‘There’s A Mighty Struggle To Make The Laws In This Country Work For Women, Because They Largely Don’t’

‘Although we think that #MeToo and Time's Up have caused more women to come forward and more confidence in the system, the reality is that the CPS are charging many less [rape] cases than they were a few years ago and that's hugely alarming,’ says Harriet Wistrich, co-founder of the Centre for Women’s Justice and solicitor for two of John Worboys’ victims.

Harriet is a force for progress around violence against women. Just this week she succeeded in securing a retrail for Sally Challen, the 65-year-old mother of two who was jailed for 22 years for the murder of her husband. The case is now being looked at in a new light given changes in domestic violence law around coercive control.

In the last year alone, Harriet has led on two cases that have huge ramifications for victims of sexual abuse. One of them, you’re bound to have heard about, but the other – and the one with a larger impact for victims according to Harriet – hasn’t been danced around in the media so much.

It began back in 2010, when Harriet was approached by two women, victims of John Worboys – the convicted sex offender who attacked women in his black cab taxi – who wanted her help in seeking a case against the police that accused them of failing to conduct a proper investigation. Accusing them of failing to act early enough, Harriet used the Human Rights Act for the case, which would go on to last seven years.

‘You can't normally sue the police for negligence over an investigation,’ she tells me, ‘but what we were looking at was a case under the human rights act for the failure to investigate which we said was a violation of rights not to be subjected to inhumane and degrading treatment under article three of the European Convention.’

Winning their case twice after the police appealed the court ruling in both 2013 and 2015, it ended up in the Supreme Court were there was a hearing in 2017 that Harriet and her legal team went on to also win. However, it was while waiting for that final decision that the team – and more importantly the victims, were hit with devastating news: John Worboys was being released on parole.

‘[Both women] were absolutely horrified,’ she says, ‘and so it was at that point we discussed whether there was a possibility of bringing a legal challenge to the parole board decision.’ They did, and again, they won. But it wasn’t without huge roadblocks. Legally unable to access the reasons for the release, Harriet and her team were fighting blind.

‘The biggest difficulty was not knowing the reasons for the decision, so we didn't know whether we would succeed,’ she says, ‘A judicial review isn't a process you can just challenge a decision because you don't like it, it's a very high threshold to throw something out, you have to show it's either unlawful or irrational and that means no reasonable parole board would have come to the same decision which is an extremely high test to reach.’

However, after successfully forcing the board to disclose their reasoning, their doubt that they could succeed vanished. ‘We realized they had just failed to take into account some really important evidence and surrounding circumstances of the case,’ she says, ‘which meant that there was a good prospect of showing that the decision was wrong.’

Proving the wrongful decision came soon after that, and while the legal team and the women Harriet represented were ‘hugely relieved’, Harriet stresses that her biggest success was winning the police case given it has much ‘wider implications’ for victims. ‘It was a huge victory because that’s the first-time police are now held to account if they fail to do a proper investigation into serious crime,’ she says, ‘and that was always something the police were immune from doing, so it has huge repercussions.’

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‘My main area of expertise has been around ensuring the police do a proper job, and in relation to sexual violence we have lots of laws and practice guidance’s which say "we are a society committed to investigating and prosecuting rape" and yet we know that those guidances are rarely followed and we have an appalling conviction rate,’ she continued, ‘So being able to have a legal mechanism for holding the police to account is hugely significant, because it means there is some potential remedy other than simply campaigning and complaining when they get it wrong.’

It’s being able to tackle a system that has for so long left women unprotectedthat Harriet feels most passionate about, and why she’s one of our women who’ve changed the conversation this year.

‘Women are discriminated against in the criminal justice system and there’s a huge, mighty uphill struggle to enforce and make the laws that currently exist in this country work for women, because they largely don't,’ she said, ‘The extent to which there is work to be done around challenging the authorities, the state institutions to try and make them do the job properly, is absolutely mammoth. Since we established the Centre a couple of years ago, it's never been clearer how important that work is and how much there is to be done.

Harriet is one of our 10 Women Who’ve Changed The Conversation This Year. To mark International Women’s Day, Grazia and The Female Lead Have teamed up to celebrate the heroines who’ve made a difference to our everyday lives - even if you don’t know their name yet. We’ll be featuring a different amazing woman from the list every day online, and check out Grazia magazine on Tuesday 5th March for our list in full…