The Sexual Violence Bill trundles ever closer to becoming law. The sentiments behind it appear noble: to ease the trauma of the trial process for complainants and to correct perceived low conviction rates. However, it is really responding to pressure to jail more perpetrators. A 2019 Ministry of Justice report claimed only eleven percent of sexual crimes reported to police lead to conviction, and just six percent to a jail sentence.Yet most criminal lawyers are opposed, and not only on the defence side. In the bill's second reading in Parliament, former prosecutor Simon Bridges spoke passionately against its two sinister clauses. He assured the House that he supports the broad intention of the bill in limiting courtroom “retraumatisation” but warned that those lethal clauses would put even more innocent men in jail.
