Prime Minister Boris Johnson has ruled out making misogyny a hate crime in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard, which has unearthed widespread concerns about attitudes towards women in Britain.
A hate crime is when the victim's race, religion, sexual orientation or disability is the motive for an offence. Ironically it is currently a hate crime to be abusive towards a transgender woman, but not to a woman who was born female.
Johnson told the BBC he believed the criminal justice system would be overloaded if misogyny became a hate crime and he said: “What you need to do is get police to focus on the very real crimes.”
The prime minister insisted violence against women was now “the number one issue in policing” and said the police’s approach was “just not working”.
But he ruled out making misogyny a crime and said: ”Rather than introducing new laws, what you need to do is enforce the existing laws. To be perfectly frank, if you simply widen the scope of what you ask the police to do, you’ll just increase the problem.”
West Midlands Victims' Commissioner, Nicky Brennan, contradicted Boris Johnson and said: “Recording misogyny as a hate crime would help women have more trust in the police as well as giving the police the ability to get to the root causes of violence against women and girls."
Ms Brennan said: “The Prime Minister should be leading the way in the fight against misogyny and hate against women and I’d urge him to rethink this to protect women and help challenge attitudes which pose a danger to women.”
Ms Brennan said: “The Prime Minister should be leading the way in the fight against misogyny and hate against women and I’d urge him to rethink this to protect women and help challenge attitudes which pose a danger to women.”
The prime minister’s comments follows several days of high profile debate about violence by men against women and whether the police, especially in London, have lost the public’s trust.
On Thursday 30 September Wayne Couzens, who had been a serving Metropolitan Officer at the time of the attack, was given a whole life sentence for abducting, raping and murdering Sarah Everard.
Another Metropolitan Police officer from the same unit - the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command - was charged with rape on Sunday.
PC David Carrick, 46, appeared in court by video link on Monday and said he “emphatically denies” raping a woman he met on the dating app Tinder.
On Monday, 4 October, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Cressida Dick, announced a “high profile” independent figure would be appointed to conduct a “wholesale review of culture and standards in the Met in order to regain the public’s trust.”
The Met said: “The Commissioner fully recognises recent events mean there is public concern, not just about the Met overall, but specifically about the culture and standards within the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command. The public rightly expects the highest standards of officers across the Met and that absolutely includes those who are charged with protecting London’s iconic sites and the seat of government.”