The Guardian view on indecent exposure: a crime that must be taken seriously
When police are contacted three times about a man exposing himself in public, you would expect them to investigate. And when his vehicle registration and credit card number are provided, you would expect them to act swiftly. The failures of the Met and Kent police to investigate these reports of Wayne Couzens served to strengthen his “dangerous belief in his invincibility”, Mrs Justice May said on Monday, when she handed Couzens a 19-month sentence for indecent exposure, on top of the life sentence he is serving for the rape and murder of Sarah Everard.
The attitude of the police to sexual offences is under close and growing scrutiny. But officers are not alone in treating “flashing” as a crime deserving less attention. Despite carrying a maximum two-year sentence, indecent exposure is still too easily brushed off as an unpleasant but ultimately inconsequential act. The stereotypical image of a man in a mac, and even the language of “flashing”, diminish the seriousness of this crime and make it easy to trivialise. Couzens’s offences are further proof that such crimes can be precursors to more dangerous behaviour.
He exposed himself in a McDonald’s drive-through days before abducting Sarah Everard; similarly, Pawel Relowicz committed voyeurism offences prior to raping and murdering the student Libby Squire in Hull. One review of evidence from 2014 found that a quarter of people who exposed themselves reoffended, and between 5% and 10% escalated their behaviour to more serious sexual offences. Two officers will now face misconduct allegations over their handling of reports in the Couzens case. The problem goes further than these individuals: a recent Guardian analysis found that only 600 of 10,000 indecent exposure cases logged by police in 2020 reached court.
Whether or not indecent exposure signals that a perpetrator will commit further offences, it is a serious crime that makes women feel vulnerable and violated, restricting their movements through public space. Of women surveyed recently by YouGov, 20% said they had experienced indecent exposure, while 40% of those aged between 18 and 34 had received an unsolicited sexual photo from a “cyberflasher”. Almost every woman has a story of being flashed, followed, or verbally or physically assaulted. The resulting adaptations women make – such as not running after dark, ducking into a shop to avoid a stranger, or trying to make a joke of an intrusive situation – have the effect of eroding their liberty.
Recent high-profile cases of sexual violence have prompted a welcome increase in people reporting such crimes. Yet austerity caused an exodus of senior officers, and new officers hired to replace them are often inexperienced. In one 2022 report, an officer described how “when a sexual offence job comes in, there’s almost like this panic of like ‘oh my god, what do I do?’”. Police should be properly resourced to deal with sensitive cases. Preventing sexual violence also requires early interventions. The government updated the sex and relationships curriculum in 2020; it should now make more funding available for already overstretched schools. Taking indecent exposure seriously starts with teaching people that it is nothing to laugh about.