UK lawyers say more women are coming forward, but are police and prosecutors ready?

The clearest impact of the #MeToo movement on the British justice system has been a sharp rise in the number of complaints made to police of rape and sexual assault over the past two years.

That surge, however, has coincided with a chaotic response by police and prosecutors, who have been engulfed in problems over disclosure and allegations they have refined their approach to the crime in order to improve conviction rates, although this has been denied by the Crown Prosecution Service.

The number of rapes, for example, reported to police in England and Wales, which was already on an upwards trajectory, surged by almost 13,000 to 54,045 in 2017-18, compared with 41,186 the previous year.

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They leaped by a further 9% to 58,657 the following year. By contrast, the number of convictions for rape plunged over the same period – from 2,635 in 2017-18 to 1,925 in 2018-19.

Kate Ellis, a solicitor at the Centre for Women’s Justice in London, is convinced #MeToo has had a direct effect. “It’s encouraged people to feel able to come forward, but whether procedures are ready in this country [to handle complaints] is another question,” she told the Guardian.

“The rise in reporting to the police is very significant and that’s probably an indication of victims feeling they will be believed and supported. I have clients say to me they were victims of sexual offences but didn’t report it. Then around the time of #MeToo they decided they had to go to the police.

“However, it has been accompanied by a pushback – people saying: ‘How do we know these are true?’ or that we shouldn’t blindly believe everyone who makes a report.”

Britain’s libel laws, she added, made it more difficult for allegations and suspicions to be aired without the risk of being sued. “#MeToo became about raising awareness of the prevalence of sexual violence and harassment,” she said. “That’s much more difficult to do in the UK.”

One #MeToo-inspired case being fought through the London courts involves five women who posted allegations online that the singer/rapper Jonny Fox was a “sexual predator” and emotionally abusive. They are facing a multiple libel claim of up to £60,000 from Fox, who denies all the claims.

Suzanne McKie QC, whose firm Farore Law specialises in discrimination, equalities and employment cases, said the impact had sometimes been counterproductive. “A number of male managers in corporate organisations have said to me they are not recruiting attractive women any more,” she said. “That’s their way of dealing with it. There was always going to be a backlash – as there was to feminism.”

McKie said she also heard comments about “women complaining too readily” or “It’s gone a bit too far, hasn’t it?” She sometimes represents men in employment cases involving allegations of sexual harassment.

A greater willingness to believe that male managers are capable of misconduct at work may not always translate into better justice, she said. “Some companies may be compensating for what they failed to do in the past.”

She has handled two recent cases, she said, where male executives were sacked “on grounds that might not previously have led to them being dismissed”.

Men, she said, tended to settle in sexual harassment employment disputes because they did not want to be identified. “The difficulty in these cases is the reputational consequences.”

Women often cannot afford to take complaints to employment tribunals. McKie, who is qualified as both a barrister and solicitor, regularly appears on a no-win, no-fee basis. #MeToo has brought her more business, she believes. “It’s gone up 300% or 400% in the last two years.”

“There’s an awful lot out there,” she said. “Firms tend not to investigate. They say it’s a police matter. But employers should still be doing investigations.”

A government consultation on sexual harassment in the workplace, which closed on 2 October, is considering whether existing laws provide sufficient protection. Within the legal profession itself, there has been growing concern about the problem. Sexual harassment of younger barristers is not being reported because pupils and junior lawyers fear their careers will be damaged if they complain, Prof Jo Delahunty QC suggested in a public lecture at Gresham College in central London last year.

A lawyers’ organisation called Behind the Gown, inspired by the #MeToo movement, held an inaugural meeting in May 2018 and raised complaints of inappropriate behaviour and discriminatory conduct by judges, QCs and senior lawyers.

In May, the London-based International Bar Association published a survey of almost 7,000 lawyers across 135 countries that reported that bullying and sexual harassment were rife in the legal profession.