The growing defence of 'rough sex' and its effect on the normalisation of violence against women
In the early hours of 18 December 2016, multi-millionaire property developer John Broadhurst called paramedics to say partner Natalie Connolly was as “dead as a doughnut” after engaging in what he called consensual but “rough sex” the night before. Broadhurst had left the injured and bleeding Connolly unsupervised at the foot of the stairs without contacting the emergency services when there was a very high risk of death which would have been obvious to a reasonable and prudent person. Two years later after having been on trial for murder and the intentional causing of grievous bodily harm, the Crown Prosecution Service reduced to manslaughter after doubt of securing a guilty murder verdict. Mr. Broadhurst subsequently pleaded guilty to involuntary gross negligence manslaughter for effectively “showing a blatant disregard for a very high risk of death”, and was sentenced to just forty-four months imprisonment. He could be released in less than two years from the start of his prison term.
According to research by campaign group “We Can’t Consent to This”—which was formed following the aforementioned case—Ms. Connolly was one of 59 women in the UK since 1972 who were killed by men that used ‘rough sex’ as a defence. This cynical rough sex claim epitomises the concept of victim-blaming by seeking to exploit prejudice against victims - yet it fails to provide an explanation for the 40 separate injuries and serious internal trauma sustained, or the bleach sprayed on her face.
Just last week, the ‘rough sex’ defence was reused in British backpacker Grace Millane’s murder trial. The defendant did not deny killing his Tinder date, but swiftly asserted in defence that her death was accidental and the result of her requests to be choked during consensual sex. The defendant’s confidence in employing this overplayed defence exposes a deeper and profoundly disturbing issue with criminal justice systems and specifically their treatment of women. The jury had to listen to a defendant that attempted to shift the blame from himself to Millane by suggesting she died from a lethal mixture of alcohol and inexperience in BDSM practices. The bottom line is these two cases demonstrate the chilling reality of our criminal justice system that is the conventionalisation of misogynistic attitudes which has led male defendants to increasingly ask juries to believe that their partners asked for their death by engaging in rough sex.
