The police don't know what sexual assault is

The facts

When I was 18, I defended my mum against my dad and, as per usual, I ended up becoming his target. 

He accused me of being effeminate, gay and having no friends. After arguing back with him, he put me in a headlock.

He then proceeded to stick his fingers into my mouth, reaching as far in as he could whilst cutting off my air with his arm around my neck.

"I've just had a shit and not washed my hands. You like the taste of my shit don't you, you f****t"

His inference being that because I'm gay, I would enjoy analingus and the taste of faeces.

Allegations

As part of my allegations to the police, I included this incident.

"It happened more than 6 months ago, so it's outside of the time to be brought to us", they told me.

I did a bit of research and while they are correct in saying that summary (minor) offences are time limited, more serious offences like sexual assault are not.

Obviously this is physical assault but with a sexual component. Sexual assault?

Legal definition

Sexual assault is where one person intentionally touches another person sexually without their consent. The touching can be done with any part of the body or with an object.

Let's break it down.

One person - my dad

Touches another person - headlock and fingers in my mouth

Sexually - no definition given for how we interpret this yet.

Without their consent - clearly I didn't want it to happen.

I meets all the criteria apart from "sexual". After some research I found that in some countries, putting any body part in another person's mouth against their will is automatically considered as sexual. In Canada, for instance, that would be sexual assault by penetration. But I needed the UK legal systems definition of "sexual".

I looked through established case law (where the court had looked at the word sexual for sexual assault and made a ruling on how it should be interpreted)

The Court of Appeal in R v H [2005] All ER (D) 16 interpreted this provision to mean that an act is ‘sexual’ if:

A reasonable person would consider the act inherently and unambiguously sexual by nature; or

A reasonable person would consider that the act, by its nature, might be sexual (but is not unambiguously so) and due to the circumstances or purposes of any person involved, it is in fact sexual.

Because the test is objective, it is possible for an act to be sexual even though the defendant does not have any sexual intentions.

There we have it. The second test is whether a reasonable person (not my dad, not me, not the police) would consider putting fingers in my mouth and shaming me for inferred gay sexual practices, to be sexual. Note the third point: my dad didn't need to have a sexual intention when he did what he did.

It is nuanced and I can see how some may find it challenging to understand but I took my research to the police anyway.

The male police officer came back to me and said, "it can't have been sexual assault as your dad wasn't aroused when he did it".

What? I was shocked. What part of the legislation or the case law mentions arousal other than to say it's not necessary for the defendant to think what they're doing is sexual? How can we know if someone is aroused when they commit sexual assault? Does that mean as a gay man, I am legally incapable of sexually assaulting a woman? No! Of course not!

The police's incredibly narrow interpretation of sexual assault was concerning. I escalated the matter as high as I could to get them to reconsider.

I got a few responses which showed they hadn't read my emails at all - so I challenged them to go through the law and explain their position. Of course they couldn't.

They didn't understand how, equating anal sex with what my dad was doing to me, was sexual. I think it's because they couldn't understand father on son / male on male sexual violence.

Let's make it easier then, imagine a father putting his daughter in a headlock and putting his fingers in her mouth. He tells her that she fancies men, so she just like the taste of piss on his fingers. Suddenly, it all seems very gross and sexual doesn't it?

Getting the police to understand it in those terms took months of arguing my point and threatening to escalate it. But it's now gone all the way to CPS for review.. I can only hope they understand the law better than the police.

THE POLICE.DONT.UNDERSTAND THE LAW

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