'The ‘sex game gone wrong’ defence relies on the idea that the line between consensual rough sex and lethally violent sex is blurry; that it is understandable that a man could accidentally cross it. It is patently absurd.'
“It is unconscionable for defendants to suggest that the death of a woman is justified, excusable or legally defensible because that woman had engaged in violent and harmful sexual activity which resulted in her death, simply because she consented,” Chalk said this week.
“There are oceans, worlds, lightyears between a woman asking to be lightly choked or restrained during sex and a woman agreeing to being treated so brutally that she dies” It’s a borderline Victorian attitude, suggesting that women who have been enthusiastic about sex in the past should not be taken seriously when they claim to have said no. But at rape trials, complainants are at least given the opportunity to speak out and defend themselves. The same luxury is not afforded to women who have been killed.Crucially, the rough sex defence isn’t just problematic when it works.
“It felt like Grace was on trial, yet not able to defend herself,” Hannah O’Callaghan, Millane’s cousin,. O’Callaghan has welcomed the news that the rough sex defence is set to be banned in UK courts, saying this week that it will prevent other families from having “to sit and listen to only one side of the story while the victim is re-victimised and does not get the chance to tell their side”.
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