment tribunal process.
"It seems like the bigger concern is how this looks for the judiciary, than actually dealing with Judge Lancaster's conduct," says Dr Toheed.
Nine months earlier, a woman called Andra had appeared before Judge Lancaster to represent her partner, Ion Ionel, a joiner from Romania. He had brought a case of racial discrimination against the construction company he worked for.
Although she was not legally trained, Andra, who is also Romanian, said she had prepared extensively for the hearing.
She says Judge Lancaster appeared irritated from the start of the hearing and shouted at both her and her partner on multiple occasions.
"I don't think I've ever been treated like that in my life," she says.
"He literally interrupted me whenever I was asking any questions, saying it's either irrelevant, or I shouldn't ask this today, I should put it to another witness, not this witness. And then when we got to the other witness, he would say: 'Why didn't you ask the other witness yesterday?'"
Mr Ionel lost his case but successfully appealed against the ruling.
An appeal tribunal said that there had been "serious material procedural irregularities" during the hearing, including "a significant number of occasions when the judge intervened to prevent questioning of the respondent's witnesses".
A new hearing - in front of a different judge - has been scheduled for September. Meanwhile, Andra still wants action taken against Judge Lancaster: "What he put us through was horrible, really horrible."
Since November 2023, audio from employment tribunal cases has been routinely recorded in England and Wales.
But at the time these cases were brought (between 2018 and 2022), the judge's written notes of proceedings were treated as the official court record of employment tribunal hearings.
The lack of independent evidence, say the women, means it is difficult to have complaints against judges upheld.
Even now, there are strict guidelines on accessing the recordings - claimants must be accompanied by a court official on court premises.
However, one case heard by Judge Lancaster received publicity in the press. In 2021, Alison McDermott, an HR consultant, brought a high-profile case against Sellafield, the nuclear waste disposal and reprocessing company in Cumbria.
News reports referred to criticisms she made of Judge Lancaster. Ms McDermott says he yelled at her and made "sneering" comments about her earnings.
"I think it mattered hugely that I was a woman," she says. "For some reason, he had a real problem with the fact that I was a well-paid professional woman."
Ms McDermott lost her case, although an appeal judge found there had been errors in her tribunal and she won some minor concessions. A separate hearing is deciding if she is liable for costs.
Her story served as a rallying point for complaints against Judge Lancaster in particular, and the employment tribunal system in general.
BBC News has spoken to two other women who approached Ms McDermott after her case, who had also complained about the judge:
A nurse, who brought a case against an NHS trust in 2021 claims he showed "extreme bias" towards her employer's witnesses, and says he bullied her and "raised his voice angrily" - she lost the case but was partially successful on appeal
In 2018, a woman who lost a case brought before Judge Lancaster alleges that his behaviour was "erratic, illogical, aggressive" and "profoundly disturbing"
"On the one hand, it's affirming," says Ms McDermott. "On the other hand, it's really upsetting to hear that more women have been abused."
Judge Lancaster, who has been an employment tribunal judge since 2007, declined to comment when approached by the BBC.
In a statement, the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary said it could not provide comment in response to any conduct allegations.
It also said they could not provide a figure for the number of complaints that had been made against Judge Lancaster, as such information is confidential.
The last seven of some 24 members of the West Yorkshire sexual predator ring were sentenced on Friday.
A gang of sexual predators who committed horrific acts of abuse against at least eight young girls over the course of a decade have finally been jailed.Â
Roughly 24 members of the group, who operated in the North Kirklees area of West Yorkshire between 1999 and 2012, have received jail time totalling nearly 346 years.
Their arrests came about as the result of West Yorkshire Policeâs Operation Tourway, which uncovered evidence of the rape, sexual abuse and trafficking of the groupâs underage victims.Â
The prosecution was spread over a series of five trials that lasted two years, with reporting restrictions lifted on Friday after the last seven men were sentenced by Leeds Crown Court, MailOnline reports.Â
Police made their first arrests in November 2018, with all members of the gang officially charged by December 2020 and the first sentences being handed down in 2022.Â
Detective Chief Inspector Oliver Coates praised the gangâs victims for having come forward with evidence of the crimes they were subjected to when they were younger.Â
He said: âTheir bravery in coming forwards and identifying their abusers has allowed us to take action against men whose offending and behaviour can only be described as abhorrent in the extreme.
âNow that reporting restrictions have been lifted we can, for the first time, disclose full details of all those sentenced so far in what has been a long trial process.â
He added: ââThroughout the last two years juries have heard details of absolutely shocking offending committed against victims in these cases.
âSome of these men received in excess of 30 years each for the multiple offences they committed and the unbelievably callous and degrading way in which they treated these then young girls.
âMen such Asif Ali, who alone was found guilty of 14 rape offences, committed appalling sexual abuse on a scale which can barely be believed, and saw their young victims as defenceless commodities to be abused and traded at whim.â
He went on: âFar from being powerless however, those young women have instead fought back as adults and forced them to account for their crimes.
âThey displayed real courage and determination in giving evidence through what have been lengthy trials and supporting our investigations.
âI hope they can find some closure and satisfaction in knowing they have enabled police and partners to mount a huge and highly difficult investigation which has taken sexual predators off our streets for years to come.â
A new law will see creators of sexually explicit deepfakes face prosecution and a fine.
The creation of sexually explicit "deepfake" images is to be made a criminal offence in England and Wales under a new law, the government says.
Under the legislation, anyone making explicit images of an adult without their consent will face a criminal record and unlimited fine.
It will apply regardless of whether the creator of an image intended to share it, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said.
And if the image is then shared more widely, they could face jail.
A deepfake is an image or video that has been digitally altered with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to replace the face of one person with the face of another.
Recent years have seen the growing use of the technology to add the faces of celebrities or public figures - most often women - into pornographic films.
Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman, who discovered her own image used as part of a deepfake video, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme it was "incredibly invasive".
Ms Newman found she was a victim as part of a Channel 4 investigation into deepfakes.
"It was violating... it was kind of me and not me," she said, explaining the video displayed her face but not her hair.
Ms Newman said finding perpetrators is hard, adding: "This is a worldwide problem, so we can legislate in this jurisdiction, it might have no impact on whoever created my video or the millions of other videos that are out there."
She said the person who created the video is yet to be found.
Under the Online Safety Act, which was passed last year, the sharing of deepfakes was made illegal.
The new law will make it an offence for someone to create a sexually explicit deepfake - even if they have no intention to share it but "purely want to cause alarm, humiliation, or distress to the victim", the MoJ said.
Clare McGlynn, a law professor at Durham University who specialises in legal regulation of pornography and online abuse, told the Today programme the legislation has some limitations.
She said it "will only criminalise where you can prove a person created the image with the intention to cause distress", and this could create loopholes in the law.
It will apply to images of adults, because the law already covers this behaviour where the image is of a child, the MoJ said.
It will be introduced as an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill, which is currently making its way through Parliament.
Minister for Victims and Safeguarding Laura Farris said the new law would send a "crystal clear message that making this material is immoral, often misogynistic, and a crime".
"The creation of deepfake sexual images is despicable and completely unacceptable irrespective of whether the image is shared," she said.
"It is another example of ways in which certain people seek to degrade and dehumanise others - especially women.
"And it has the capacity to cause catastrophic consequences if the material is shared more widely. This Government will not tolerate it."
Cally Jane Beech, a former Love Island contestant who earlier this year was the victim of deepfake images, said the law was a "huge step in further strengthening of the laws around deepfakes to better protect women".
"What I endured went beyond embarrassment or inconvenience," she said.
"Too many women continue to have their privacy, dignity, and identity compromised by malicious individuals in this way and it has to stop. People who do this need to be held accountable."
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper described the creation of the images as a "gross violation" of a person's autonomy and privacy and said it "must not be tolerated".
"Technology is increasingly being manipulated to manufacture misogynistic content and is emboldening perpetrators of Violence Against Women and Girls," she said.
"That's why it is vital for the government to get ahead of these fast-changing threats and not to be outpaced by them.
"It's essential that the police and prosecutors are equipped with the training and tools required to rigorously enforce these laws in order to stop perpetrators from acting with impunity."
Hundreds walk out of their council roles, saying they are paid less than comparable male-dominated jobs
Hundreds of women have gone on strike in Scotland as three more councils face claims over equal pay.
Almost 500 workers walked out of their council roles in Falkirk, Renfrewshire and West Dunbartonshire in protest at a pay grading system which they say is outdated and pays women less than comparable male-dominated jobs.
Their action follows a strike by more than 8,000 female carers, caterers and cleaners in Glasgow, in 2018, which resulted in a payout of around ÂŁ500m from Glasgow council, a bill it is yet to settle fully. It was the biggest equal pay strike in history in the UK.
Workers in similar jobs in Dundee, Perth and Kinross, Angus, Fife and Moray are now in ongoing disputes over equal pay.
The GMB union, which represents many of the women bringing claims, said local authorities across Scotland risk being bankrupted. GMB Scotland secretary Louise Gilmour said Scotlandâs councils were approaching equal pay claims âlike the Titanic approaching the icebergâ. âCouncillors have their heads in the sand and executives have their fingers in their ears, but these equal pay claims will come, will be won and will need to be settled.
âWe know local authorities are struggling to make ends meet and we know why. But to suggest women workers are somehow making things worse by asking for money they are owed ⊠is as dishonest as it is disgraceful.â
In England, Birmingham city council last year said it was unable to balance its books due, in part, to equal pay claims. The GMB has ongoing equal pay disputes with a number of other councils including Coventry and Cumberland.
Gilmour called on the Scottish government to create a new specialist body to settle equal pay claims nationwide and enforce payments.
Fiona OâBrien, a home carer in Renfrewshire since 2016 and a GMB rep, said she took strike action âas a last resort because enough is enoughâ.
âFor a long time, weâve been told: âyouâll never go on strike, you care too much, youâll never stand up for yourselvesâ,â she said. âBut weâve had enough now â weâve been taken for granted for too long.â
She said her role is different to what was advertised and more complex than the grade it is paid at, including administering medications, caring for people with dementia and mental illness, using specialist equipment and physically moving people with restricted mobility.
âItâs been inspirational to see us all coming together and standing up for whatâs right and fair,â she said. âThis could potentially change the road for a lot of people working in care and could also bring more people into the sector.â
In the event of a successful equal pay claim, higher pay grades could be retrospectively applied, allowing workers to claim up to five years of back pay and costing councils millions of pounds, the GMB said.
The union said it expects to see pay reviews in at least a dozen more Scottish local authorities.
A spokesperson for Falkirk Health and Social Care Partnership said: âFalkirk council is committed to upholding equal pay, and continues to engage with GMB. We will seek to minimise disruption for those in need of our care and support at home services.â
A spokesperson for West Dunbartonshire council said: âWe are committed to fair pay for home carers and, following a thorough and robust job evaluation process, the pay of a typical home carer has recently risen by at least ÂŁ2,500 per annum through regrading of the role.â
A Renfrewshire Health and Social Care Partnership spokesperson said: âNegotiations between the Health and Social Care Partnership with all trade unions continue. A further offer was presented to all three trade unions, and Unison and Unite have paused industrial action as they consider this renewed offer. Unfortunately, GMB is continuing with industrial action following a consultative ballot with its members.â
Renfrewshire council did not respond to the Observerâs request for comment.
Concerns that rare sleep disorder is being used as an âescape routeâ in sexual offence trials prompt calls for safeguards to protect victims
Experts and lawyers involved in sexual offence cases in Britain have warned that suspected rapists are evading justice by claiming to have a rare sleepwalking disorder that causes them to engage in sexual activity while asleep.
They said there had âdefinitelyâ been cases where guilty people had been found not guilty, and warned of the potential for further miscarriages of justice â and harm to the public â without more robust challenges to âsexsomniaâ claims put forward by defendants.
The warnings come after an investigation by the Observer uncovered a rise in the use of âsexsomniaâ as part of defence cases in criminal trials. It found 80 cases over the past 30 years where defendants accused of rape, sexual assault or child sexual abuse claimed to have been sleepwalking or suffering from sexsomnia at the time.
But while there were only occasional cases in the 1990s and early 2000s, the analysis reveals at least 51 in the past decade and eight in the past year alone. The figures are likely to represent only part of the true total, with many not publicly reported. In about 60% of cases where sexsomnia was part of the defence, a not-guilty verdict was returned, the Observerâs analysis suggests. Overall, the average jury conviction rate for rape was 58% in England and Wales.
Charges against suspects have also been dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service before they even reached court after defence lawyers raised sexsomnia behind the scenes. One law firm advertised how it âkept pressureâ on the CPS after it decided to continue with the prosecution of a wealthy client charged with sexual assault. The charges were dropped before the case went to trial.
Dr Neil Stanley, an independent sleep expert who has provided expert evidence in trials where sexsomnia was raised as an issue, said that while some claims of the condition were undoubtedly genuine, others were not.
âIt is being used cynically,â he said. âThere are cases that are in the public domain where it is clear that theyâre just chancing their arm. Because, of course, if it is sexsomnia, youâre found not guilty. Judges havenât a clue. Juries havenât a clue. So itâs worth a try.â
Stanley said attempted use of sexsomnia by defendants had âmassively skyrocketedâ in recent years and that such claims were very difficult to definitively disprove â meaning often âjust saying, âI donât remember. It could be sexsomnia,â is enoughâ.
He said the current system was failing victims â and true sufferers of the condition â and called for reforms including more robust challenging of sexsomnia claims and a less adversarial approach to questioning expert witnesses, so they could provide more nuanced responses in the courtroom.
âThe law seems not willing to admit that thereâs a strong likelihood of miscarriages of justice. And given the severity of the offence, we should be very certain of having checks and balances in place so we take as many precautions as possible to stop miscarriages of justice,â he said. âIn terms of sexsomnia, that is not happening.â
He added: âI know in my heart of hearts that there are cases where guilty men have got away with it. And that cannot be a legitimate consequence of the system. The system has to change.â
Sexsomnia is recognised in the DSM-5 diagnostic manual of psychiatric conditions and is a type of paraÂsomnia, a disorder involving abnormal sleep behaviour. Sufferers engage in sex acts while in non-REM sleep. They might have their eyes open but will have no awareness or memory of their behaviour.
If a jury decides that an accused person was in such a state â known as âautomatismâ â when they committed an alleged offence, they will be found not guilty. But while lab tests and partner histories can be used to try to establish whether a sexsomnia claim is genuine, sleep experts and lawyers say the system is open to abuse because uncertainty in the science means it is impossible to say for sure whether someone was or was not suffering from sexsomnia.
Many of those successfully pleading sexsomnia in court had no known history of sleepwalking and no formal diagnosis. Other cases involved defendants performing a complicated series of actions in unfamiliar settings, which experts said were less typical of genuine sexsomnia.
In about a third of the cases, the defendant was under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and some were very intoxicated, but sexsomnia was cited as the primary factor behind their behaviour.
Sometimes, just a mention of the condition in court appears to sow a seed of doubt that can contribute to a not-guilty verdict. In one rape case, two expert witnesses said evidence for the defendant having sexsomnia was âweakâ but that they could not categorically rule it out. The jury subsequently acquitted the man.
In at least one case, a man who avoided a rape prosecution after claiming to have sexsomnia went on to attack again. Joseph Short evaded charges in 2011 after saying he had no memory of an alleged rape. He was later jailed for 15 years for another violent attack. And a man convicted of strangling and beating his partner was acquitted of raping her and another woman after claiming to have been suffering from the condition.
Allison Summers KC, a barrister and head of Drystone Chambers, who has represented three clients who used sexsomnia as a defence, all of whom were acquitted, said the increase in defences using the condition could be in part because it had historically been âunderdiagnosed generallyâ and that there were some âvery genuineâ cases.
But she said the presence of alcohol complicated things â âare they using the sleep defence to cover up what has happened?â â and that there was an issue of defendants âtrying it onâ.
âI think there are probably [defence lawyers] running these cases on fairly spurious evidence,â she added. âJuries are strange creatures and I suspect sometimes they give the benefit of the doubt when they shouldnât.â
Summers said it was for defence counsels to investigate such claims and for prosecutors to robustly challenge them, but that this did not always happen: barristers instructed ârubbishâ experts or failed to get relevant histories, or prosecutors did not properly interrogate claims in court. âIt comes back to laziness and a lack of understanding,â she said.
Sexsomnia has also been used by defence teams in an attempt to discredit victims. Jade McCrossen-Nethercott, 31, from Croydon, is taking legal action against the CPS after it dropped her rape case days before it was due to go to trial after expert witnesses said she had sexsomnia.
McCrossen-Nethercott said the conclusion was made by an expert instructed by the defence who had never met her, and was based on her answers to a 15-question survey. âIt was plucked out of thin air,â she said.
The CPS has since âapologised unreservedlyâ for its decision to drop the case and said âthe expert evidence and defendantâs account should have been challenged and put before a jury to decideâ.
McCrossen-Nethercott is now calling for ârobust, rigorous and consistentâ assessment of sexsomnia claims âacross the boardâ, including a âthorough assessment, bed partner histories, extensive polysomnographiesâ.
âIt has to be taken seriously to protect victims from being told they have it without significant evidence; to prevent perpetrators claiming they do when they donât, but also for genuine sufferers, to prevent them being wrongly convicted,â she said.
Dame Vera Baird KC, the former victimsâ commissioner for England and Wales, called for safeguards to be put in place to protect victims and the public. She said sexsomnia was being seen as an âescape routeâ by some defendants and that in cases where it arose, prosecutors needed to be consistent in applying for sexual risk orders, which can be made regardless of whether someone is convicted if they are deemed to pose a danger.
Such an order could require a person to warn future partners, or others sleeping under the same roof, about their condition, or face prison.
Baird, a barrister who was previously solicitor general and a Labour MP, said increasing the use of such orders might also deter people from using sexsomnia as a âget-out-of-jail cardâ. âA person who says, âOh dear, I raped somebody without knowing it,â is a danger to the public and cannot be left simply acquitted,â she said.
A CPS spokesperson said prosecutors always ârobustly challenge legal defences when contrasting evidence is availableâ and that sexsomnia was no exception. It said any decision to drop a case in response to a claim of sexsomnia âmust now be approved at the most senior levelâ and that victims always had the right to seek a review. However, it said it did not record data on how many cases had been dropped due to sexsomnia claims by the defendant.
The Ministry of Justice said the government had taken âdecisive actionâ to ensure rape victims got justice and that âthe validity and credibility of a defenceâ was for the courts to decide.
Claire (not her real name), a complainant in a recent case where the defendant was acquitted on multiple counts of sexual assault after claiming to have sexsomnia, said the verdict had a âdevastatingâ effect. She said the man did not deny the acts took place but said he must have done them while asleep, and that he had never sleepwalked before, had no formal diagnosis, and had had âno tests doneâ.
The woman, a mother from Lancashire, said the process had left her âbaffledâ: âItâs like theyâve said, âWell yeah, he mightâve sexually abused you numerous times but he did it in his sleep, so itâs OK. So youâre just going to have to get on with your life and deal with it and heâs got away with it.â Itâs like they just took his word for it. There is nothing to stop him from doing it again and just saying, âI was asleepâ.â
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