Woman filmed naked while she slept wins long fight for justice
AWOMAN who was allegedly secretly filmed sleeping naked will have her case reviewed by the CPS.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided not to bring a prosecution against the man, who is said to have filmed Emily Hunt naked and unconscious without her consent in May 2015.
However, this will now be reconsidered after judges clarified the law on voyeurism.
This marks the culmination of fiveyear campaign by Ms Hunt who says that the incident, and CPS’s refusal to take the case, have ruined her personal and professional life.
“I had a complete break down,” she told the Western Mail yesterday. “It impacted my work life and my professional life. Try dating when this comes up when people Google your name. Trying applying for a job.
“Going public did have a bigger impact than I thought but it was worth it. We changed the law. It is now illegal. It will protect men and women throughout the UK.”
Ms Hunt launched a legal challenge last year against the CPS over the decision, raising money to fund her case through the CrowdJustice website.
But the Centre for Women’s Justice (CWJ), which represented Ms Hunt, said the CPS will no longer oppose her challenge and will review its earlier decision, following a Court of Appeal ruling in a different case on Tuesday.
Lord Justice Fulford, sitting with Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb and Mrs Justice Foster, clarified the law on voyeurism – an offence under the Sexual Offences Act – during a ruling in an appeal brought by Tony Richards.
Richards, 40, of Heritage Drive, Caerau, Cardiff, was jailed for 15 months after being found guilty of two counts of voyeurism over secretly filming himself having sex with prostitutes and admitting three counts of possessing indecent images of children.
Challenging his voyeurism convictions at the Court of Appeal a week yesterday, his lawyers argued he was not guilty of the offence because the filming had taken place in a private setting.
But, dismissing his appeal, Lord Justice Fulford said those he filmed had a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Ms Hunt was given permission by the court to intervene in the case after the CWJ learned that the CPS would be opposing Richards’ appeal.
Ms Hunt was left furious by the CPS who seemed to be arguing the opposite in the Richards case to what they had been telling her for five years. In a surreal moment her lawyers were actually assisting the CPS in the Richard’s case.
She said: “After fighting the CPS for five years I can’t believe how it ended up with my lawyers helping them.
“People have said that the CPS don’t back down. It is in their nature to refuse and refuse. But now the judge has said we were right.
“Prosecution is 100% in the public interest. They need to rebuild the public’s trust that they can make the correct decision. Especially when they have been arguing both sides.”
Despite what has been a harrowing experience Ms Hunt says she will take some comfort in the fact that other people are now protected.
She said: “We changed the law. It is now illegal. It will protect men and women throughout the UK.
“We only have a conviction in 7.8% of crimes in the UK and 1.5% of rapes. We have decriminalised crime.”
Ms Hunt’s solicitor Kate Ellis 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.”
CWJ director Harriet Wistrich 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.”
Ms Hunt added in a statement that she now has hope the man who allegedly filmed her will “see justice and consequences for his actions”.
She added: “It has taken nearly five 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.”
A CPS spokesman said: “What constitutes a ‘private act’ for the purposes of the offence of voyeurism had never been conclusively defined by a higher court until today.
“The CPS does not make or decide the law; that is the remit of Parliament and the Courts respectively.
“Now that this new authoritative judgement has clarified this point of law, the CPS will review its position in the judicial review brought by Emily Hunt.”