LibDem No2 Jo Swinson: The day my ‘nice young friend’ tried to rape me
LIBERAL Democrat deputy leader Jo Swinson has revealed how she desperately fought off an attempted rape by a ‘ nice young man’ she thought was a friend.
The former Minister only stopped the horrifying attack by shouting at him that what he was about to do was rape. Ms Swinson told The Mail on Sunday last night: ‘I was really under threat. I was physically pushing him away and saying, “I do not want to do it.”
‘I could hardly believe that this guy, who was a nice guy with whom I got on well, was not responding to me saying “No” and trying to push him off.’
The traumatic incident happened in the late 1990s when she was a 19-year-old studying at the London School of Economics. She declined to name the attacker, who was a fellow student.
Ms Swinson, a former Business Minister in the Coalition Government, added: ‘He was about to do something horrendous and I managed to get him to stop. I told him, “If you make me, that’s rape.”
‘I was a teenager and if I’d had a lot to drink, I might have said “No” and pushed him off, but I might not have had the presence of mind to use the R-word. If I hadn’t had my wits about me and been more afraid or fearful, who knows what might have happened? There were plenty of women I knew in my year who were much less assertive than I was.
‘At the time it was a desperate attempt to guarantee my safety. The words seemed to finally bring him to his senses and he stopped.
‘My heart was beating very fast and I was angry. There is this view among many that this violence against women is something which is sort of the stranger leaping out of the dark alley, or a whole different series of horrible people that they wouldn’t have anything to do with.
‘Actually, what I took from that experience was that I could very easily see how rape could happen and the rapist could be a nice young man who would not consider that would be something he could do.
‘Until I’d used the word “rape” he didn’t realise that was the situation, so somehow me saying “No” and pushing him off was not computing in his brain. After- wards, I realised that I’d had a really close escape.’
Ms Swinson reveals her distressing experience in a new book, Equal Power. Described as a ‘call to arms’, it examines inequality issues – from the gender pay gap to everyday sexism – and how to turn them around.
She said: ‘I share my experience to explain this is not just about other people. One in four women studying at university has suffered unwanted physical sexual advances. Most people who are raped are [assaulted] by people they know.’
She said she welcomed a Government drive to tackle a ‘ rape culture’ at universities, as well as the introduction of ‘sexual consent classes’ for undergraduates.
Last Monday, Ms Swinson stunned daytime TV viewers by saying ‘c**k’ during a live broadcast. She was taking part in a debate on misogyny on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire show.
The MP for East Dunbartonshire was voicing her support for a pilot scheme set up last year by Nottinghamshire Police that enables women to report misogyny-fuelled abuse as a hate crime. It includes sexist language or behaviour, such as wolf-whistling, street harassment, verbal abuse and taking photographs without consent.
During the TV debate, Ms Swinson quoted a police chief who said there was ‘a big difference’ between ‘asking someone if you could buy them a drink and saying, “Do you want some c**k?” ’
Ms Swinson then said: ‘ If it’s not acceptable to say that on your show, why is it acceptable to say it to a 15-year-old girl on her way to school?’