Dawn Impressed by Home Secretary
Dawn has recently met with the U.K. Home Secretary James Cleverly and was very pleased to have been invited to the U.K. Home Office. Here she was able to share her 20 years of knowledge and expertise on spiking related issues with him. After so many years of fighting a lonely battle to have spiking become recognised as a crime in itself it was wonderful to meet with someone that could actually do something about it.
Up until now spiking was not considered a separate crime, there were no specific laws to tackle the problem, and spiking could only be prosecuted under other criminal laws. This led to the vast majority of incidents of spiking being unreported, and many spikers committing the crime without fear of prosecution. Pubs and clubs became quite dangerous places for those who didn’t protect their drinks, and in recent years the seeming growth of spiking has increased our concern massively.
Since COVID has become less of a deadly threat, and the restrictions on going to pubs have gone, there has been a huge increase of spiking in pubs and clubs, so we must act now.
We know that there are many reasons why people spike, and many are not intentionally harmful e.g. popping a double into a friend’s glass when they ordered a single, but these can have disastrous consequences. They may be taking prescribed drugs which don’t mix well with alcohol, or they may be driving later. They might even just want to remain sober – whatever the reason, everyone has the right to know what they’re putting in their body.
We know that spiking has been carried out for centuries, and there are many references in history of drink or food spiking. Certainly, as far back as Roman times many Caesars and Kings have had a food/drink tester, who would taste the food or drink before he would eat the food or drink the wine. This was probably to check for poison rather than narcotics, but the principal is the same – administering a drug to overpower or kill the victim. We have to do everything we can to make spiking a thing of the past, but there is a lot of work to do first.
Stamp Out Spiking have been doing all we can in recent years to combat spiking, including distributing drink protectors such as StopTopps, Spikeys and NightCaps for glasses and bottles, putting up posters in clubs and pubs, talking to colleges and universities, uploading masses of helpful advice on social media, speaking to TV and radio stations, and speaking to politicians in Westminster. We have done everything we can to raise awareness about the perils of being spiked, and it has been great to talk to people that can actually do something about it.
We would all like to say a massive thank you to James Cleverly and his team, to Richard Graham (MP for Gloucester), Jess Phillips (MP for Birmingham), Judith Cummins (MP for Bradford South) and other MP’s from the five political parties for all their hard work supporting the Stamp Out Spiking campaign to update the law on all spiking related issues.