An MP told the House of Commons she was raped after an event she attended as a member of parliament, revealing she waited 1,088 days for her case to go to court.
In a debate Tuesday to discuss changes to the law under which some jury trials would be limited, Charlotte Nichols said she was waiving her right to anonymity to speak about her own experience and her opposition to the bill.
Nichols said the crime and the nearly three-year wait for her trial, during which she was abused by strangers on social media, had left her with post-traumatic stress disorder. She said the man she accused had been acquitted after a criminal trial, but a compensation order had been made after a “successful civil prosecution” which she said “recognises me as an innocent victim of a violent crime”.
“I am deeply concerned about rape victims who face intolerable delays in appearing in court. I know very well how it feels when, after being raped at an event I attended as a member of parliament, I waited 1,088 days to go to court,” she said in the House of Commons. “Each of those days was agony made worse by having a role in public life. That meant the mental health consequences of my trauma played out in public.”
But Nichols said she wanted to tell her story because “experiences like mine feel like they’ve been weaponized and used to deflect rhetoric.”
He accused Justice Secretary David Lammy of using rape victims as a “club” to push for changes to jury trials and said the government should focus on introducing specialist rape courts, arguing that transitioning away from jury trials in certain cases could take time “in a system that is already overburdened”.
“It is because I have endured all the indignities that our failed criminal justice system could impose that I care that reform truly delivers justice for survivors and victims of crime more broadly,” he said. “Despite their best efforts and the publication of our ground-breaking VAWG (violence against women and girls) strategy, there is only so much we can do for rape victims other than the Lord Chancellor using them as a cudgel to drive reforms.”
He added: “We need much greater safeguards for those who give evidence and, indeed, we need to rethink the fact that, legally, you are a witness in your own trial.”
The measures in the courts and tribunals bill – which had its second reading on Tuesday – would create a new criminal court where judges would hear cases on their own; magistrate-only hearings for offenses that carry a maximum sentence of two years or less; judge-only trials for complex fraud cases and removing the magistrates’ court’s automatic right of appeal.
Walthamstow Labor MP Stella Creasy intervened to praise Nichols for his “strength” in delivering the speech. “I want to speak on behalf of everyone in this chamber and say that we are with her every step of the way, very proud of her,” he said.
