Gayle Newland behaved no worse than rogue undercover police officers
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Version 0 of 1. Gayle Newland is not the first woman to have been prosecuted and convicted of sexual assault for impersonating a man in an otherwise consensual sexual relationship with a woman. In March 2013, Justine McNally, an 18 year-old lesbian, was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for six counts of sexual assault by penetration against her 16-year-old girlfriend. In that case the prosecutor commented: “Because of the abuse of trust, the trauma to the victim, and the peculiar circumstances, this is an extraordinary case. She obtained consent to physical intimacy between them by fraud. The case involves a very serious abuse of trust.” Change the word “she” to “he” in the above sentence and in fact you would be describing the acts of a number of undercover police officers who deceived political activists into entering long-term intimate sexual relationships. Yet the police officers responsible for this fraudulent activity, which has caused severe psychological damage to many of those deceived, are not facing criminal charges. Related: Relationships with undercover officers wreck lives. The lies must stop | Lisa Jones and Kate Wilson Last year, after almost three years of consideration, the CPS wrote to me, as the solicitor representing eight women subjected to this extremely harmful deceit by undercover police officers, to state that they did not consider that the conduct of the police officers amounted to any criminal offence. One of my clients sought a victim’s right of review of the CPS decision, and was informed: “It is difficult to articulate after the fact, or prescribe in advance, what sort of behaviour the officer would have to display to take him outside the necessarily rather blurry edges of acceptable conduct to such a degree that his behaviour amounts to an abuse of his office.” She also stated that “the relationship was entirely genuine and that this militates against a finding that it was misconduct to the requisite degree”. Gayle Newland was also, according to the reports, genuinely in love with her friend. She said, “All I knew was that I needed her in my life. I loved her. I didn’t want to be without her. I couldn’t imagine being without her.” The court of appeal considered an appeal against McNally’s conviction but dismissed it (although reduced her sentence to nine months suspended), stating that although the physical act of penetration was essentially the same, the victim had chosen to have sex with a boy, and was deceived as to her gender. The court stated that it would depend on the circumstances whether a deception in a sexual relationship vitiated consent. How do we explain such a contrasting approach to the cases of women impersonating men in sexual relationships from those of the undercover male police officers impersonating political activists? The women were motivated by a search for love; the police officers were motivated by the wish to gather intelligence McNally had a troubled and unhappy upbringing, with difficulties during puberty. Newland was described by the judge as “having serious issues surrounding her personality”. The police officers, on the other hand, had to undergo robust psychological testing before being permitted to work undercover. McNally came from a broken home (we await the reports prepared for sentencing to learn of Newland’s background), whereas most of the police officers who commenced intimate relationships with the women, lasting in some cases for many years, were married and had their own children. McNally and Newland relied on their own ingenuity to invent and maintain their disguises, while the police officers were trained in depth in the art of winning over trust, were resourced with false passports and credit cards, and had full backup from a team behind them to ensure that their true identities remained hidden at all times. The women appear to have been motivated by a search for love and a confused exploration of their gender and sexuality, whereas the undercover police officers were motivated by the wish to gather intelligence about the activities of the women and their friends, who were engaged in movements to promote social justice and to fight racism and other forms of oppressive conduct. But perhaps the real crime is that both McNally and Newland used fake penises, whereas the police officers had real ones. While Newland, like McNally, is likely to face a custodial sentence, the police officers remain comfortably in their jobs or on their generous state paid pensions. Newland and McNally’s identities and personal lives have been splashed all over the media, and the police officers’ real identities are still protected by anonymity. |