This post was contributed by Dr Laura Lammasniemi, Module Convenor for Criminal law.
Warning: Please note that this blog contains discussion on sexual assault.
What are our responsibilities towards our fellow men, or more specifically for the purposes of this blog – our fellow women – in public spaces?
I was left wondering this question while reading about the horrendous crimes committed by a man called Ryan Johnston. In December 2023, Ryan Johnston was sentenced and jailed for 14 years for multiple sexual offences including rape, attempted rape, two counts of sexual assault, and one count of outraging public decency.
The rape was committed in London underground on the Piccadilly Line in the early hours of the morning, with other people present in the carriage during the attack. The victim, aged 20, was on her way home from a night out with friends and was unconscious. Johnston, described by the Crown Prosecution Service as a sexual predator, firstly sexually assaulted and then raped the unconscious woman. The crime was reported to the police by a French tourist who witnessed the crime with his 11-old year-old child. The man later returned to England to testify. This case echoes a similar case from Philadelphia (USA) in 2021 when a man raped a woman in a moving train while bystanders witnessed various parts of the attack without intervention.
The crimes and their public nature are shocking and raise several questions.
Why do people look away when they witness vulnerable people being seriously harmed? Should there be a legal or a moral duty to intervene?
Maybe those present did not act out of fear. It could also be that they did not act because of the bystander effect, a theory that states that individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim in the presence of other people. The theory suggests people have a weaker sense of responsibility in groups. The larger the group, the less likely it is that anyone will come to help. Maybe the normalisation and prevalence of sexual offending also contributed to the decisions of bystanders to look away.
While the French tourist did call for help, neither him nor anyone else in the carriage had a legal duty to do so. There is no Good Samaritan law or overall omission liability in England. There has been a long debate about the limits of omission liability in English criminal law and about its possible expansion, yet the law is settled for what it is.
The legal rules are clear, yet moral questions remain answered. When sexual harassment, taking of photos in secret, or even such brutal physical attacks happen in public, it can take a while for those present to understand what is happening.
When they do realise and choose to look the other way, surely inaction creates moral, even if not legal, culpability. Do you agree? You can discuss this in the comments below.
Further reading
Andrew Ashworth, ‘The Scope of Criminal Liability for Omissions’ (1989) 105 LQR 424. Accessible from the University of London Library.
Glanville Williams, ‘Criminal Omissions-The Conventional View’ (1991) 107 LQR 88. Accessible from the University of London Library.