Women Against Rape requests that the Bichard Inquiry arising from the Soham Murders investigate why Huntley’s previous attacks were never prosecuted

We will present our request at 1.45pm on Tues 16 March to the Bichard Inquiry, 5th Floor, 90 High Holborn, London WC1V 6XX

WAR’s request, endorsed by 31 women’s and community organisations, five prominent lawyers including Ian Macdonald QC and Louise Christian, and many others, calls on the Inquiry to find out why Huntley’s nine previous attacks were never prosecuted.  Huntley should never have been allowed to work at a school but the Inquiry avoids the fundamental problem – the refusal to investigate and charge Huntley for his previous attacks.  The police knew about these attacks -- the Inquiry has heard that PC Harding’s report stated: “. . . Huntley is a serial sex attacker and is at liberty to continue his activities”.  And that DI Peter Billam, former head of Grimsby’s Child Protection Unit, had been involved in three of the cases where Huntley had been accused of sex with underage girls, but he apparently took no action.

Women and others concerned with violence against women and children are angry with the narrow terms of the Bichard Inquiry.  While the police have admitted that their record-keeping was so poor as to be ’almost worthless’ for vetting, it is less well-known and has not yet been stated at this Inquiry that this is part of a larger pattern.  Women and girls face the widespread refusal of the authorities to thoroughly investigate and prosecute rape and sexual assault.  The cases of the most notorious serial rapists and murderers reveal the same pattern:

  • The Yorkshire Ripper was convicted after murdering at least 13 women, many of whom were dismissed as ‘only prostitutes’. 

  • Fred and Rosemary West were reported for rape by a young woman years before the murders Rosemary West was eventually convicted for.  Their children’s injuries had not been acted on at school.  No explanation has ever been offered.

  • Dr Harold Shipman was allowed to kill hundreds of patients for many years –most of them were ‘only’ older women; while he as a doctor was above reproach by police, coroners and the medical establishment. 

  • Anthony Hardy, the ‘Camden Ripper’, convicted last year of murdering two women, is believed to have killed many others – he had attempted to murder his wife; a dead woman with a head injury was found by police in his flat; other women have reported attacks by him which were never prosecuted; and he was known to hate women, especially sex workers. 

  • In the first private prosecution for rape in 1995, the victims had initially been discouraged by police and CPS.  They claimed the evidence was ‘insufficient’.  Yet the rapist, Christopher Davies, was convicted on this same evidence.  Unlike many other rape trials, the evidence in this case was properly presented by the private prosecutor who, by standing up to the prejudices the defence tried to invoke against the victims, got an unprejudiced guilty verdict.

  We call on any other victims of these violent men to contact us.

Sexism is at the heart of negligent or reluctant investigation and prosecution of violence against women and children.  We cannot support government proposals to disclose previous convictions to the jury at trial, as this would destroy the presumption of innocence central to any fair trial.  Instead, an unbiased thorough investigation and proper presentation of evidence is needed to begin to address the real obstacles to prosecution.  Until such sexism, racism and other prejudice are acknowledged and tackled, there will be little or no change, and lives will be ruined and lost.  

Ends.

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Letter in the Guardian, 25 June
WAR article in The Independent, 6 Jan 2004
 Letter to the Bichard Inquiry  
Evidence to the Bichard Inquiry
Press release

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