Later, still feeling shaken by the assault, Emily called up the police to report the incident. "They were really good, actually. I'd been worried it wasn't really sexual assault, because you always think that sexual assault is something that happens in a dark alleyway or something, but they told me it was." Although police took a statement and checked security footage from that night, "ultimately there wasn't enough evidence" to catch the assailant, Emily says.Although Emily's story is horrifying, it's far from unique. What happened to her is just one incidence of a statistical surge in sexual assaults and rapes taking place across London's bars, clubs and pubs. Reports of rape and sexual assault in London's nightlife scene have more than doubled in the last five years, according to exclusive data obtained by Broadly under British freedom of information laws from London's Metropolitan Police.He was just laughing, like it was funny or something, and whispering in my ear.
Keen to prevent anything similar happening to other women, Emily emailed the management team of the Roundhouse to suggest that the venue sign up to anti-harassment initiative Good Night Out, run by campaigners Hollaback London!.In emails seen by Broadly, a member of the Roundhouse team promised Emily they would "check it out." However, when Broadly asked over the phone if the venue had indeed joined any anti-harassment initiatives, staff said that it had yet to sign up to one."We take any matter concerning audience safety and security very seriously and we work closely with our security contractor Showsec International and the police to prevent such instances taking place at our venue," says Mark Butler, the head of venue operations at the Roundhouse. "As indicated by our response to Emily, reports of such incidents are extremely rare here due to the tight security operation in place. We have not had any reports since these incidents, nor in the years prior."Of course, the fact that women aren't reporting sexual harassment or assault to the police or club management doesn't mean it isn't happening. Claudia*, 27. was on a night out four years ago at London mega-club Fabric when she felt someone grab her ass as she walked through the dance floor. Wheeling around, she saw the man responsible and confronted him angrily. "I shouted at him something like, 'What the fuck are you doing? How dare you touch me?'"Read more: There's a Rape Problem at Music Festivals and Nobody Seems to Care
Photo by Studio Firma via Stocksy
In their defense, the Met has made efforts to improve their response to sexual crimes. In 2013 the Met instituted a major reorganization of its specialist rape unit, Project Sapphire, after a high-profile string of failed investigations. And in June 2015 commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe pledged to hire an extra 200 specialist officers to deal with the surge of sexual abuse cases reported to the Met Police (although they failed to meet their targets).While Benyon believes the Met have made progress, she says there is still a long way to go. "The Met Police offer some training to venues but it's very overly focussed on the idea that 'vulnerability' is down to women drinking too much and making themselves at risk, rather than looking at why women who are drunk are deliberately targeted by perpetrators of rape and sexual violence."Benyon continues, "Regardless of things like alcohol consumption, we are actually only really vulnerable when there is someone in our vicinity who will do us harm."Read more: What It's Like to Go Clubbing When You Have Asperger's
Club promoter Seb Wheeler, who runs the popular London dance night Tropical Waste, says that more needs to be done to combat sexual harassment and violence. "We started throwing parties two years ago, and at first it's just your friends who come—so you assume everyone's really sound. Then in February 2016 we did a party and someone contacted me on Facebook afterwards who [sic] I didn't know to tell me their friend had been sexually harassed and they didn't trust security to deal with the problem.That's when it hit me that harassment was happening at my party, and I was mortified. You can't just ignore that stuff.
Wheeler feels it would be helpful for promoters or venue operators to be given specialist training in how to deal with sexual harassment and assault. "If there was a training day for promoters I'd definitely go down to it. We [promoters] should take more responsibility, because I've had so many female friends be harassed—it doesn't matter what club or party it is—and this behavior is seen as so normal on nights out. It's like the elephant in the room, and it's unacceptable, really. If we don't do something about it, we're failing our audience."The sad reality is that sexual violence and harassment is totally normalized in our nightlife. For many women, it is a part of their night out, just as much as a night bus that never arrives or a kebab house overflowing with boozed-up punters at 3 AM.Statement re: harassment at Tropical Waste. Pls take 2 mins to read if you come to the parties x — SEE U DOWN FRONT (@TropicalWaste1)March 30, 2016
I ask whether she complained to management. Erin responds with words that I've heard depressingly often in the course of my interviews for this piece: "I didn't think it was important enough to. Plus, I just wanted to get with my night."When reached for comment, The Dolphin manager Angus MacLeod told Broadly, "The incident described is obviously not acceptable and illegal. We have a zero tolerance policy over such incidents and other unacceptable behaviour and it will normally result in being barred from the premises and/or calling the police." He went on to add, "Thankfully, strict door policy, visible and active security make such incidents relatively rare."Meanwhile, the ass-groping sleaze bags of London's nightlife scene continue to make their presence literally felt. In the period between researching and writing this piece, I went on a night out in Shoreditch in east London, and personally witnessed a visibly wasted office bro in a pink-and-white striped shirt slap my friend's ass.Does it need to be like this? No. Are London's clubs, bars, pubs, promoters, security staff, and police doing enough to tackle the problem? Sadly, probably not.* Name has been changedEDITOR'S NOTE: Fabric was contacted pre-publication for comment. After publication, a spokesperson sent through the following statement which we have included as it contains useful information for women visiting the club."Unfortunately we are aware of people like Claudia having these kinds of experiences at the club, this is why we launched our anti-harassment campaign back in 2013 and have since gone on to be part of Good Night Out. We have posters in the venue and extra security on the dance floor but appreciate that sometimes these aren't always seen and some customers are not aware of our policy. We would like to reinforce our message, that if this happens to you here then please speak to us about it, we're here to help and will deal with it for you. We often take action to remove individuals who are perpetrating this kind of harassing behaviour in the club, it's an issue that we take seriously here."**Read more: Why More Women Are Having *Sex* on Drugs**
