Joan Smith

The government’s plan to release 5,000 prisoners early in October does not exclude men convicted of domestic violence, exposing survivors and their children to potential renewed abuse. Joan Smith argues that domestic abusers are often fixated on controlling former partners and may reoffend, while weak probation supervision, missing electronic tags and slow responses to licence breaches make official safeguards unreliable. She presents the policy as a consequence of the prison overcrowding crisis and a failure to prioritize women’s safety, contrasting it with Keir Starmer’s pledge to reduce violence against women and girls.

Ruth Ellis has received a posthumous conditional pardon more than seven decades after she was hanged for killing her abusive lover, David Blakely. The pardon recognizes the extensive domestic and sexual violence she endured, but Joan Smith argues that the wider justice system continues to fail abused women. The article highlights the shortage of refuge spaces, past punitive sentences imposed on abuse survivors such as Sally Challen, and the fact that coercive control only became a criminal offence in 2015. Ellis’s case offers some comfort to her family while exposing the continuing consequences of misogynistic attitudes and inadequate institutional support for victims.

David Sullivan’s alleged exploitation of young women and his promotion of sexualized tabloid content are presented as emblematic of an earlier era that treated women’s bodies as consumable objects. Although the celebrity porn baron has largely disappeared from public view, the article argues that the culture he helped normalize migrated online, where platforms such as OnlyFans and Pornhub make sexual content more pervasive and often more violent. Sullivan denies wrongdoing and illegal conduct, but his resignation from West Ham following allegations could test the powers of the new independent football regulator.

Joan Smith argues that research across 29 countries showing significant support among Gen Z men for wives obeying husbands and men conforming to physical toughness reflects a disturbing retreat into traditional masculinity. She contrasts these attitudes with the more liberal views of baby boomers and Gen Z women, linking the generational divide partly to debt, austerity, limited job prospects and the effects of the Covid pandemic. Smith also warns that online misogynists such as Andrew Tate may reinforce these beliefs, contributing to a wider culture of misogyny and violence against women. Economic hardship may help explain the trend, she concludes, but does not excuse it; young men should be challenged and young women supported in rejecting damaging gender stereotypes.

Elish Angiolini’s second report into the Sarah Everard case exposes continuing and preventable failures in police vetting, misconduct investigations and efforts to reduce violence against women and girls. Despite earlier promises, a ban on recruiting people convicted of sexual offences has been delayed and will not be retrospective, while police checks in 2023–24 referred hundreds of personnel for disciplinary or criminal investigation. A quarter of police forces still lack basic sexual-offence investigation policies, and government efforts remain fragmented and underfunded. The failures are linked to institutional misogyny, victim-blaming and an unwillingness to focus on perpetrators. The piece welcomes Angiolini’s call for offender-focused investigations and David Lammy’s pledge to stop portraying rape victims as serial liars, but concludes that repeated reviews have produced little meaningful reform.

Data obtained by The Guardian indicate that 41% of people arrested for violent disorder after the 2024 Southport-related riots had previously been reported to police for domestic abuse, rising to 68% in some areas. Joan Smith argues that the overlap demonstrates how untreated domestic abuse can precede further violence, including public disorder and possible radicalisation. She criticises low charging rates, inadequate victim support and weak offender management, and calls for domestic abuse to be treated as a gateway offence alongside the creation of a domestic abuser register.

Joan Smith argues that Ghislaine Maxwell should be publicly described as a sex trafficker rather than a glamorous socialite following her conviction on five charges. She says Maxwell procured vulnerable girls for Jeffrey Epstein, benefited from his wealth and connections, and was shielded in part by class privilege and celebrity associations. The piece criticizes public sympathy for Maxwell’s prison conditions and contrasts the reaction to her with the treatment of less socially privileged female sex offenders, while emphasizing that Maxwell remains responsible for her choices and crimes.

The Plymouth shooting, in which Jake Davison killed his mother and four other people, exposes what Joan Smith argues is an overly restrictive understanding of terrorism. Davison’s incel-related misogyny, online rants and apparent obsession with guns are presented alongside examples involving Sandy Hook, Manchester and attacks in Canada to show how hatred of women can intersect with wider extremism. The article criticises police and Prevent for failing to recognise misogynistic warning signs, and calls for extreme misogyny to be treated as an ideology and a potential driver of terrorism.

Research from Project Starlight found that nearly 40% of adult referrals to England and Wales’s Prevent programme had a history of domestic abuse, including as perpetrators, witnesses or victims. The pattern appeared across Islamist, far-right and unidentified ideological backgrounds, supporting the argument that terrorist violence can escalate from domestic and misogynistic violence rather than ideology alone. Cases including Danyal Hussein’s murders of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman illustrate the risks of overlooking extreme misogyny. The article calls for counter-terrorism officers to routinely examine domestic-abuse histories and for authorities to address the under-reporting and weak prosecution of violence against women.

Joan Smith argues that repeated allegations of sexual abuse, violence and misogynistic conduct by police officers reveal a systemic institutional problem rather than a few isolated “bad apples.” Citing complaints against Metropolitan Police employees, a super-complaint involving 15 forces and several individual misconduct cases, she says accused officers can exploit their status to obstruct investigations while forces make weak charging and disciplinary decisions. Smith concludes that women cannot be expected to trust police to investigate violence against women until the government establishes a public inquiry into institutional misogyny within policing.

Joan Smith argues that encouraging girls to report rape without reforming the criminal justice system risks directing victims into a system that often treats them with suspicion. Citing figures for England and Wales, she notes that only a small fraction of reported rapes lead to prosecution or conviction. She criticizes intrusive police investigations into complainants’ phones, records and sexual history, disputes over consent, and mixed messages from senior police leaders. The article concludes that institutional distrust and weak accountability contribute to impunity for perpetrators and undermine assurances that school-age victims will be believed.

The dispute between Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond over the Scottish government’s handling of sexual-harassment complaints is examined through the lens of gender and power. Sturgeon acknowledged that the government’s investigation failed two women and cost taxpayers more than £500,000 after a successful judicial review, while Salmond was acquitted of criminal charges but continued to present himself as the victim of a conspiracy. The contrasting responses expose unequal expectations for men and women in public life, as well as the enduring influence of powerful male political figures over their former female protégés.

The article argues that police failures during the Yorkshire Ripper investigation—especially the fixation on victims as “prostitutes” and the dismissal of survivors’ testimony—are being repeated in contemporary cases of violence against women. It compares the Sutcliffe inquiry with the investigation into Suzy Lamplugh’s disappearance, where police ignored her mother Diana’s suspicion of convicted rapist John Cannan and failed to check key evidence. The continued decline in rape prosecutions and the persistence of institutional sexism show that the criminal justice system has not learned the lessons of these cases.

The public tributes to Diego Maradona and Sean Connery illustrate how fame, talent and sporting or cultural achievement can obscure credible allegations of violence against women. The piece discusses video evidence and repeated accusations involving Maradona and Rocio Oliva, allegations by Diane Cilento against Connery, and the cases of Oscar Pistorius and Johnny Depp to argue that abuse is routinely reframed as private relationship volatility or erased from obituaries. It concludes that fans, media and public institutions share responsibility for refusing to excuse domestic violence because of a celebrity's achievements.

Joan Smith reflects on covering the Peter Sutcliffe murders and argues that police repeatedly failed to listen to women who identified the killer, dismissing survivors’ testimony while pursuing the false Wearside Jack tape. The investigation’s failures, including inadequate searches and misdirected resources, allowed three additional women to die. Smith connects the case’s misogyny to continuing problems such as victim-blaming, low rape-prosecution rates and the use of the “rough sex” defence, concluding that women’s expertise about male violence is still routinely disregarded with fatal consequences.

Joan Smith argues that Caroline Flack’s suicide should prompt scrutiny of both tabloid harassment and public attitudes toward vulnerable women, while rejecting claims that the Crown Prosecution Service was wrong to pursue the domestic-abuse case simply because Lewis Burton did not support prosecution. She explains that prosecutors, not alleged victims, make charging decisions and that Flack remained legally innocent, but condemns the relentless, sensationalist coverage by newspapers including The Sun and The Mirror. The case raises broader concerns about misogyny, press intrusion, mental-health vulnerability and whether criminal-justice and media institutions treat women fairly.

The conviction of a 19-year-old British woman in Cyprus for allegedly inventing a gang-rape claim is presented as evidence of serious failures by the Cypriot justice system, including a rushed investigation, inadequate evidence collection and a disputed confession obtained without proper safeguards. The case has prompted concern from the UK Foreign Office and threatens to become an international and public-relations crisis. Joan Smith argues that the underlying distrust of rape victims is also widespread in the UK, where prosecutions have fallen despite rising complaints, victims face intrusive scrutiny, and alleged offenders frequently avoid conviction. Legal and regulatory challenges are seeking to address these systemic failures.

The murder trial of Grace Millane in Auckland exposed how defendants use the “rough sex” defence to claim that women consented to fatal violence. Joan Smith argues that this strategy is a form of blatant victim-blaming, especially when it relies primarily on the defendant’s account and shifts scrutiny onto the victim’s sexual history. Citing research that the defence is increasingly common and has sometimes resulted in manslaughter verdicts or acquittals, she calls for it to be rejected in the UK as well as New Zealand, noting that existing legal protections and declining rape-conviction rates have failed to prevent the broader culture of excusing violence against women.

A woman at HMP Bronzefield reportedly gave birth alone in her prison cell, and staff allegedly did not discover the unresponsive newborn for several hours. The death has prompted a police investigation and renewed scrutiny of prison staffing, communication systems and maternity care. Evidence from midwives and advocacy groups indicates that pregnant prisoners have previously given birth without adequate medical assistance, despite their high levels of mental-health problems, substance use, homelessness and histories of domestic abuse. The incident raises questions about the humane treatment of pregnant women and the failure of ministers and prison authorities to address known risks.

Joan Smith argues that rape prosecutions in England and Wales have collapsed because the criminal justice system treats complainants with deep suspicion and demands intrusive personal records. Drawing on the Yorkshire Ripper investigation, she highlights how investigators’ shared assumptions led them to misunderstand Peter Sutcliffe’s motives and delay his capture. She also points to overlooked links between violence against women, terrorism and mass attacks, arguing that officials operate in silos and fail to consult women’s organizations and survivors. Smith calls for greater diversity, humility and systematic attention to women’s knowledge of male violence.