The police finished by reassuring me that they had "made him delete the picture". At this point, because of the mess I was in, it didn't occur to me that this was my evidence.
The photograph wasn't considered graphic because I had knickers on - if I had chosen not to wear any underwear it might have been dealt with entirely differently - but I don't see how what I was wearing should affect their response.
What nonsense. Their groin is only on display to a pervert who lifts it up or uses a mirror or selfie stick or whatever nonsense they might do. Make the perverts have consequences for their unwanted action ie change the law is the way to deal with this. Your suggestion is the very definition of victim blaming
Anyway back to the topic. Yes My method ensures that there are never any victims of this ever again. Teach girls to wear trousers if they don't like having their groin on display.
Meanwhile some people, dare I say, potential perverts, seem to be hoping that women keep on wearing skirts while lying to them that some law will magically protect them.
If you wear a skirt your groin isn't 'on display'. It's called upskirting because someone has to deliberately put a camera at an angle where they can see up your skirt.
Notice the lack of underwear/genitals on display
"if you dont want someone to look up your skirt don't wear a skirt" sounds a lot like victim blaming to me. Telling them to just wear trousers doesn't solve whats going on here. If you read the law it's not just about upskirting, it's about deliberately trying to photograph parts of someones body that they've covered up.
As for the Bikini example the thing you seem to be misunderstanding is consent, if someone walks around in a bikini or speedos then they're happy to have that much skin on show. Someone wearing a skirt isn't, otherwise they'd just walk around in their underwear or bikini bottoms.
He's also woefully ignorant (despite it being said multiple times in the thread) to the fact that effectively the same legislation with the same/similar wording is already in effect in Scotland.
What nonsense. Their groin is only on display to a pervert who lifts it up or uses a mirror or selfie stick or whatever nonsense they might do. Make the perverts have consequences for their unwanted action ie change the law is the way to deal with this. Your suggestion is the very definition of victim blaming
I don't believe so. How can a victim be blamed if there are no victims any more?
This isn't rape where a rapist will still rape even if the woman's wearing jeans.
This is simple line of sight issue, and removing any possibility of line of sight automatically removes ALL potential victim creation. ESPECIALLY if you're concerned about your groin being looked at or seen.
If you wear a skirt your groin isn't 'on display'. It's called upskirting because someone has to deliberately put a camera at an angle where they can see up your skirt.
Notice the lack of underwear/genitals on display
"if you dont want someone to look up your skirt don't wear a skirt" sounds a lot like victim blaming to me. Telling them to just wear trousers doesn't solve whats going on here. If you read the law it's not just about upskirting, it's about deliberately trying to photograph parts of someones body that they've covered up.
As for the Bikini example the thing you seem to be misunderstanding is consent, if someone walks around in a bikini or speedos then they're happy to have that much skin on show. Someone wearing a skirt isn't, otherwise they'd just walk around in their underwear or bikini bottoms.
Firstly I'd like to thank you very much for posting the most civil and reasonable response yet.
"it's about deliberately trying to photograph parts of someones body that they've covered up."
This is what is disputable, is the criminal physically removing the victims clothing to uncover things? No. He's just pointing a camera at something which is uncovered isn't he? The only "cover" is due to the angle/line of sight so there's no actual covering up, is there?
As for the Bikini example the thing you seem to be misunderstanding is consent, if someone walks around in a bikini or speedos then they're happy to have that much skin on show. Someone wearing a skirt isn't, otherwise they'd just walk around in their underwear or bikini bottoms.
So using this same logic, cant the ideal be extended the other way? You say they'd just walk around in their underwear if they didn't care, but what if skirts were treated like that, and just use jeans/trousers/shorts to cover up the groin area if they so wish?
I really think this is a better solution than giving women some sort of false protection. The fact is the perverts will always be out there and in most cases will continue to take upskirts because most of them go undetected anyway. The law won't reduce victims, my suggestion will.
He's also woefully ignorant (despite it being said multiple times in the thread) to the fact that effectively the same legislation with the same/similar wording is already in effect in Scotland.
Firstly I'd like to thank you very much for posting the most civil and reasonable response yet.
"it's about deliberately trying to photograph parts of someones body that they've covered up."
This is what is disputable, is the criminal physically removing the victims clothing to uncover things? No. He's just pointing a camera at something which is uncovered isn't he? The only "cover" is due to the angle/line of sight so there's no actual covering up, is there?
"in circumstances where the genitals, buttocks or underwear would not otherwise be visible"
It's covered in the sense that without action from another party, they would not be seen.
So using this same logic, cant the ideal be extended the other way? You say they'd just walk around in their underwear if they didn't care, but what if skirts were treated like that, and just use jeans/trousers/shorts to cover up the groin area if they so wish?
I really think this is a better solution than giving women some sort of false protection. The fact is the perverts will always be out there and in most cases will continue to take upskirts because most of them go undetected anyway. The law won't reduce victims, my suggestion will.
People should be free to wear what they want without worrying about perverts or whatever. In terms of practicality skirts enable people to have nothing in contact with their legs while still keeping them covered if they don't want to show off some skin (useful in hot weather). Wearing something underneath like shorts/trousers/leggings defeats the point entirely.
I wouldn't call it false protection, I think it's more about setting a precedent and letting people know that if they do catch someone doing it that there's a law dedicated to making sure they'll be dealt with.
No, it addresses the fact that your first post was to wade in having read nothing about the legislation questioning how such a law could be defined and claim it would be open to "abuse" because of the variables, when the legislation is already in effect in Scotland and the wording of the bill was effectively the same as the Scottish act.
You're fixated on this idea that women wearing skirts are putting their intimate areas on display either willingly or naively. They're free to wear whatever they want, it's not up to you or anyone else to tell them that their behaviour needs to change because men will invade their physical space and privacy for their own gratification. The law needs to have robust measures by which such people can be dealt with because, regardless of your "education" idea, women will still want to wear skirts. What you appear to be implying is that women who do choose to wear skirts are taking the risks and that the law shoudn't adequately protect them or deter those who may seek to take advantage of that.
Is this attitude mirrored for other sexual offences too, out of curiosity? Should women who get groped on a train find alternative modes of transport? Should girls who have their nude images shared by partners/ex-partners in revenge stop taking photos of themselves naked entirely?
Sending people to prison for it seems a bit silly when prisons are already over-crowded and criminals are avoiding it for more serious stuff. It's not like they are an actual DANGER to the public. It's slap on the wrist stuff really.
Lets be honest, the kind/sort of people taking their phone out to maliciously photograph someones underwear/genitals, is going to be disgusting outside of that frame as well. To think people tried to defend upskirting in here...
As mentioned, it's merely a delaying tactic for a few weeks, it's time such archaic parliamentary nonsense was ditched, the bill will be heard, debated
and voted on in due course.
Which is why this MP (and some others) object to laws being passed by a few MPs without being heard, debated or voted on (in a meaningful way). They want bills to be heard, debated and voted on by the House of Commons, not by a few people who happen to be there at the time and not without debate. We don't even know if the text of the bill was read at all before the "vote". There's no requirement for that in a private member's bill. Sometimes only the title is given. Is it reasonable for the law of the country to be made by 5% of MPs voting on a bill? Is it reasonable for the law of the country to be made by 5% of MPs voting on a bill they know nothing about apart from the proposed title?
I don't think that private member's bills should be ditched. They serve a purpose, but that purpose should not be to make law (and it usually isn't - few private member's bills pass and they're not meant to).
Well they aren't is isnt like if it got passed yesterday it becomes law like you and many others are making out it has to go for royal assent then come back to be voted on by both the house of lords and the house of commons.
The House of Lords have no power to block a bill and can only even debate it if they are allowed to by the Commons (effectively, by the PM). Royal assent is a rubberstamping exercise - the last time it was actually used was in 1708 and it was controversial then. So in practice the House of Commons does make the law.
The Parliament Acts allow the Commons (effectively the PM) to circumvent the Lords entirely, for any bill, by saying so.
The Lords are automatically circumvented for any bills involving the government either raising or spending money.
I suppose the Lords could still debate a bill under those circumstance, but only in the same sense that we could debate it on these forums. It's not a meaningful debate. It has no effect on anything.
For all other bills, the Lords can only delay the bill for a limited amount of time. They can't block it. They can't even change it. Not a single letter of a single word.
We have a single branch of government with the pretence of having three branches of government. But it's just a pretence. The Commons is the only part that matters. Any bill that passes the Commons becomes law.
The PM if the government has a majority they can control (or a majority which will go with them). I’d agree government has too much power... but that is the parties being parties and whipping their MPs more than anything.
I agree. Two parties, one party in charge and one person in charge of that party who has a lot of power to control how MPs in that party vote. That's not really a democracy. It's an odd mix of democracy and dictatorship.
Do you mean circumvent as in not allow them to go through all the normal stages normal bills do (not money bills)? Or do you just mean that the Commons can force stuff through in the end and not take on board anything the Lords say whilst bills are with them? Just because you said they can prevent them even debating it.
Both. While it's rare for the Commons/PM to not allow a bill other than a money bill to go through the normal stages, they have that power. So the Lords are only allowed to debate a bill if the Commons/PM allow them to do so.
The Lords can only really say they think something should be done differently, and at the committee stage do some good work, but that is what we want them to do because of the Parliament Acts. But is that bypassing, or just having them as a revising chamber as we’ve decided is appropriate over the last century?
A revising chamber would have the power to revise. The Lords doesn't, so it's not a revising chamber. It's a suggestion chamber...when the Commons/PM allow it to be.
It’s better to say we have the executive and legislature, rather than separating them into three, although that’s pointlessly anal... but it’s not the Lords’ half of the legislature whose job it is to overrule the executive... that’s basically the job of the Commons (since they took that power away from the Lords).
Short version - yes the executive has too much power in practice, but MPs could fix that if they had the bottle. The Commons - the MPs - have the power and choose not to use it.
And won't, partly because it would be too risky for them and partly because it's not How Things Are Done.
Our rather strange system of a PM who is effectively a monarch ruling to a greater extent than any actual monarch ever did in any of the countries of Britain works relatively well because of How Things Are Done, but relying on custom to that extent also has drawbacks and it's not very robust. Only the nobility senior Party members can force the replacement of the monarch Prime Minister unless the actual monarch goes way, way past How Things Are Done and exerts their own authority in their own name by dismissing the Prime Minister or dissolving Parliament entirely.
I think I didn't know what I thought I knew. I think I misread the Parliament Acts and they still allow pointless debate in the Lords for a limited time.
I said they can only really say something should be done different, which is fairly reasonable. The alternative is to have an unelected body being able to crush the will of the elected MPs, or to change how the second chamber is populated... but any significant reform of the Lords comes with pros and cons, obviously.
You described it as a "revising chamber". I disagreed because it has no power to revise anything. It's a suggesting chamber, not a revising chamber. I agree on your assessment of the alternatives.
I agree with that, but the issue with with the Commons and not the Lords, imo. The Lords are irrelevant in the power struggle (or lack thereof!) between the executive and legislature. The Lords have been doing, and will continue to do, exactly what they're meant to.
I don't think we're disagreeing on the core point - that we have an elective dictatorship.
Agreed. Although maybe not quite a dictatorship. The closest thing to a dictatorship we've had other than Cromwell's rule. Closer to a dictatorship than we were when we had "absolute" monarchs, because they had a far more limited reach and even within their reach they required the active support of enough of the powerful nobility to actually rule.
Which is why this MP (and some others) object to laws being passed by a few MPs without being heard, debated or voted on (in a meaningful way). They want bills to be heard, debated and voted on by the House of Commons, not by a few people who happen to be there at the time and not without debate. We don't even know if the text of the bill was read at all before the "vote". There's no requirement for that in a private member's bill. Sometimes only the title is given. Is it reasonable for the law of the country to be made by 5% of MPs voting on a bill? Is it reasonable for the law of the country to be made by 5% of MPs voting on a bill they know nothing about apart from the proposed title?
I don't think that private member's bills should be ditched. They serve a purpose, but that purpose should not be to make law (and it usually isn't - few private member's bills pass and they're not meant to).
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