VIDEO: Warrington North MP Charlotte Nichols waived her anonymity and the personal consequences that come from it to tell Parliament she was raped after attending an event in her capacity as an MP.
Her powerful and emotional revelation came as she hit out at the Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy’s plans to limit jury trials to cases with a likely sentence of three years or more, as MPs debated the Courts and Tribunals Bill.
Ms Nichols, who has been an MP representing Warrington North since 2019, has previously spoken about suffering post-traumatic disorder (PTSD) after being the victim of a crime but had never previously disclosed its nature.
The traumatic incident resulted in her being sectioned for her own safety, and while her attacker was acquitted at crown court, he was subsequently ordered to pay compensation after she won a civil case against him.
She told the Commons yesterday Tuesday 10 March: “I waited 1,088 days to go to court.
“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, with the event that led to my eventual sectioning for my own safety, still being something that I receive regular social media abuse from strangers about to this day.
“But here’s the kicker, in this debate, experiences like mine feel like they’ve been weaponised and are being used for rhetorical misdirection, for what this Bill actually is.
“The violence against women and girls sector haven’t had the opportunity to come together to discuss it, and the Government’s framing and narrative has been to pit survivors and defendants against each other in a way I think is deeply damaging.
“We have been told that if we have concerns about this Bill, it is because we have not been raped or because we don’t care enough for rape victims.
“The opposite is true in my case, it is because I have been raped that I am as passionate as I am about what it means for a justice system to be truly victim focused.
“It is because I have endured every indignity that our broken criminal justice system could mete out that I care what kind of reform will actually deliver justice for survivors and victims of crime more widely.”
She added: “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 that aren’t directly relevant to them.
“As a starting point, Rape Crisis England and Wales have called for five key demands in their Living in Limbo report. Don’t say that this Bill helps deliver justice for rape victims, until it actually, materially does.”
Lammy pleaded with Labour MPs to support his reforms, saying they would reduce a record backlog of crown court cases.
MPs voted to allow the Bill to progress to the next stage in the Parliamentary process, despite Nichols and some other Labour MPs’ opposition.
It passed a second reading with 304 MPs voting in favour, and 203 against.
