Women’s rights activists call for ban on men using ‘rough sex’ defence

Campaigners today called for men in murder trials to be banned from using the ‘rough sex’ defence that Grace Millane’s killer tried to use in New Zealand.

British campaign group We Can’t Consent to This spoke out after Grace’s killer – who claimed the 22-year-old died during consensual sex – was jailed for life for her ‘barbaric and depraved’ murder.

The group’s founder Fiona Mackenzie said men avoided murder charges in a third of 60 cases where they claimed their victim had died accidentally during violent but consensual sex.

She said: ‘These women are killed in extraordinary and sustained violence – Grace was strangled for between five and 10 minutes.

‘The normalisation of violence is leading to men using this defence and unfortunately it is often successful because people tend to believe that women consent to violence that seriously injures them.’

British backpacker Grace Millane, 22, who was murdered in Auckland on December 1st 2018

Grace, from Wickford, Essex, was visiting New Zealand and met her killer, who can’t be named for legal reasons, on Tinder before going back to his flat following a date. 

Her attacker pleaded not guilty to murder, saying she died accidentally during consensual sex, but a jury rejected his defence and convicted him in November.

Rough sex defences – in which it is claimed the victim died accidentally during consensual sex – are overwhelmingly used in cases in which the alleged attacker is a man and the victim a woman, found a research paper by We Can’t Consent to This.

Under British law, a person cannot consent to being seriously hurt. 

But the defence offers a potential loophole by arguing the death – often from strangling – was an accident.

Labour MP Harriet Harman has proposed amendments to a forthcoming bill on domestic abuse that would prevent such claims being used as a defence.

‘Men are now, literally, getting away with murder by using the ‘rough sex’ defence,’ she told parliament last year.

‘Although the man has to admit that he caused injuries which led to the woman’s death, he claims that it was not his fault, as it was a ‘sex game gone wrong’. She, of course, is not there to say otherwise.’

More than 23,000 people have also signed an online petition to parliament backing a change in the law to remove the defence.

Millane was strangled to death after going on a date with a man she met on Tinder in the New Zealand city of Auckland during a round-the-world trip.

Her 28-year-old killer, whose name has been suppressed by the court, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 17 years behind bars.