More than four in five women are aware of male predatory behaviour when out alone, figures show.
A YouGov survey for Channel 4 also found almost a quarter have been followed and one in 10 have had drinks spiked. A quarter had been raped or sexually assaulted on a night out.
In a new TV documentary, journalist Ellie Flynn went undercover – appearing to be drunk and alone on the streets – to see how bad things are. Here is her shocking account.
It’s the early hours of Saturday and I’ve been stumbling around Liverpool’s busiest nightlife area for a few hours, seemingly drunk and alone.
A man approaches me to ask how I am and where I’m going. I barely respond, ignoring his suggestion we find a hotel or bar.
I repeatedly tell him I’m fine on my own and I’m going to find my friends, but he ignores me and starts to follow as I make my way back to my hotel.
My heart races as I stop and start, seeing if a sudden change in direction throws him off. I round the corner, approaching my hotel - telling him I’m fine on my own one last time.
To him, I may appear vulnerable, but what he doesn’t know is that I’m sober, and secretly filming for a new Channel 4 documentary, Undercover: Sexual Harassment – The Truth, airing tonight.
It aims to expose the stark reality of the scale of sexual harassment women face both online and in person.
In Liverpool, I experience first-hand how vulnerable this harassment can make you feel. Despite giving the man no indication I want him to come with me, he follows me all the way back to my hotel room, which has been rigged with secret cameras.
Dropping my drunk facade after the door closes, I ask him why he has followed me in. He insists: “We came together.” My heart is racing as I reply: “No we didn’t, you followed me. I never said to come.”
Despite having a security guard hiding in the nearby bathroom and a safe word ready to use if anything were to happen, I’m conscious of being in an enclosed space with a potential sexual predator. I ask the man to leave - and thankfully, he gets up to go.
He apologises, and part of me wonders if he genuinely doesn’t understand his behaviour was wrong – until he turns around and says: “Come on, give me a kiss.”
I feel relieved as I finally get the man to leave, but terrified of the real threat women face on a night out.
What’s more, I know my experience with the man wasn’t an isolated incident. I ran the same experiment the following night in London’s Leicester Square and was followed two more times. This felt more organised.
At one point, I was followed by two men who appeared to be working together. Despite being sober, at work, and surrounded by a team including specialised security, I felt completely out of control.
Later, I was followed by another man who insisted on trying to help me get home after noticing I was “drunk”. He repeatedly offered me a taxi, before grabbing my hand at one point and rubbing it on his crotch.
This film paints a stark picture for women’s safety, even more so as it happens in plain sight. In Leicester Square I was struck by the number of police officers I passed – but while policing is part of the solution, there is more that needs to be done on a societal level to protect women.
After showing our footage to an all-male focus group, one participant noted: “The only place women alone in public at night would feel safe is in a crowded place and this happened in front of a million people, so clearly no place is safe.” Others said they found the footage difficult to watch, and said men should be made more aware of the reality women face so they can be included in the conversation.
One added: “It should start early on when they’re more impressionable, it should be in the education system.”
Another said: “It’s made more of a thing that girls have to prepare more, girls have to be safer, not drink as much, when really it should be down to guys to be more educated and have more accountability.”
Reflecting on my own experiences making the film, I realise how jaded by sexual harassment I had become, and it was this documentary that made me acknowledge the scale of sexual harassment I have faced since a very young age. This is too often seen as a women’s issue – when really it is everyone’s issue.
Instead of the onus being on women to better protect themselves, to ensure we get home safely, perhaps we should all be doing more to ensure predatory behaviour is called out
and eradicated.
- Undercover: Sexual Harassment – The Truth, tonight, Channel 4, 10pm.
