An MP has told 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 court.
Speaking at a debate on 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 opposition to the bill.
Nichols said the crime and the almost-three-year wait for her trial, during which she was targeted with abuse by strangers on social media, had left her with PTSD. She said the man she accused had been acquitted after a criminal trial, but a compensation order had been made after a “successful civil process” that she said “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 said in 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 said she wanted to tell her story because “experiences like mine feel like they’ve been weaponised and are being used for rhetorical misdirection”.
She accused the justice secretary, David Lammy, of using rape victims as a “cudgel” to drive through changes to jury trials and said the government should focus on introducing specialist rape courts, arguing that the transition away from jury trials in certain cases could 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 said. “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 reading on Tuesday – would create a new criminal court where judges would hear cases on their own; magistrates-only hearings for offences that carry a maximum sentence of two years or less; judge-only trials for complex fraud cases and the remove the automatic right of appeal from the magistrates court.
The Labour MP for Walthamstow, Stella Creasy, intervened to praise 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 said.
Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
