Tonia Antoniazzi’s speech in the House of Commons this week was remarkable, not because of what she said – the need for accurate recording of crimes according to sex – but because she had the courage to actually say it.
After the ongoing intimidation of Rosie Duffield, it is a brave Labour MP who stands up and defends the right of members of her sex not to be blamed for the crimes of the other sex. Antoniazzi pointed out that where particular offences are very rarely committed by women, the addition of just one or two people can have a significant impact on data.
Antoniazzi alluded to the case of transgender fell-runner Lauren Jeska who was jailed in 2017 for the attempted murder of Ralph Knibbs, UK Athletics’ head of human resources and welfare. That one case, Antoniazzi pointed out, falsely elevated the number of women convicted of attempted murder that year in England and Wales by around 20 per cent.
So what should happen to convicted abusers like Brennan?
Data matters, but there is a moral dimension to this.
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