‘Put misogyny on list of hate crimes’

A FORMER Scotland Yard detective put in charge of protecting MPs after the murder of Jo Cox has said police forces should treat misogyny as a hate crime after he witnessed the extent of graphic and violent sexual abuse aimed at female politicians.

Philip Grindell, who headed a specialist Parliamentary team dealing with threats, intimidation and abuse of MPs for three years before retiring from the

Metropolitan Police in November to set up his own security consultancy, said more action was needed on the issue.

He told The Yorkshire Post: “My view is misogyny should be a hate crime. Women are being targeted on the basis of their sex.

“We have a hate-crime policy but it doesn’t include misogyny.”

In April 2016, Nottinghamshire Police became the first force in the UK to pilot recording public harassment of women – such as groping and using explicit language, along with more serious offences such as assault – as a misogyny hate crime.

Research into the policy from June 2018 found that although some initial media reporting had “trivialised” the move as a ban on wolf-whistling, 87 per cent of people surveyed backed it continuing. There were 174 reports of

alleged misogyny hate crimes in Nottinghamshire between April 2016 and March 2018, with 73 classified as crimes, but only one conviction.

In October 2018, Sara Thornton, chair of the National Police Chiefs Council, said that with core policing seriously stretched, forces did not have the resources to deal with misogyny as a hate crime.

A Government-ordered review by the Law Commission is currently considering whether misogyny should be a hate crime.

Mr Grindell said: “Too often it gets trivialised into a conversation about wolf-whistling but I’m talking about if somebody is sending malicious communications and using sexually violent language towards someone because they are female.

“I think there should be a national policy with a little bit more thought put into it. The evidence shows females are much more targeted online.”

Mr Grindell, a pro-bono security adviser for the Jo Cox Foundation and who was involved in ensuring the safety of Rotherham MP Sarah Champion after she was subjected to death threats, said he had personally witnessed how abuse was affecting the ability of some MPs to do their jobs properly.

He said: “There were numerous examples where we had female MPs in tears, feeling scared about the abuse and whether that would encourage other people to target them.

“We had MPs talking about how they were reluctant to raise controversial subjects they believed in.

“Brexit became particularly hostile and MPs would be saying, ‘I’m worried about voting tonight because the results are published and I’m going to be abused and threatened’. It absolutely did have a democratic effect and the intimidation was for that purpose.”

He said he did not know whether it led to MPs changing their votes. “They were talking about thinking about doing that but I never asked and wouldn’t ask how they are going to vote.”

Mr Grindell said there were differences in the type of abuse. Men were told they were incompetent, while women received sexually violent comments.