MP Michelle Thomson reveals why she chose to speak out about her rape ordeal aged 14
The Independent MP for Edinburgh West reduced Commons Speaker John Bercow to tears yesterday as she recounted how she was attacked by someone she knew 37 years ago
THE brave MP who revealed she was raped aged 14 during a Commons debate on violence against women yesterday has explained why she chose to speak out 37 years after the ordeal.
Michelle Thompson, the Independent MP for Edinburgh West, reduced Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow to tears as she recounted how she was attacked by someone she knew 37 years ago.
Appearing today on the Victoria Derbyshire show, she admitted she used language intended to "shock" to highlight that we as a society are “light years away” from where we should be when it comes to keeping women safe.
Michelle said: “With my own daughter I’ve taken the time to make sure I was giving her the information that would keep her safe, and we’ve got that close relationship.
“But to be honest I think we as a society are light years away from where we should really be about keeping young children, women and girls safe.
“The statistics are huge about what many women, who incidentally won’t be able to speak out about this, are subjected to on a day by day basis.
“I think we’ve got so much further to go. Yes, we’ve clearly made progress, yes I would absolutely concede that, but we’re nowhere near yet.
“Some of the language I was using, I almost deliberately wanted to shock.
“I have heard some men use the kind of language, ‘Well, you know, she must have been asking for it’ – I have heard men say that in the last couple of years and that is simply outrageous.
“For me it’s about changing society so that it becomes so completely unacceptable.
“Yes we will take the steps with the people who have been involved with the sexual abuse of children, but we have to stop it happening in the first place, and I think we’ve got some way to go.”
Michelle told presenter Joanna Gosling that the difficulty is not with what the law says about rape and sexual abuse, but in getting to a successful prosecution.
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She added: “We know that the reporting rates for rape are very low, and we can only guess at that as people don’t tell us about it, but we also know that the conviction rates are very low.”
Speaking about her decision to come forward, Michelle explained she felt her summoning the courage to speak out would achieve a “much wider resonance than one person being able to tell their friends or so on”.
She explained: “I just sort of thought, ‘Well I have to do this’, because part of the thing about being an MP, setting aside politics, is actually about giving voice to people who are not able to speak out in the same way.”
Asked whether the recent football child sex abuse scandal influenced her decision to speak out, Michelle said: “This kind of abhorrent behaviour affects men as well, men are subjected to rape and sexual assault as well.
“More simply the opportunity was there in terms of the debate I was going to speak in anyway and I thought it would be useful to offer that personal perspective.
“Obviously you could see when I was speaking it was very real for me. All I was doing was recounting what happened to me and how it made me feel, so it made it very natural and it felt very important to me.”
Joanna pointed out more and more MPs are using the Commons as a stage to make emotional confessions.
She recalled how Vicky Foxcroft revealed the heart-breaking story of how her five-day-old daughter died during the first debate in the House of Commons on stillbirth, miscarriage and other forms of baby loss.
Michelle explained: “The Commons chamber is a whole variety of things.
“When there’s a very political debate where people are taking sides, you can see behaviour that I think is really not very helpful.
“But there’s also the very important cross-party debates where genuinely people leave their politics at the door – it’s not about politics, it’s about human beings and it’s about providing a forum for people to speak and engage on topics such as this that are so important and affect peoples’ lives on a day by day basis.
“To be honest, in my mind they’re some of the best debates to take part in because if you can help change things for people, that’s a wonderful thing and it’s a privilege to do that.”
Michelle said the response to her brave confession has been “completely humbling”.
She said: “I simply sought to bring this issue and put it squarely on the table. I offered a personal perspective so that people understand how it affects lives so that can feed in to drive change.
“Thank you to everyone who got in touch with me, but what we really want to happen is that it gives more focus and that we can try to help other women that I know will be suffering in silence.”
Asked about the importance of justice, as it emerged police are to investigate her allegation, she assured she was not doing this to go after anybody.
Michelle admitted: “I remember after it happened I used to idly daydream, ‘Oh if I could do this to him, if I could do that’, because I was so angry and bitter.
“I’m not now, but that I would stress is a very personal perspective.”
Michelle will be asked by police if she wants them to investigate the attack.
Police Scotland said they will speak to the Edinburgh West MP, adding: “We will listen to any such disclosure.”