Good Law Project and The Gemini Project have launched legal proceedings against the Home Office, which has failed to meet its statutory duty to produce a report on spiking and their plans to address it.
Section 71 of the Crime, Police, and Sentencing act 2022 required the government to produce a report on the nature and prevalence of spiking and what steps the government are taking to tackle the issue. This was due in April 2023 but still has not been published. Without this important report and vital data on the issue it is hard to gauge the scale of the problem and begin to tackle it.
Tamara Walters, Legal Assistant, Good Law Project, said: “It’s impossible to solve a problem when you don’t even know how big it is. So we are demanding that the Government publishes the report setting out the nature and prevalence of spiking, as well as the steps they are taking in response which Parliament has required it to do. ”
Spiking is an unfortunately common phenomenon with the potential to victimize any member of the public. Since 2016 spiking has increased year on year. Spiking is a direct violation of a person’s body autonomy and right to free choice regarding intake of alcohol or other substances. It is a fact that women are disproportionately victimised as a result of spiking, and that spiking is often used as a means to facilitate sexual offences. Our work as a survivor led charity aiming to end sexual violence means this issue is of particular interest to us. We are concerned that in not publishing this important report the government is reneging on both their statutory duty to address the issue and their commitments to combating violence against women and girls.
These proceedings are fully crowdfunded. For more information and to donate click below: https://actions.goodlawproject.org/spiking
The Gemini Project 