The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has today accepted that their decision not to prosecute the man who filmed Emily Hunt whilst naked, without her consent, should be reconsidered.
Emily, who alleges she was raped in May 2015 after being drugged, discovered after a flawed police investigation where the CPS decided not to prosecute for rape, that her attacked had filmed her naked and unconscious. Despite the admission by the perpetrator that the video was taken without consent and for the purpose of his own sexual gratification, the CPS refused to prosecute for the voyeurism under the Sexual Offences Act. Emily, represented by Centre for Women’s Justice launched a judicial review in June last year and the case was due to be heard in court on 6th February.
Last week, however, CWJ discovered that the CPS, who have argued there is no basis to prosecute in her case, would today be arguing the opposite position in criminal division of the Court of Appeal in a case raising the same issue. The court gave Emily permission to intervene in R v Tony Richards, a case which concerns a man who secretly videoed himself having sex with two women who had consented to sex in exchange for money, but had not consented to being filmed.
After considering arguments from the Counsel for the Appellant, the CPS, and Emily Hunt, Lord Justice Fulford ruled that it was correct for the judge to have left the offence of voyeurism to the jury to determine. The Court of Appeal decided that even if you consent to sex in a private place you have a reasonable expectation of privacy as consent does not extend to agreeing to be filmed without your knowledge. Therefore the act of filming is unlawful under sections 67 and 68 of the Sexual Offences Act and amounts to ‘voyeurism’.
In light of today’s judgment the CPS have accepted that their decision not to prosecute the perpetrator in Emily’s case was unlawful and will now reconsider their charging decision.
Emily Hunt says:
“Today we are all safer. Today we know that what happened to me is, irrefutably, illegal. I have hope that my attacker may finally - now nearly 5 years later - see justice and consequences for his actions.
It has taken nearly 5 years to fight to get to this point. It should not take connections, education nor wealth to get justice. This decision was the clear, obvious and common sense answer to a question that no one else was asking: is it illegal to video someone naked without their consent? Because the answer is obvious: Yes, yes it is. And today the court agreed.”
Kate Ellis, Solicitor acting for Emily at Centre for Women’s Justice said:
“We welcome today’s decision and trust that the CPS who have fought this for so long will finally bring this man to justice.”
Harriet Wistrich, director at the Centre for Women’s Justice said:
“We would like to know why the CPS chose to argue opposite points in two separate cases. As a publicly funded body, they have a duty to act consistently and in the public interest. In the context of significant reductions in the number of sexual offences prosecuted by the CPS, it is disappointing that they put limited resources into fighting cases for the sake of an argument where complainants have suffered significant trauma and deserve their cases to be put before a jury”.