Welcome to our third project update. Scroll down to read more about the latest news, developments, and project activities that have been happening since our last newsletter.
Powerful Perpetrators is a 5-year European Research Council awarded/UKRI funded project looking at sexual misconduct and abuse perpetrated by UK professionals, and the regulatory and administrative justice mechanisms used to investigate and sanction their behaviour. In particular, the project focuses on professions that have a guardianship role (the police, the military, barristers, judges and politicians) or a confidante role (the clergy, doctors and psychiatrists) in society.
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What we’ve been doing
This year, our main focus is on data collection (more on that below), but that isn’t all we have been up to. Some of the other highlights from the past 3 months have included:
- In February, Natasha and Nate met with Paul Furnell, Director of Safer Communities at Mitie, to hear about their work tackling violence against women and girls.
- In March, Nate and Hannah presented some preliminary thoughts on how sexual misconduct cases move through the police and military justice systems at the International Studies Association Annual Convention in Chicago.
- Hannah attended a Parliamentary event on abuse within the Armed Forces. The event saw three charities (Child Rights International Network, the Centre for Military Justice and SaluteHer) give powerful presentations on different aspects of historic and current abuse in the British military.
- We want to thank colleagues over at the Legal Services Board for publishing our blog about the project. The post can be found here.
- In March, Hannah and Natasha met with the independent review of bullying and harassment at the Bar, chaired by Rt Hon Harriet Harman KC.
- Natasha wrote an article promoting the project for the Spring Bulletin of the Association of Regulatory and Disciplinary Lawyers (ARDL) – thank you to ARDL Bulletin editor Charlotte Blackbourn at Capsticks for facilitating this.
- In April, Natasha is giving evidence to the Welsh Senedd Standards of Conduct Committee in relation to our emerging work on politicians.
- Also this month, Natasha is presenting her research to the Ministry of Defence Domestic Abuse Working Group, and will include reference to the Powerful Perpetrators project.
- Finally, Natasha met with the Professional Boundaries Company who deliver external training, as well as interventions for professionals facing difficulties relating to professional boundaries, ethics and conduct.
Data collection
In our last newsletter, we explained that there are three strands to our data collection: collecting case data, doing interviews, and running a survey. We are now well underway with each of these strands as we will be for the rest of 2025!
A reminder that if you are interested in talking to us, there is more information about how to arrange an interview here. We are looking to speak with anyone who has experience of working on professional sexual misconduct cases (such as journalists, regulatory staff, legal counsel, case workers).
You can find details of other ways to get involved with the project on our website. This includes a comments and suggestions function (which can be used with or without providing a name and contact details) or feel free to contact the team direct.
We also recommend you keep an eye on our website as we begin to develop data visualisation tools in order to track the data collection process.
Interesting news
- Police: Serving Met police officer charged with rape and other sexual offences | UK news | The Guardian
Political developments
UK Supreme Court judgment
On 16 April 2025, and following a series of legal challenges brought by the campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS), the UK Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the term ‘woman’ in the Equality Act 2010 refers to a biological woman. We wait to see the impact on data collection by organisations, and the implications for identifying and safeguarding against professional sexual misconduct, violence and abuse. An interim position taken by British Transport Police in relation to strip-searching, for example, suggests that the judgment leaves many workplace practice issues unresolved.
As a team researching sexual misconduct, violence and abuse, we want to signal our support for the transgender, intersex, and non-binary communities and for those professionals engaged daily in addressing gender-based violence. Going forward, we would urge organisations, researchers and politicians to find ways of working which are embracing and empathetic, and which address the urgent task of holding perpetrators of sexual violence to account.
Upcoming events
- Emma is off to Iceland to present a paper at the Feminist Philosophy Conference. Their paper looks at the historic exclusion of “madness” from mainstream feminist work on sexual violence and trauma.
- Hannah is presenting a paper at a workshop organised by Cardiff University’s Centre for Law and Society. Her paper explores how ideas of crisis are navigated in the UK’s Service Justice System.
- This summer, the independent review of bullying and harassment at the Bar is due to publish its report into the impact of bullying and harassment experienced by barristers and the efficacy of current reporting mechanisms available to them. We are looking forward to reading what the team has found.
- The second reading of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (Amendment) Bill takes place in June. The amendments seek to place a requirement on employers to take proactive measures to prevent violence and harassment in the workplace.
What we’ve been reading
As part of our fortnightly ‘Kitchen Table’ meetings (focused on managing work and wellbeing) we’ve been thinking about what failure in academia means to us.
Natasha also shared what she had learnt from attending Bristol Robotics Professor Helmut Hauser’s excellent workshop on Productivity (his website is here: https://worksmartandberemarkable.com).
Hannah has found Vanessa Munro’s scoping study on law students’ exposure to bullying, harassment, and discrimination when on placement a very useful read.
Hannah and Emma have also been diving into Sophie Lewis’ new book, ‘Enemy Feminisms’.
Natasha is currently reading work on the Catholic Church by US journalist, Jason Berry, and has just ordered ‘The Cry of Tamar: Violence Against Women and the Church’s Response’ by Pamela Cooper-White. She is also grateful to Maurice Punch for sending her a copy of his book Crime and Deviance in the Colleges: Elite Student Excess and Sexual Abuse.
Thank you for taking the time to read our newsletter, and we hope to hear from some of you in due course!
All the best,
Natasha, Nate, Emma, and Hannah (The PP team)
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