Justice for Gaia & the Gaia Principle

Take Action here: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/the-gaia-principle-letter-action

Dorset teenager Gaia Pope-Sutherland lost her life within two years of reporting to police that she had been a victim of child sexual exploitation (CSE). Gaia died an accidental death by hypothermia during a mental health crisis after Dorset Police had dropped her case against a known child sex offender. The inquest into her death exposed over 50 systemic failings by police, NHS and social services. 

Following her death in 2017 Gaia’s cousin Marienna Pope-Weidemann started campaigning for answers, justice and systemic change. After years of working together, in 2023 we officially joined forces and The Gemini Project took up the Justice For Gaia manifesto. To support the campaign, you can sign this petition for Dorset Police to establish a Rape & Serious Sexual Offences Unit; and use our quick letter writing tool to call on the government to bring the Gaia Principle into law. 

What is the Gaia Principle? 

The Gaia Principle will help to ensure that survivors of Rape & Serious Sexual Offenses are no longer endangered and denied justice because police fail to investigate a suspect properly.

The Gaia Principle compels investigating officers to investigate suspects thoroughly, checking for other allegations of abuse against them. By doing so it will unite survivors’ voices for justice and make sure those failed as Gaia was failed can hold the police to account. It will help stop “he-said-they-said” cases being misrepresented to the Crown Prosecution Service as “he-said-she-said” because investigating officers failed to join the dots between multiple allegations.

The Gaia Principle will make sure that sexual violence investigations are conducted in line with guidance already accepted into College of Policing’s National Operating Model, which was developed from Operation Soteria thanks to years of work by survivors and campaigners. Failure to comply with the guidance will be a professional standards issue and repeat failure may become a misconduct matter. That means any officer who cannot do their job can lose their job. 

We need this level of accountability in a country where charges are brought in less than 1.5% of rape cases. The Gaia Principle will ensure better guidance leads to real change on the ground and empowers people to hold the police to account if they are failed as Gaia was failed.

Take Action here: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/the-gaia-principle-letter-action

Read more about Justice for Gaia’s previous work here: https://justiceforgaia.com/about/

SLAPPs & Research into Misuse of Civil Litigation Against Survivors of Abuse

We have been campaigning on this issue since June 2020. We conducted the first UK nationwide study into the use of civil litigation by perpetrators of sexual and/or domestic violence who use SLAPPs (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) against their victims in order to silence them, cause secondary trauma, and revictimisation. So far, there is only anecdotal evidence of this practice in the UK. Our report will provide statistics and testimonials in order to further campaign efforts for victim protections in this area.

You can read more about our work in this area here: https://thegeminiproject.org/2023/03/28/press-release-abusers-weaponising-civil-litigation-to-silence-victims/

We are a member of the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition, find out more about the Coalition here: https://antislapp.uk/

Previous Campaigns:

Compulsory Consent Education

Our first campaign aimed to advocate for all primary and secondary school children with mandatory education on consent. With the implementation of compulsory sex education in all UK primary and secondary schools in 2020 we called on the government to include consent education as part of the national curriculum for children in all primary and secondary schools in order to reduce sexual assault and harassment.

Read more about consent here:  https://thegeminiprojectorg.wordpress.com/2018/09/15/what-is-consent/ 

Victim’s Law

Our Second campaign aimed to increase victim support and improve the justice system. This campaign focused on demanding a victims’ law, which the government continuously promised but failed to deliver on, despite stating that protecting survivors of sexual violence and supporting victims was a key priority. Some of these calls were included in the Victims and Prisoners Bill 2024.

As part of this campaign our initial demands were as follows:

• Address funding issues in regard to support services
• The implementation of a victims law which would see the justice system become more victim-centred
• Protecting victims from certain lines of questioning and extensive cross-examination
• Stopping invasions of privacy into the victims phones, personal records, social media, counselling notes and other personal records.
• Implement mandatory reporting for child sexual abuse
• The creation of a Victims’ Panel to represent the voice of victims in government policy making.
• To allow for independent universal credit applications and single payments
• Creating new offences to protect more victims and bring offenders to justice including: revenge porn, coercive or controlling behaviour, and sexual communication with a child.
• To make it illegal for perpetrators to use non-disclosure agreements or injunctions against their victims. Victims should be able to speak out about their experiences and should not be forced into silence by their abuser.
• Juries to be educated and informed on trauma responses so that they do not perpetuate societal myths about sexual violence and for all prosecutors, defense teams and judge’s to undergo mandatory training if representing/ judging a sexual violence case

Read more about our thoughts on the government’s victims strategy and the victims law here: https://thegeminiprojectorg.wordpress.com/2018/09/10/our-thoughts-on-the-governments-victims-strategy/ 

Reforming Representations of Sexual Abuse in the Media

Our third campaign was to reform the language used by the media when reporting on cases of sexual violence.

The media has an obligation to report factual and unbiased information to members of the public. At present their reporting methods feed into societal myths. We are calling on the media to change the way they report on cases of sexual violence.

We asked the media to:

• Stop using the term ‘sex with a child/ minor/ underage person/’ when the victim is under the age of consent. A person under the age of consent is unable to consent to sex and therefore it cannot be sex, it is only ever rape and should be labelled as such. It is not right to diminish the severity of an incident with language.
• Stop using the term ‘non-consensual sex’- it is rape, label it as such. Tip toeing around using the word ‘rape’ and ‘rapist’ is unhelpful and feeds into the myth that only monsters are rapists.
• To include statistics when reporting false allegations to outline the rarity of this phenomenon.
• Refrain from using information that is not relevant to the incident being reported on. For example: make the focus on the facts of the case, not the character of the victim or perpetrator.
• Never try to justify or explain the reasoning for a persons actions in cases of sexual violence. Refrain from speculation of motive.
• Report only the facts of what happened, cases of sexual violence do not need dressing up into narratives for click bait articles.
• To work with specialists when reporting on sexual violence cases to ensure that myths are not perpetuated.
• If the victim is not anonymous refrain from any invasions of privacy, they have already been violated and do not deserve to have their private life trawled through for the sake of an article.