In June 2023, the House of Commons Commission published proposals that would see MPs who were under investigation for sexual and/or violent offences being banned from parliament/excluded at the point of arrest, as a safeguarding measure:
In March 2024 however, an updated proposal was published calling for the existing safeguarding measures to be ‘watered down.’
Instead of exclusion taking place at the point of arrest, the new proposal recommended that it should only take place when (if) an MP were charged with an offence.
The government said that the policy had been revised following feedback from MPs, to take into consideration the ‘detrimental impact that having no voice in Parliament can have on communities’, (referring to people who are banned from parliament pending investigation for offences)…
What about the voice of the victims who, under the new proposal where perpetrators are excluded only at the point of charge, are forced to sit with their assaulter every day?
What about the detrimental impact that the ‘watering down’ of safeguarding measures will have on them?
As Jess Phillips, Labour MP who was voting against the proposal to water down the measures said in a speech on Monday (13/05/24):
Exclusion at the point of charge sends a clear message to victims that not only will we not investigate unless a victim goes to the police, but we won’t act unless they’re charged, which happens in less than 1% of cases. ‘So what’s the point?’ was essentially what this victim said to me…
When only 1% of sexual assaults result in a charge, the proposal to only exclude* people from parliament if they are charged (which, as the statistics above highlight, overwhelmingly does not happen), is clearly not enough to safeguard anyone.
*(Just to note, by ‘exclusion’, I mean ‘risk assessment’. Even if charged with an offence, a risk assessment still has to take place, as conducted by an independent panel, to determine the eligibility for exclusion. Under the original proposal, only if someone is considered to pose a threat to other people working in parliament would they be excluded. The point being that an arrest, or even a charge, was never considered reason enough to ‘ban’ someone from Parliament, even in the so-called ‘extreme’ proposal of 2023)…
We cannot let people who have the most power over our lives stay in power when they are corrupt.
When MPs are essentially in control of our lives, responsible for the governance of the environment, the NHS, the police, the economy, all of us, how can anyone think that it’s acceptable for MPs who have been arrested for serious sexual and/or violent offences to be allowed to continue to stand?
By failing to do even the bare minimum/by not conducting a risk assessment at the point of arrest, as in the original proposal, MPs could be sitting in parliament, under investigation by the police for serious violent and/or sexual offences, without anyone knowing…
And, as history has proven to us when we let people get away with committing heinous acts, we’re giving the people who are committing these crimes a superiority, ‘invincibility’ (‘you can’t touch me) complex, for which they are likely to become repeat offenders…
I got away with it last time, so I’ll do it again…
Just consider Wayne Couzens (pictured below), for example. Not an MP, but a former Metropolitan Police officer who, in 2021, was responsible for the kidnap, rape, and murder of 33-year-old Marketing Executive, Sarah Everard.
Couzens used his power as a police officer to stop Sarah when she was walking home from her friend’s house under the guise of her having ‘broken lockdown rules.’
Showing her his warrant card, Couzens handcuffed Sarah, before putting her in the back of a car he had hired for the sole purpose of kidnapping a lone woman, and then drove her to her death…
In the aftermath of his arrest, it transpired that Couzens had been reported eight times to the police, yet he continued to serve as a police officer. In fact, just four days before he went on to kill Sarah Couzens was reported to the police for indecent exposure at a McDonald’s drive-thru.
An investigation was subsequently launched into why a member of the metropolitan police who was equipped with a gun no less, as part of the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command, was allowed to continue serving as a police officer.
The outcome?
Unsurprisingly, he shouldn’t have been.
Of course he shouldn’t have been…
As this Guardian article writes:
Routine checks that could have flagged Couzens’ unsuitability to be an officer were not done.
And Couzens isn’t alone in his corruption, either.
Derek Michael Chauvin (pictured below), the former US police officer who murdered George Floyd, was also overlooked when it came to the threat that he posed.
According to this report in the New York Times, at least twenty-two complaints of misconduct were filed against Chauvin before he would go on to murder George Floyd in 2020.
One of the more vocal complaints came in June 2017 when Chauvin responded to a domestic dispute at the home of Zoya Code, a black woman. Like George Floyd, Ms. Code found herself handcuffed, facedown on the ground, with Chauvin’s knee pressing into her neck.
Ms. Code, in an interview, said she began pleading: “Don’t kill me.” At that point, according to the prosecutors’ account, Mr Chauvin told his partner to restrain Ms. Code’s ankles as well, even though she “was not being physically aggressive.” As he tied her, she said, she told the other officer, “You’re learning from an animal. That man — that’s evilness right there.”
As in the Wayne Couzens case, why was Chauvin allowed to continue serving as a police officer, despite his, what can only be described as sadistic, tendencies?…
Also as in the Wayne Couzens case, it should never have been allowed to get to that point.
When it comes to people in power, ‘innocent until proven guilty’, in my opinion, should be, ‘guilty until proven innocent.’
Why? Because we’ve seen what happens when warning signs are dismissed…
By failing to act and implement adequate safeguarding measures (the ONLY adequate safeguarding measure: to strip Chauvin and Couzens of their uniform), over time they were empowered and enabled to escalate their violent tactics until they went on to commit the most heinous act of all: murder.
To use the example of Wayne Couzens again, despite being under investigation for indecent exposure, he was still employed as a firearms officer by the metropolitan police. Had risk-based exclusion been in place for him, as it should be in place for everyone in positions of power, then what happened to Sarah Everard would never have happened.
By failing to act, people are at risk where power, as history proves, corrupts.
We must learn from the haunting systematic failures that we have seen so that it never happens again.
The idea that anyone in a public-facing role could continue to essentially ‘serve their country’ under such corruption, whether that be as a police officer, a teacher, or an MP, is nonsensical, and dangerous, to say the least…
Referring back to the vote on ‘risk-based exclusion’ which took place in Parliament this week, fortunately, it was concluded that the plan to water down measures would be reversed.
An ‘overdue victory for common sense.’
Parliament is a workplace for thousands and these new formal procedures give staff the safe working environment they deserve and would expect in any other workplace.
However shockingly, (and quite frankly, disturbingly), it was an extremely close call: 170 to 169…
What were those 169 people thinking?
The fact is that it’s not just the sexual predators themselves who pose a risk, but people who are complicit in their behaviour too, like conservative former minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, for example, who said that he ‘did not have strong opinions about whether exclusions should be made at the point of arrest or charge.’
How can you NOT have strong opinions? You’re a fucking politician. It’s your job to have opinions…
The hypocrisy, when he can have strong opinions about asylum seekers and Brexit, working to ‘oppress the oppressed’, but when it comes to helping the oppressed?
I have no strong opinions.
(Perhaps unsurprisingly, though, when the government is full of corruption)…
- When in 2022 we went through three prime ministers and became a laughing stock on the world stage,
- When in the latest statistics published regarding sexual misconduct claims, 56 MPs were under investigation,
the fact that there is even a debate about the need for allegations of sexual assault and violence to be taken seriously is telling…
Telling that power corrupts.
Demand systematic change now.
Portfolio of Hope 