Digital ‘vigilantism’ has broken years of silence – but it’s not justice

Sexual abuse is shockingly widespread, but context is the difference between flirting and harassment

The stories keep coming. Last week it was the turn of Eliza Dushku, the actress who played Arnold Schwarzenegger’s daughter in the 1994 action-comedy True Lies, to give her account. She was 12 when she was sexually abused by the True Lies stunt coordinator, Joel Kramer, who nicknamed her “jailbait” on set and groomed her for months, she said. Her account is calm and precise, though Mr Kramer denies the claim. As outsiders, we can never know for sure what happened.

Still, for me, there will never be quite the same simple humour to that stunt in the movie when she finds herself hanging onto the nose of a Harrier jet, looks up in surprise to find Arnie, playing her father, in the cockpit and says, innocently: “Daddy?”

That’s the thing about the ongoing clamour over sexual abuse. It keeps tweaking at our perception of the world. It seems to reach into everything. Nothing is sacred.

At the same time, there is a backlash. Last week, 100 French women, including several famous actresses, signed a letter to Le Monde, defending men’s right to “pester” or flirt and accusing some #Metoo campaigners of “serving the interests of the enemies of sexual freedom”. Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale and many other famous novels, has written in Canada’s Globe and Mail calling for due process in a university sexual assault case and demanding an end to the online “vigilantism” that has denied some men a fair hearing. But Ms Atwood also makes a valid counterpoint. This vigilantism hasn’t sprung from nowhere. It has resulted from years of unaccountability: criminals going free, victims dismissed, mocked or cowed into silence.

If anyone doubts that there is something seriously wrong with the way justice operates in these cases, just consider the case of John Worboys. One of his victims says she was “laughed at” for reporting her assault and police were later found to have failed to investigate the case properly. During the investigation, more than 80 women came forward to report similar offences, but only 14 of them resulted in charges. Prosecutors, police and the courts showed no foresight, banking on the idea that an eight-year minimum on an “indeterminate” sentence would be enough to lock the man away for life. And now that he has by unknown means managed to convince the Parole Board of his reformed nature, barring some ministerial action, we are days from seeing the man released.

How could so many different things go wrong? Part of the answer is that sexual assault, and the culture that enables it, is much more widespread than we ever liked to think. The Catholic Church, Rotherham, universities campuses, even seemingly “nice” families: it can happen anywhere. Whether we realise it or not, all of us probably know someone, in any given array of family, friends and colleagues, who has suffered. We might even, without knowing it, know a perpetrator.

But crucially, this is not the same as saying that we are all guilty, that all men are predators or that all women are victims. And here’s where vigilantism goes wrong. The online #Metoo movement helped some people to break an oppressive silence about terrible events, but it is also sweeping up everything in its path. From harrowing accounts of abuse or assault all the way down to a hand on someone’s knee, we’ve not only lost the ability to accord everyone a fair hearing, we’re seemingly no longer able to distinguish between criminal assault and embarrassing attempts at flirting. In some cases, “harassment” accusers seem to think that women are entirely passive wallflowers who are irrevocably “damaged” by even the silliest unwanted advances.

In fact, there are two separate sides to this – criminal and cultural – and it’s very important to keep them separate.

On the first, it’s clear that the criminal justice system has improved over the years. But I know people intimately familiar with the system who say they would almost certainly not report a rape, knowing how awful the legal ordeal is. In light of how low the conviction rate is and how difficult the process, perhaps these cases could be fast-tracked. Rape victims, particularly poor, young teens as in Rotherham, are still too often dismissed as time-wasters.

We should recognise, however, that shifting attitudes also shift the balance of risks relating to false accusations. So it seems fair that anyone accused of sexual assault should also benefit from anonymity until courts reach a decision. There would need to be limited exceptions so that police could release some information when, as in the Worboys case, they need to “encourage” victims to come forwards. Of course, if the justice process was less gruelling for victims, perhaps they would need less encouragement.

The second, cultural side of the #Metoo movement, however, requires greater nuance. For though it’s no longer acceptable for powerful old sleazes to squeeze their employees’ bottoms in the corridor, workplace flirting isn’t inherently abusive. Context matters. A dirty joke enjoyed by everyone in one office can, in another, perpetuate a culture of sexual harassment. How can you tell which? Well, usually, as an outsider, you can’t.

We should all, therefore, show a little more humility before rushing to judge someone when we’re not involved in a situation. This would reflect what we now know: that sexual abuse is shockingly widespread, but also that context and details can make all the difference as to where we draw the line between flirting and harassment. Context, in fact, is exactly the sort of thing that our criminal justice system, and many workplace disciplinary systems that share its principles, is designed to assess.

That is why what we should not do is throw out any notion of due process. The fundamental tenets of the system – that everyone has a right to a fair hearing and that guilt must be proved – are sound. Digital vigilantism has broken years of silence and brought on an overdue cultural change, but it’s no substitute for justice. Rather than denouncing the entire male sex, it’s time to reflect, bring some balance back to the debate and focus on the arduous, meticulous process of reform.