RedHanded - Episode 140 - "Rough Sex" - The Murder of Grace Millane

Episode Date: March 26, 2020

In December 2018, 21 year old Grace Millane was backpacking around New Zealand. One evening she agreed to a date with a man, tragically by the following morning Grace would be dead. The man claimed it was all just an accident, a result of consensual “rough sex” - but the evidence suggested otherwise...  We Can't Consent To This: https://wecantconsenttothis.uk/  Sources: https://www.businessinsider.com/grace-millane-murder-killer-wont-look-mom-court-statement-2020-2?r=US&IR=T https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/21/grace-millane-trial-closing-arguments-new-zealand https://www.vox.com/2019/11/21/20976064/grace-millane-death-new-zealand https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/uk-backpacker-strangled-to-death-during-tinder-date-nz-court-told-1.4074106 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/new-zealand-police-search-for-shovel-in-uk-backpacker-murder-inquiry-1.3727259 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/man-jailed-for-life-for-murdering-uk-backpacker-in-new-zealand-1.4180184 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/21/world/grace-millane-sex-game-gone-wrong-intl-gbr/index.html https://www.itv.com/news/2020-02-21/grace-millanes-killer-jailed-why-cant-we-name-him/ http://theconversation.com/grace-millanes-murder-trial-shows-social-attitudes-continue-to-minimise-gendered-violence-127796 https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a29887214/grace-millane-murderer-not-named/ https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/grace-millane-murder-rough-sex-defence-questioned_uk_5dd52a54e4b0fc53f20bc589 https://metro.co.uk/2019/11/19/grace-millane-belonged-bdsm-sites-asked-ex-boyfriend-choke-court-hears-11178960/ https://www.theweek.co.uk/98326/grace-millane-killer-sentenced-to-life See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed. A lot of you have been asking us whether we are going to still keep releasing amid the corona madness. The answer is yes. As most of you know, we actually don't record together. We record separately in our own homes. So it's kind of pandemic proof. It really is. By accident. By accident. By sheer force of our laziness, we accidentally... I think we worked very hard to engineer this. No, obviously to engineer this,

but it was because we didn't want to get together whenever we had to record and logistically figure that out. So we put our efforts into something else, which was this, so that in the long term, we would never have to leave our houses. And now that might become a reality. Exactly. Do not worry. Red Handed is not going anywhere. And now that might become a reality. Exactly. Do not worry. Red Handed is not going anywhere.

We will be coming to you weekly as planned. So we're all in it for the long haul. And we've got a hell of a case for you guys today. That's for sure. How's your tattoo getting on, by the way? Mine's getting a bit itchy. Mine is itchy, but it's okay. It's holding up.

It's all right. Oh, no, it's fine. It's just got to the like peely sunburn stage. Yeah, no, mine's okay. it's okay it's holding up it's all right oh no it's fine it's just got to the like peely sunburn stage yeah no mine's okay it's okay but yes I'm trying not to think about how itchy is sorry no it's like those things when as soon as somebody says are you itchy uh yeah I guarantee everyone listening now is scratching no exactly and we're releasing our the we went and got matching tattoos because we're cute and uh where there's a vlog about that coming out probably soon maybe it's already out i don't know days don't matter anymore what even is the calendar exactly who knows so

yeah go check that out when it whenever it is out it's already out, go watch it now. Who knows? It's for $10 and up patrons. So yes, go enjoy that, you lovely people. Sorry, I'm going to stop looking at my peeling skin now. Right. Today we're spending a lot of time with Tinder. Which is something I'm not doing in real life anymore because you don't date during a pandemic, obviously. No. And also, Tinder's days are gone, as we have discussed. Yes, Tinder's days are gone. I'm doing some like kind of virtual dating, I guess. What does that mean? I was dating somebody, quote unquote, before the pandemic started. And now we've like worked out a system by which we're still, we joke that we're virtual dating. So basically, we're just still talking to each other. And we do some Netflix live streaming,

and we send each other memes. That's it. So just normal communication then, really? Just normal communication with somebody I've only known for a few weeks before we went into lockdown it's so romantic but imagine the last like kind of worldwide pandemic was like what 1918 so then wouldn't have even had that choice you know you'd have had to just sit around and wait for a letter from me that obviously would have never come because I'd have been dead so this is a step in the right direction you know and also like all of these people being like oh like baby I want to get quarantined with you getting quarantined with someone where you don't

live that would suck none of your stuff is there what if you don't have a toothbrush you know no sorry no you have to get quarantined in your own house I'm glad that I've been quarantined in my own house basically like without anybody that I care about how I look in front of because it's not looking great. I thought you were going to say without anyone that I care about so you can just use your family as human shields. That too. They're old. Get in the way. Oh God. Especially your young 20s brother. Yeah. He's the first. Fuck him. Fuck him. My days at the moment are just filled with coronavirus documentaries and murder. It's super upbeat over here in my house. I'm about to write a pretend chapter on religion.

I don't know which one I'm going to pick yet. Out of context, none of this makes sense. Yeah, but watch this space. Just leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for you. By way of just rambling because we aren't speaking to enough people. So that's what's happening here. Yeah, exactly. Shall we crack on?

I think we probably should. Just really extending my social contacts for the day. I'm also just imagining like right now we're still quite upbeat, but I would love like just a super cuts of like this intro every single episode for the next few weeks and how much slowly how much we deteriorate in our mood and energy no right uh we've got a we've got a job to do we have we've got to entertain the people Hannah come on exactly right so tinder dates let's get going Sunday afternoons feel pretty normal for a Tinder date. You can have like a couple of pints in the pub, you can leave with the excuse of work in the

morning if you feel uncomfortable, or there's nothing there. But equally, you can stay and get as pissed as you like and just go into work hungover the next day if you're having a good time. But the point is, on a Sunday afternoon, the escape route is there. And an escape plan, sadly, is a fixture of modern dating. Everyone is swiping all the time, and we really have no idea about the people we meet. Some of them are great. You might even marry one.

But everyone has horror stories. I can't think of a single person who has been consistently internet dating over the past, what, five, six years, who doesn't have an absolute shocker. I mean, I think my worst one was the time I did go on a Sunday afternoon date. And I had previously gone on a Tuesday evening date. And the guy from the Tuesday evening date was in the same bar sat at the table next to us. That's the worst thing that's ever happened to me on a date. And I turned up 20 minutes late. And then as soon as I saw that guy, I just was

like, Oh, hello to this person. I said, I need to go to the toilet. And I just disappeared into the toilet for about 10 minutes while I sat in there and figured out what to do. And left you voice notes about what was going on. Yeah, that was that's my worst for the full story. I think it's in like Creek Car Chronicles on Patreon. You could go listen to my horror there. I don't think that one's that bad, though. That's not like you being under threat. No, no, that's what I'm saying. That's my worst. And I've been very consistently dating

for probably the last 10 years. I went on this one date with this guy who was Italian. And I'd like told him like, I'm not going to eat anything like we're just going to go to the pub and he shows up he was late. And I was like, Oh, what do you want me to get you a drink? And he was like, Oh, no, I need to see what they have. And I like fuck sake man just have a lager like why is that so difficult and then so he showed up late and then ordered this like enormous meal and he was like I feel really awkward that you're not eating and I was like well I fucking did say like and no one eats on a first date what are you good such a great tone being set for this date it's true I believe you and then uh he was like oh yeah like I, like I live with Italians because I only get on with Italians.

And I was like, well, literally, why are you here then? Sounds like you're totally over this. I'm telling a story for the people at home. Jesus Christ. Anyway, I had two pints and then I was like, right, well, I'm going home then. Thank you. He wasn't threatening, though. He was just intensely boring.

No, I mean, I've heard your worst one and that's much worse. But that's, yeah, that's not, it's not ideal. And the point is that mostly everyone has stories like this. And since the dawn of internet dating, we've heard so many tales of Tinder turned for the worse. But nothing is quite like today's story. The threat of violence is something that women are often taught is their responsibility to avoid. And I'm sure, like, jokingly even, people will tell... I always, if I'm going on an internet date, I text my friends and tell them where I am. And I say, if you haven't heard from me by nine o'clock, be concerned. And I think that's a very normal thing.

But how sad is that? That's the assumed thing that's going to happen to you? I mean, yeah, it's tough because I do the same thing. And it's sad that we feel we have to, but part of life, I guess. And also that it's so common that we make a joke of it. Yeah. And this week we are going to be focusing heavily on rough sex and more specifically, the rough sex defence. We have been working with an incredible organisation that some of you may have heard of. They're called We Can't Consent to This. And they've helped a lot with the sort of research for this episode.

And we will be doing more with them in the future. So watch this space. Now, We Can't Consent to This is opening the conversation on the rough sex defense and pushing for amendments to be made to the domestic abuse bill in England and Wales to stop the rough sex defence being used when women get murdered by their partners. So what is the rough sex defence? Well, it's when a person, most of the time a woman, dies or is injured through what the defendant argues is consensual sex. What we are seeing again and again in the courts, both in this country and all around the world, is that defendants in these cases will often be given a reduced sentence, manslaughter rather than murder. And sometimes these deaths are not investigated as suspicious at all.

We don't believe that women can consent to grievous injury or death. So we will be campaigning with We Can't Consent to This until claiming the rough sex defence is no longer useful in court. And you'd be amazed by how often it happens. And it is not just a UK issue. But making a difference in your own backyard is not a bad place to start. Did you know that it was only 2008 when like they call it the nagging and shagging defense where basically it was only in 2008 where it was no longer permissible for husbands to be like I killed her because she was pissing me off

and you could get manslaughter for that it's like the provocation argument. I mean I don't even know what to say to that. I think I want to come back to it in a later episode, because I know Rachel, who we've been working with, and Fiona over at We Can't Consent to This, have got a lot of information on that. So I think it would be a really good thing to come back to in a separate episode. But I was absolutely floored by it. But for now, let's get back to a Sunday afternoon Tinder date. And this particular one was in Auckland, New Zealand in December 2018

and for reasons that will become clear later on we don't know either of the data's names. The lady dater who happens to be a journalist was waiting for her man dater in a pub garden. As soon as he arrived he seemed aloof and that might not necessarily be cause for alarm. First dates are nerve-wracking and some people take a little while to warm up. He looked clean, athletic and his eyes were big so our lady data stayed put for a little bit longer. The pair started off chatting about their mornings. The man had been shopping for suitcases and he told our journalist that he had a hard time finding one big enough for all his sports equipment. He drank his first pint very quickly, which our journalist wasn't a fan of, but still thought that she would give him a fair whack, so she waited as he ordered another pint

and listened to him tell her all about his friends who were policemen. He elaborated that his policemates, who he claimed to have met in bars and then have been immediately invited back to their respective houses for frequent barbecues, were in a spot of bother. They were concerned about bodies being buried. Oh, and I also went looking for this before I realised that you had put the pronunciation in. I'm so scared. Do we think that's it? Why Takare?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think New Zealand is our worst pronounced country on the show. We're not naming the Maori pronunciations, so let's try. Let's try today. So basically, this guy was telling her

that his policeman mates were concerned about bodies being buried in the Waitakere Ranges, by which he means a large area of bushland around half an hour drive from Auckland. Bodies in the Waitakere Ranges were causing his police pals issues because he reckoned that police dogs can only smell about four feet around them, making the bodies in the bush difficult to find. Now, we haven't been able to find out if this is

true, but we did learn on cuteness.com that canine unit dogs noses are so powerful that they can detect a teaspoon of sugar in a million gallons of water isn't that amazing completely amazing and so like i don't know where he's getting his forefoot thing from maybe it seems like is it forefoot in front of their face is it a forefoot radius like i just i honestly couldn't find anything about i don't think he really knows what he's talking about we can't't confirm the forefoot fact as to whether that's correct or not, but our journalist certainly started to get the feeling that her date was talking shit. Her suspicions were confirmed when the 26-year-old man sat opposite her started a whole new line of bullshit. He told her that his best friend in the whole world was a crown prosecutor, which to our journalist seemed almost impossible for a man in his mid to late 20s.

In an attempt to pry herself into what had quickly become a very strange monologue, our journalist told her date that she had sat through many trials in a journalistic capacity and had even seen people be convicted of murder. And to this little nugget of information, her date replied, this is a quote according to the journalist, it's funny how guys can make one wrong move and go to jail for the rest of their lives. I heard of this guy whose partner asked to have rough sex with him involving some sort of strangulation and suffocation, but it went wrong and the guy couldn't revive her and she died. He got done for manslaughter but it was really tough for him to see this woman he loved dying i don't have a problem with talking about murder on a first date there's literally not much else i can talk about like it's it's like what was your day

at the office and i my answer to that question is like murder chat but yeah but it's uh it's the tone and it's the opinion when they're talking about murder and they start off by saying it's funny how guys can make one wrong move and go to jail for the rest of their lives that's your big like justice move that's your big justice chat what the fuck yeah so even i would have been on edge after that comment, I think. And after that, he launched into an impassioned speech about poisonous snakes. And that is when our journalist decided that she'd had enough. And they both left the bar and walked back to their cars.

See, I don't mind chat about poisonous snakes. I have definitely talked about poisonous snakes on a first date. But how impassioned are you talking about poisonous snakes, though? I think's again, it's the tone, not the content. That's the issue. It's the tone, not the content. I think I can, especially after a couple of glasses of wine, seem maybe not concerningly, maybe oddly excited about mundane things that I've read or watched. And I have definitely talked to a slightly baffled guy who was on a date with me about like the most poisonous snakes in the world and explained to him the difference between poisonous and venomous and how I discovered what the most poisonous snake in the world, the most venomous snake in the world was, should I say. Sometimes they just sit there and they don't say anything. So you just have to fill the silence. That's it. That's exactly it. I've been on so many dates where I'm like,

oh God, he's not saying anything. And then I just talk and talk and talk. And then I'm like, and then I leave the date and I think, oh, I think I had a good time. Oh, and then I'm like, oh, I didn't learn a single thing about him because he didn't speak for basically any of that date. But he learned a lot about venomous snakes from me. I believe the world's most venomous snake is the inland taipan. You're welcome, everybody. It's a little window into dating Saruti Bala there. You're all so welcome.

Oh, come on. You know you want to. Well, our journalist was having absolutely none of it. She actually felt so uncomfortable that she lied about where her car was actually parked, so she had an excuse to walk in the opposite direction of the man who had just spent the last hour and a half talking about police, abandoned bodies, rough sex and poisonous snakes. This man had been on a Tinder date less than 24 hours before, and that woman had not walked away. Her name was Grace Mullane. And as this man sat on another date with our journalist,

Grace's body was inside a suitcase on the Waitakere bushland. Grace was just 21 years old when she went missing. She had just graduated from the University of Lincoln. And like many people, she was headed off for a year-long trip around the globe before entering the world of work. Grace had arrived in New Zealand after six weeks in Latin America and made it to Auckland two weeks after she landed in Kiwiland. Grace stayed in almost daily contact with her family and friends throughout her whole trip.

So when she stopped contacting them, they got worried. And they got even more worried when they heard nothing from Grace on her 22nd birthday. A missing persons report was filed and Grace's dad got straight on the next plane to New Zealand to appeal to the public for information on the whereabouts of his daughter, who he described as, quote, lovely, outgoing, fun-loving and family-oriented. Hundreds of calls came in and it was ascertained by police that Grace Mullane was last seen on the 1st of December 2018

on a Tinder date with a man, the very same snake lover that we started this episode with. And quickly, you'll see it reported in some places that Grace was 21 and you'll see it in other places that she was 22. That's because we genuinely don't know if she died before midnight. So if she died before midnight, she's 21. If she died after midnight, it's 22. You'll see it reported in different ways. We're going to stick with 21, not for any particular reason, really, but just sort of bear that in mind.

So now what we're going to do is give you a timeline of the evening that Grace spent with this man. And this has been pieced together using CCTV footage and phone records. So in short, what's coming next are things that we know to be true. Grace had checked into a backpackers hostel on the 1st of December, and she had arranged to go on a Tinder date that evening. Just before 6pm, Grace left the hostel and walked down Federal Street in central Auckland. She met her date outside the Sky City building and they went for drinks at somewhere called Andy's Burger Bar. At 7.16pm, they walked to a Mexican cafe where they drank margaritas and sangria. The Tinder man paid for all of the drinks and judging by the footage he made a pretty big show about this. At 8.30pm the pair wandered into another bar called the Bluestone Room just across the road from the City Life Hotel which is where the man had told Grace he lived. Yeah that's correct he'd actually told her that he lived in the hotel because he

was an offshore oil manager. Does that exist as a job title? How does one manage oil? I don't know. I mean, I guess like if you work on oil rigs, somebody must be managing that. Yeah, possibly. I don't know. Throughout the date, Grace was texting her friend Amina Ashcroft and she had told her that she clicked with her date really well and that he was even visiting London next year. What I'm not sure is I'm not sure if Amina was back in the UK when this is happening or whether she was traveling with Grace because in some interviews it seems like she's there as well because she's like I didn't want to overreact but I was tired from traveling so I just thought I was just being tired and irritable rather than

thinking that something was wrong. However I haven't seen that confirmed I'm not sure. Amina admitted later on that she did have a nagging feeling that Grace was unsafe, but she didn't want to overreact. The CCTV footage shows Grace looking relaxed. As the evening wore on, the couple got closer. They started kissing and the man put his arm around Grace's neck repeatedly to draw her into him. At one stage, Grace gets up from the table to go to the toilet. And while she was gone, her date picked up her bag and went through its contents. The last footage of Grace that we have was captured at 9.41pm. It's from inside the hotel that her date claimed he lived in.

Grace was never seen again, on CCTV or otherwise. Then there are a few hours where we only have the man's testimony of what happened. And let's be honest, we don't believe much of what he says. But the next piece of concrete evidence we have comes from his phone. Hours after he got back to his hotel room. So at 1.29am he googled, quote, hottest fire and Wait Hackeray Rangers. And at 1.41am, he watched eight pieces of hardcore pornography on his phone. Six hours later, he searched large bags near me,

rigor mortis, duffel bags with wheels, car hire, industrial strength cleaner, and flesh-eating birds. On December 5th, so four days after Grace went missing, the Tinder man made a comment on one of Grace's Facebook pictures. It read, Grace was already a missing person. The Tinder man's attempt to make it look like he didn't know that blew up completely in

his face. After this comment, he was immediately made a person of interest in the investigation into Grace's disappearance, and the Auckland police tracked him down on the 6th of December. The officers met him in a food court, and the Tinder man said that he had met with Grace on the evening of the 1st of December, and that they had had a couple of drinks, but they had parted ways at about 8pm and then he had gone to meet his colleagues elsewhere. Of course, we all know that that is not true. The man gave the police a fake address and was taken to the police station to make a formal statement.

And then he was sent on his way. We know very little about this guy and that's actually down to New Zealand legislation. Name suppression for people who are charged with offences is reasonably common. It's been happening there since the 1920s. The idea behind it is essentially that a person should not be submitted to any negativity just for going on trial. And I'm not sure if this is the official line but to me it seems like an enforcement of the innocent until proven guilty mentality. New Zealand law says that in order to issue a name suppression the court has to be satisfied that the publication of the person's identity would cause hardship to the person

charged, create a risk of prejudice to trial or endanger the safety of any person. Only a judge can decide when suppression is lifted. I believe the suppression in this case is set for 2021, but for quite a lot of reasons that might not happen. In this case, the reason for the name suppression is also suppressed. So we're kind of dealing with a double suppression here just to make it extra confusing. But I think it's fairly obvious why his name is suppressed. So because of this, we know very little about this guy. The papers haven't been able to dig stuff up on him

because they will get substantially fined, about £50,000 worth of substantially fined, if they print his name. But we do know, and this is mostly through his lawyer, that he had no significant prior convictions, that he was a compulsive liar, that he claimed to have cancer, be a professional athlete, and of course he claimed to be an offshore oil manager.

The man's lawyer, who we'll meet later on, also claims that this man has had a traumatic childhood estranged from his Maori culture. And I'm afraid that's basically all we know. So on the 8th of December 2018, Grace Mullane's body was discovered inside a suitcase on the Waitakere Ranges. Detective Inspector Scott Beard told the press that Grace's body was intact

and that the police were searching for a long-handed shovel. They knew it had to be somewhere between central Auckland and the scenic drive. The scenic drive, I assume, is just the drive through the ranges. I think it's just like the scenic route, I suppose. So after Grace was discovered, the Tinder man was interviewed once more by the police. And this time, he gave a completely different account. And let's be absolutely clear here,

what is coming next is the anonymous man's version of events. It is not necessarily true. He told officers that he had taken Grace back to his hotel room and that they had had consensual sex. Grace had been talking to him about a film, Fifty Shades of Grey, and explained that she liked being strangled during sex. The man claims that he didn't really want to do this to her, but he liked her, so he did. The pair then had rough sex that involved hitting and biting. They stopped for a while and took intimate pictures of each other and then carried on. He fell asleep under the water for some time,

which seems like an almost impossible thing to do. I can't even imagine. I don't know. I mean... In a shower? In a shower? That is... How?

I don't know. Maybe some people are really fucking heavy sleepers or maybe he was super-duper drunk, I don't know. So he's asleep in the shower and then he wakes up and he returned to the bedroom to find that Grace was gone. So he climbed into bed and went to sleep. When he woke up the next morning, he looked over the side of the bed to see that Grace had not disappeared in the middle of the night.

She was lying dead on the floor and she had blood coming from her nose. He did not call the emergency services because he was worried about how bad the whole situation looked. I'll tell you how to make it look worse. Not calling an ambulance. Unbelievable. I don't know.

Obviously, if this were true, you would be shocked. But I don't believe that your brain would jump to, oh my God, how is this going to look? I feel like you'd be like, oh fuck, I need to tell somebody so I can just get this cleared up. Yeah. And also, do you have a medical degree? Exactly. He also told detectives that after he found Grace, he thought about taking his own life. He said, quote, I was in shock. I didn't know what to do. I went downstairs and I was just,

I don't know, I was just all over the place. I didn't believe what had happened. I was just terrified and scared. So his solution to this feeling was to put Grace's body into a suitcase, drive to the ranges, stopping to buy a shovel on the way, and then bury Grace Mullane's lifeless body in a shallow grave thousands of miles from home. So he overcomes all his shock, does all of his very specific Googling, comes up with a plan and drives her out to the mountains or the

bushland or whatever. Yeah. And I think his first two Google searches that he makes at about 20 past one, that's his first activity on his phone, right? And 20 minutes later, he watches fucking hardcore pornography because he's so shocked. Yeah. Like if those searches, if it wasn't the ranges where she ended up, I think you could probably sort of put that aside as maybe random. But the fact that that's where her body shows up and he Googled it before he watched the porn is pretty damning for me. Exactly. So just like us, the police didn't think that his story totally added up.

The main reason being reams and reams of CCTV footage. The man claimed to have left the shovel that he had used to bury Grace in the bush, but they had footage of him leaving it in a car wash where he had taken his rental car after leaving Grace out in the bushland, basically. And if you ever see someone washing a rental car, I would argue that there is a better than good chance that they are up to no good. Why are you washing a rental car? No one washes a rental car. would argue that there is a better than good chance that they are up to no

good why are you washing a rental car no one washes a rental car literally nobody no I think there's even a bit in it in Breaking Bad where like the lady who like who works for the big corporation she's like trying to find Walter White and Skylar's like looking out the window and this lady turns up and Skylar's like who washes a rental car and then like cuts to something else so like it's a thing people don't wash rental cars. No, I certainly wouldn't see the point of ever doing that. And the police also had footage and receipts of him buying not one, but two suitcases the morning after Grace died.

He bought one at 8.07am from one shop, and then another from a different place afterwards. 28 minutes after the first suitcase he bought, he also bought cleaning products and then returned to his hotel room. After all of this, he arranged his Tinder date with our journalist at 10am. So he's gone out, done all of this stuff, the body disposal, and then he's sitting in his hotel room that's got blood in it, presumably, and a dead body. And he's on his phone talking to this journalist arranging a tinder date and I think I read that he texts her at 8am 10am and 12 as in midday wow so at 8.07 he's not he's in a shop buying

a suitcase and he's texting her being like are you free later I mean it's like I know you haven't watched it but uh you when he's like literally going around killing people and at the same time making sure he's got enough time to reply to the women that he's dating. And it's the absurdity of it. I feel like you is taking the piss out of it. But this is actually what's happening in this case. And on top of all this, the photos of Grace's genitalia that this man had taken on his phone were all taken with the lights on. And he had told the police

that all the lights had been off during their sexual encounter. Yeah, it's weird. In his interview, he says that like, oh, all of the lights were on and I had the TV, all of the lights were off, sorry, and I had the TV on

and that was the only source of light and Grace asked me to turn it off. But then in the pictures, all of the lights were off, sorry, and I had the TV on and that was the only source of light and Grace asked me to turn it off. But then in the pictures, all of the lights are on. So one of those things isn't true. Yeah. And I mean, also, could it have been that he's taken the pictures of Grace's genitalia after she's dead and then the lights are on? No, that's exactly it.

That's exactly it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the man with no name was informed by officers after he'd given this very strange interview that a full post-mortem would be carried out on Grace's body. One of the detectives said, they're very skilled at establishing a cause of death. Do you understand that?

Did you kill Grace Mullane? And the anonymous man replied, almost in a whisper, no. The post-mortem was completed on the 9th of December and it revealed that Grace had died from strangulation and asphyxiation. There were bruises on her arms consistent with someone who had been restrained. It was concluded that these injuries were inflicted upon Grace shortly before she died. There was also a bruise below her jaw that stretched all the way down her neck. A luminol test revealed blood believed to be Grace Mullane's

next to the anonymous man's hotel bed. After his failed date with our journalist, the unknown man was caught on CCTV renting a carpet cleaning machine.

Again, I assume like he says he lives in this hotel but like, who cleans a hotel carpet? Someone who's trying

to hide a, like clean up a murder scene. I think he might genuinely live in the hotel because when they have to clean up the, when they have to a like clean up a murder scene i think he might genuinely live in the hotel because when they have to clean up the um when they have to shut it off as a crime scene the police move him into a hostel so i think he genuinely had nowhere else to go oh i believe it but i mean like if you live in a hotel doesn't the maid come and clean up still obviously therefore he's up to no good so after he cleans the carpet of this hotel room, which the maid is probably terribly disappointed about,

he then loaded two suitcases into his car that he had rented, which he had parked in the hotel car park. At 6am the next morning, he drove off. There is footage of him dropping a rubbish bag into a bin at Auckland's Albert Park. This bin bag has never been recovered, but detectives suspect that it contained Grace's phone and watch. The very last bit of CCTV that we have of the man with no name is back at the hotel as he left his room,

all dolled up in a waistcoat for his date with our journalist. A waistcoat. I despise waistcoats. I despise. The only time it is appropriate is if it's part of a three-piece suit and you are at a wedding. Literally the only time. On their own, never. Don't do it. Don't do it, guys or gals. Don't do it. So we have all of this information about the journalist's date because she wrote a story about it and we'll link it below in the episode description so please go and give it a read. A lot of people ask her if she feels like she had a near-death experience that Sunday afternoon in the pub garden. She says

that she doesn't think so. She describes it as a bizarre period of time with someone very odd. She also wondered whether his conversation topic selection might have been so odd because he was still trying to process what he had done just hours before. I feel like it must be because he obviously is an odd person but he wasn't odd enough on the date with Grace because she seemed okay with him so it must be that it's because he's still trying to process and reeling from what he's just done when he's on this date with this journalist. I don't know. I don't know if we can say that he must have been totally normal on the date with Grace because we don't really know anything about him. We don't know loads about Grace either. People get on with different

kinds of people. I don't know. I think I probably agree with you and the journalist that he, I don't know if rattled is the right word, but it does feel like because he's so specifically talking about these things, he is trying to process it somehow. He clearly is trying. It feels like by going on another date to desperately get back to some state of normality or to sort of like hit the reset button and pretend like none of this is happening or treat it maybe like a distraction to get out of his own head of whatever's going on. By whatever's going on, I mean the fact that he just killed somebody. If we didn't have this article by the journalist, if we didn't have all this information, we'd have no idea.

We'd just have CCTV footage of them being together and they spent an hour and a half and then they left. We wouldn't know what the conversation topics were. So because we, I think we can, but we don't know what was said on the date with Grace, really. No, no, we have no idea. He doesn't come across as a completely cool customer, do you know what I mean? I would be more inclined to say that if we didn't know what had been discussed on this date.

Do you know what I mean? No, of course. And we absolutely have no idea what was going on, obviously, on the date with Grace. But it doesn't look from the CCTV because she seems okay with him, that he's immediately setting off red flags. But it's weird that he does set off red flags when she's not there because when she goes to the bathroom, he's like looking in her bag and shit, which is completely, he's not, he's obviously not a normal person.

Oh, no, absolutely not. He's maybe at best able to mask it with grace better than he is with the journalist because he's maybe potentially so rattled because of what happened the day before. And the closest I can guess to why he's putting himself in this situation with the journalist when he's clearly got a lot of other stuff to be dealing with is a desperate cling at trying to just be like, no, everything's fine. Everything's normal. I'm on this date. I'm fine. So get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Her first act as leader, asking donors for a million bucks for her salary.

That's excessive. She's a big carbon tax supporter. Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah. Higher taxes. Carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal.

We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

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This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. So with all of this evidence piling up and not helped by his inconsistent testimony, the anonymous man was charged with the murder of 21-year-old Grace Mullane. The trial began in November 2019. Grace's parents attended the whole thing. And this might seem like a pretty cut and dry case, but the issue here is consent. The man with no name argued that Grace's death had been accidental, the result of consensual rough sex play initiated by Grace. The prosecution made a pretty solid case which essentially revolved

around the idea that nobody can consent to their own murder. Strangulation to the point of death is not consensual rough play, it's abuse. And on top of that, in New Zealand, to kill someone with quote, reckless intent is all it takes for a murder conviction. So intention to kill doesn't actually have to come into it at all. The prosecution, led by Crown Prosecutor Brian Dickey, argued that the accused clearly was not distressed by Grace's death as he didn't call for an ambulance, and also because he watched eight porn clips after researching the area where he would later dump Grace's body,

and because he took intimate pictures of her, and because he went on a Tinder date the next day. The pictures found on his phone dickie argued were a clear indicator that the man had eroticized grace's death and that he had a morbid sexual fascination with the deceased none of these actions seem like those of a distressed man who accidentally killed his date no signs of stress were visible on the CCTV footage of the man either. He looks calm and collected in every single frame. The forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Grace's body was called to the stand and testified that in order to kill a person via asphyxiation,

it would have taken, quote, sustained effort and strength for a period of five to ten minutes during which time a person would fall unconscious and go limp before they died and i feel like when you say five minutes it doesn't sound like a long period of time think about how long five minutes actually is for you to exert the level of physical strength that it would take to keep someone asphyxiated. And how long it would feel like if you couldn't breathe for five minutes, unless you're like a free diver. And the fact that the person wouldn't just slip from being awake to death

instantaneously with no warning. They would be unconscious and you would have to continue to choke them before they were actually dead. So the anonymous man was older than Grace, and he was significantly taller, stronger, and broader. Dickey told the jury that, quote, this isn't a little bit of sex gone wrong. There is powerful evidence in this case that Grace was murdered

because the person doing that must have known that they were hurting her, causing her harm, that they may well cause her death. But they were reckless and they carried on and she died. The man with no name's defence, led by Ian Brookie, who had been present for his second interview with the police, insisted that the man had simply complied with Grace's wishes and she had accidentally died. And then when the man found her dead, he had panicked. According to Ian Brookie, quote, the act was done with her knowledge, with her sexual pleasure in mind. The defence also

argued that Grace was an experienced member of the BDSM community. She was active on websites such as FetLife and Whipler. An ex-boyfriend of Grace's told the court that they had practised some BDSM together, especially choking, but they had a system of tapping and safe words so that Grace would never be in danger. Grace would tap her previous boyfriend three times if she wanted him to stop. Obviously, the defense are using this information to make it seem as if Grace was fully consenting to the situation. But actually, I would argue if she was so experienced, if she was an active member of these communities if she had been practicing this for a couple of years surely she would have laid the ground rules before

the choking started for me it makes it feels more likely that she asked the man to stop and he didn't like if that's how she's used to doing it and her ex-boyfriend is testifying that that's how it happened it seems likely to me that that's what went down definitely i mean you could make the narrative more towards your favor as part of the defense if you were to say she had been thinking about this for ages but i hadn't ever done it and we could prove it because she'd been looking at it on the internet and she had just gone and done it but no ex-partner ever discusses her saying this because you could say she was inexperienced maybe this guy said i know what i'm doing let's let's go i'll show you and then she dies because she doesn't know how to safely do it but exactly it sounds like she knew what she was doing or she she would have known how

to be safe it sounds like this man just did whatever the hell he wanted. So the defense did nothing to explain why the man with no name had lied in the police interviews. Because remember, the first time he talks to them, he says that they waved goodbye at 8pm and he went to go meet his colleagues. They just said that bad situations make people do bad things. Which doesn't really feel like enough of an explanation for what he does. And also, it's not stealing a pint of milk. It's putting her in a suitcase and burying her in a fucking desert. That's not a reasonable reaction in anyone's book, I don't think.

No. And the defence also argued that the pictures of Grace that the accused had on his phone had been taken while she was still alive and that she had pictures on her phone of him as well. But of course, Grace's phone was never recovered, so this is hardly a piece of evidence. Even Brookie admitted that getting rid of Grace's phone was, quote, a bad move. Brookie also explained that on the night that Grace died,

the pair had consumed 25 alcoholic drinks between them, so their mutual intoxication must have played a role in Grace's death. They even managed to find a doctor to back this up, not only from an impaired decision-making point of view, but a biological one. So this doctor argued that the alcohol in Grace's system could have meant that when she choked, it could have sent her heart into a quote, terminal tailspin, which could mean that she could have died quite quickly. So, which could mean that she could have died quite quickly. So, basically, he's saying that she could have died faster than that 5 to 10 minutes, that it would have taken a perhaps un- or less intoxicated person

to have died in the same way. And he said that, if this had been the case, that the signs that she was in danger may not have been obvious to the untrained eye i hate that because i'm like she would have been struggling she would have been they would have laid down something she would have been i'm sure of it making it clear that she wanted him to stop because she was fucking dying and choking if she's choking you're still carrying on then he's choking her though like he is the one enforcing the choking like she's not choking on her own i don't buy it either and i've said time and again that you can find a doctor to say whatever you want i don't believe there would have been no warning signals

that she was about to die i just don't no matter how drunk she was or how how drunk he was not to notice brookie argued quote it's not a dangerous act And they were not thinking of it as a dangerous act. They were thinking of it as having sex. But Dickey pointed out that instances of strangulation during sex are incredibly rare. So much so that there had never been a case of this in New Zealand before. Which I think is an incredibly interesting point because he's saying like, and we'll come on to later, just how much more common strangulation during sex has become like I know countless people who've started sleeping with a new person before and they were just like whoa where did that come from and I feel like 10 years

ago you would never hear of something like that but it's it's becoming much more common and I think the argument there is if it is so common if everyone is consensually strangling each other and this is just an unfortunate accident, why isn't it happening all the time? Exactly. And I would also argue that, I don't know, what percentage of people would we even ballpark guess that are incredibly drunk when they have sex? Like, come on. If you're putting those two things together and saying, well, it was because she was so drunk that he couldn't tell. So if we're saying that strangulation during sex is also incredibly common

and being drunk while having sex is incredibly common, I don't see how this hasn't happened before. I agree. I think it's a really interesting point. So we've already heard from Grace's ex-boyfriend and we're about to hear from previous sexual partners of the accused. And in this case, they all happen to be Tinder dates. These women, most of whom appeared in the courtroom by a video link, described the man's interest in smothering and choking. Almost all of the women said that he

made them feel uncomfortable. Just a month before he killed Grace Mullane, the accused non-fatally suffocated a woman by sitting on her face while pinning down her forearms. This went on for 30 seconds and the woman was convinced that she was going to die. And by the way, he did this to her after she told him that she didn't want to have sex. She said no, he pulled her into the bedroom and he sat on her face. And that's all in her testimony, it's linked below, you can read it. And after he got off her, he said, oh, you don't think I did that on purpose, do you? And then he went to the bathroom and when he came back, he told her that he had cancer. The defence asked this woman that if all of that story was true,

then why did she send the accused 700 messages after the event? And the witness responded that the man knew too much about her and that she was scared he would disrupt her life if she rejected him. Or worse, and I know for a fact exactly what that feels like it's mad isn't it this like you're completely within your rights to being like actually I don't want to see you again and that should that should be the end of the conversation there shouldn't need to be this negotiation over it or the fear that you're under threat from this person but it happens all the time of course because it's the should and then there's the reality of it because people like

this I mean his whole action when she said I don't want to have sex with you, is the literal manifestation of what these people do when you say you don't want to see them again, which is I'm going to completely dominate you to the point that you are terrified by doing what he did. And then also the emotional manipulation. So it's throwing everything at it, like telling her he has cancer and all of that. So despite this testimony, the defence still argued that Grace's death was not a murder, rather it was a tragic, unintended, unforeseen accident. Mr Dickey reminded the court that the man had been so collected about the whole affair, that when he was questioned by police about a suitcase, he had told them,

quote, don't worry about that, that's still in my room. Go and have a look. I haven't bought a suitcase to dispose of a body. He says that to the fucking policeman. Like, who is this person? I assume this is why he bought two suitcases. Yeah, and someone who's in a panic, to me. Someone who went and thought about buying two suitcases

so that he could say this pre-prepared line and bought them from two different shops. Yeah, totally. He's done a shit job of covering it up, but he thinks he's covering it up. Oh, he thinks he is. And that's what makes it worse. Three steps ahead of the game.

Yeah. So the jury, comprised of seven men and five women, were sent away to decide whether the death of Grace Mullane was murder or simply sex gone wrong. The man with no name was found guilty of murder and months later he was sentenced to life in prison with a non-parole period of 17 years. When this was all first unraveling I did not think he would be found guilty. I'm sad to say. Well, he's currently appealing his sentence, so it's very much not over. Yeah. Because the sentencing was only February 2020. It was literally only last month.

So, I mean, we'll see. But I was convinced he'd get manslaughter as well. His sentencing was overseen by Justice Simon Moore, who commented, quote, Manual strangulation is a particularly intimate form of violence. Your actions reveal a complete disregard for your victim. You didn't ring an ambulance or call the police. Instead, you embarked on a well-planned and sustained, coordinated course of action to conceal any evidence of what had occurred in your room.

No person under our law may consent to their own death. Consent can be revoked at any time. If Miss Mullane was rendered unconscious by the pressure applied to her neck, but the accused continue after she passed out, she was no longer consenting. And I think that is key. We're going to get into a bit of a chat with our BDSM community later on. And a lot of people have been quite upset that this case has been conflated with the BDSM community. We are going to get into it. But I think consent is so important and I hadn't actually

thought about it in that way before that if someone passes out, of course they can't be consenting anymore. And I thought that was a really interesting point of cut off, you know? No, it's a good point. I hadn't thought about it either. But we have to think about consent as being fluid during the course of the actions that are transpiring. And at any point, consent can be revoked. And if a person goes from a point at which they can be consciously, legally, all of that consenting to a point at which then during that course of that action, they can no longer consent. Yeah, of course, it makes sense that that by default means consent is revoked. That makes sense. Grace's parents, David and Gillian Mullane, appeared via video link for the sentencing which took place in February

2020. Gillian addressed her daughter's killer holding back tears. She said, Grace was never just a daughter. She was my friend, my very best friend. I torment myself over what you did to Grace. The terror and pain she must have experienced at your hands. As a mother, I would have done anything to change places with her. I should have been there, but she died terrified and alone in a room with you. Thousands of people attended vigils for Grace in New Zealand, a country with a very low murder rate. And the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, apologised to Grace's parents, saying that she should have been safe, and she wasn't. Tinder also released a statement detailing that they were deeply saddened by Grace's death

and that the safety of their members is a top priority. They also promised to look into new safety measures. Quite how they are planning on implementing those, or what they might even be I don't know I mean obviously PR is incredibly important like I understand that as a concept but I was amazed that they sort of took any responsibility for it at all because surely from a legal standpoint they're like we've never lied about what we are what we are is an app through which you meet people your actions after we're sort of out of it is kind of what can they do about that but obviously I understand that they sort of had to

say that but like what measure safety measures are they possibly putting in place I suppose you can report people but other than that I mean this is the thing I feel like it was they had to say it because it you know like kind of like with the the other man whose name I don't want to say who we've covered balcony gate blah blah blah tinder it's like, they all get called like Tinder murders and things like this. And I feel like it becomes like a PR nightmare for them. They say it, but I honestly don't know what you can report people on the app if they send you like abusive messages or send you like sexually explicit content that you don't want them to be. But like, what can you do once you meet someone in real life? And like when I had that really terrible one he had unmatched me so I couldn't

report him I couldn't tell hinge what he'd done or what happened I was completely powerless in that situation because he had decided to unmatch me on the app and that's not safe either and then I know like pubs and bars and clubs, they have like those Ask Angela posters around, but like, I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. It's tough. I can understand that they probably felt like they had to say something, but it's an empty promise, I think. The death of Grace Mullane is so famous and grabbed so many headlines that it's easy to think about it as a standalone case. But the rough sex defense is far from an isolated issue. Professor of Women's Studies and Gender Studies Lisa Gottel

has been collecting data on the rough sex defence for the University of Alberta in Canada and she has found more than 100 cases in which the defendant accused of assault, sexual assault or homicide claimed that the woman had consented to violent sex. More than half of these cases happened after 2015. In Germany in June 2019, so just last year, a man was given a 10-year sentence for the manslaughter of his wife. He claimed that his wife could only orgasm when she was being choked and this was ruled as an admissible part of his defence. In November of the same year, the German Federal Court ruled that his sentence could be

reconsidered and that these facts were not aggravating to the case. So basically, they've said you can't have that anymore. Professor Lisa told CNN, quote, we're not talking about consensual BDSM in most nearly all of the cases. These are situations of unconsensual violent sex, if not intentional murders in which the defendants are trying to get off using this defense and that's what we're talking about we're not talking about consensual bdsm between two consenting partners and i think it's such an important distinction i think it's something that people will immediately say well what so we can't have rough sex at all then like that's not what we're saying at all.

We're talking about women dying. Exactly. I think, yeah, let's just be clear. We're not conflating those two things. If somebody dies during an act like this, and then there's the argument of how could she possibly have consented to this, that's a completely separate argument and not one to be meshed together with the BDSM community or the BDSM conversation. This is about death and this is about killers using that as an argument.

They are the ones who are conflating it. They are the ones who are saying it's the same thing. And they're saying, whoops, that's not what we're saying. Another case that we came across was the killing of Cindy Gladue in 2011. In this case, Cindy was an indigenous woman and the mother of three. She bled to death from an 11-centimetre wound in her vaginal wall. This is in Canada, by the way, where Professor Lisa is from. And her killer, Bradley Barton, argued that he had paid Cindy for sex

and that she had consented to all of their sexual activity and he denied the use of a sharp object. During the trial Cindy was referred to repeatedly as a quote native prostitute. Bradley Barton was acquitted of murder. That happened in 2011 so just nine years ago. That's the kind of language, that's the kind of mentality, that's the law. And another case that we came across, just in case this isn't all shocking enough for you. In the UK, John Broadhurst was jailed for three years and eight months after admitting manslaughter and gross negligence of his partner, Natalie Connolly. He called 999 and told the operator that, quote, she was dead as a donut. What?

That's not even a phrase. Yeah, no, he just finds her dead at the bottom of the stairs and rings 999. She'll be like, yep, dead as a donut. I just don't think that's something appropriate, you should say. No. And are you going to argue shock after that's recorded of you saying, I don't understand. You're a strange man. Yeah. I only got three years for it though. Yeah. And if you want to find out what he only got three years for, listen to this,

because the post-mortem of Natalie's body revealed 40 separate injuries, including a serious internal trauma to her left eye. As we've said, I don't think these cases can be presented as consensual instances of BDSM. And I know we're throwing a lot of academics at you, but sit tight because we're not done. Barrister Susan Edwards, who's also a professor of law at the University of Buckingham here in the UK, told CNN that 30 or 40 years ago, it would be incredibly unlikely for it to be claimed in court that a victim consented to sexual violence. Now, due to the commercialisation of sexual violence, people are more likely to believe it. In England and Wales, to establish a murder conviction,

there has to be malicious intent. If there is no intention to kill found, then the verdict will be manslaughter. Edwards also wants to make strangulation a standalone offence. Currently, you can only be charged with it in the course of committing another offence, like a rape or a murder. So if you strangle someone without any other context, that in itself is not an offence, which seems odd.

According to the UN, 87,000 women around the world were intentionally killed in 2017. More than half of them were killed by their partners or family members. I found it, looking at these stats and looking at these stories, when sex is involved in any way, it's quite difficult not to think that it's sort of presented in this narrative, like the woman is somehow culpable for her own death or her own injury because of the way she chooses to enjoy sex.

That seems to be the consistent thought behind any reporting on this and this completely shocking in england and wales an average of two women a week are killed by their current or former intimate partners that is that is completely shocking completely shocking the road i live on is a pretty quiet road and there was like an he didn't she didn't die but like this lady who lives opposite me who was married to a policeman and then they separated she has two kids they live with her this guy she started seeing i think they were like seeing each other for a couple of weeks one morning i think it was like five o'clock six o'clock in the morning

i woke up to screaming and smashing outside our house and um guy just turned up with a massive metal pole and was beating her car in until she opened the door came outside and then he rushed charged into the house with her and beat the fucking shit out of her while her kids watched oh my god yeah it was horrific and was like round about christmas time i think it might even been like the i don't know like the day before christmas eve police were here and her ex-partner is a police officer like the whole thing was a complete mess and one of my other friends she's just bought a flat with her partner and they bought the upstairs flat this other woman lives in the downstairs flat she started seeing a man it ended then he then started coming to the house all the time banging on the door

arguing with her after she broke up with him then one day she sent me a picture of their back garden he'd broken into their back garden and burnt their shed down how long is it before he burns the fucking house down and that lady's now moved out to hide from him but my friend is like we look really similar what if i'm walking home one day after a night out and he thinks I'm her and he fucking kills me. It's terrifying. I think the point you made of like, you know, women being blamed for this or having to be in some way culpable, I think is really summed up quite well by former Labour leader Harriet Harman, who insists that courts should no longer accept the rough sex defence in cases of death or serious injury. She argues that, quote, men are now getting away with murder, literally by using

the rough sex defense. What an irony that the narrative of women's sexual empowerment is being used by men who inflict fatal injuries. Instead of life imprisonment, they're getting out of prison in just a few years. And I think that's it saying like, well, women are super sexually liberated now. She loved it. It's what she wanted. And she just died. It wasn't my fault. Yeah, it's like just presenting these women as casualties of women's empowerment. Like, if you want to be empowered, some of you are going to die.

Exactly. She knew what she was getting herself into, surely, when she said that she wanted this. I mean, fucking hell. I was just thinking about this just now when you were telling that awful story about your neighbour. People say it in not even necessarily connected to sex when someone has an awful breakup or someone's partner does something terrible. You will hear people say, well, oh, well, she knew what she was in for, getting with someone like him. The blame is still on the woman, not he's nuts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So following on from this and what we said at the start about people like Harriet Harman, people like we can't consent

to this pushing through or trying to push through changes to the domestic abuse bill here in the UK. And there are two proposed changes to this domestic abuse bill to combat this. So number one is in cases of death or serious injury, the defendant cannot claim that the victim consented. And two, to make the decision to use a charge less than murder, i.e. manslaughter, in domestic homicide cases, sit with the director of public prosecutions. In other words, only the head of the CPS can make that call, if it's manslaughter rather than murder. In 1994, it was ruled in the House of Lords that in the event of serious injury, a defendant could not claim that the victim consented. This is what Harriet Harman once added to the domestic abuse

bill. The British political system is incredibly confusing. I'm not even sure I understand it 100%. But what I think we should sort of make a point of saying is that just because something is passed in the House of Lords on like a case by casecase thing that doesn't mean it comes into the general law for the whole of England and Wales. So the point is that it had something very similar to the amendments that we want made to the domestic abuse bill have been ruled in the House of Lords already. What we want is for them to be added on to the domestic abuse bill which we passed into law by the House of Commons. And of course, this proposal is not without its critics. Miles Jackman is a British lawyer who specialises in pornography cases,

and he argues that this addition to the bill could outlaw a lot of BDSM practices and demonise women for participating in them. Really? Would it? I come and go with this argument. I can see where he's coming from. I'm just not sure I'm with him 100%. So he claims that the normalization of violence against women during sex is nothing to do with consent. And he says, quote,

women's deaths are being used in a very cynical way to say that a certain type of sexual activity cannot be consented to. The message seems to be not to engage with those practices. That is sending out a very dangerous message about women's sexual consent, agency and autonomy to instruct people not to engage in these activities at all. That equally cannot be right. How to even talk about this. I understand where the point he's trying to make. He's saying that if, you know, if we outlaw rough sex completely,

then nobody can consensually, roughly have sex with each other anymore. I just don't think that's what we're saying at all. I think we're saying in cases where women literally die or people die. What's more important, people dying? And if you're thinking like, oh, well, this is going to outlaw rough sex no it isn't it's just going to give you if not you it's going to give some people who maybe need it more of an incentive to not murder the person that they're having rough

sex with clearly in this case like what are what is i don't know i don't really understand this i don't feel like um having these sort of changes made would ban rough sex. It's not banning rough sex. It's banning you murdering somebody. Yeah, it would literally be used in the cases of injury or death. People wouldn't be allowed to say they asked for it is essentially all we're talking about here. And I don't think like this has been studied as well. And I really don't think that these studies can be ignored. In 2008, Johns Hopkins researchers found that women experiencing non-fatal strangulation by an intimate partner were six times more likely to be the victim of an attempted murder and seven times more likely to be a victim of actual homicide. Can we ignore that? I don't think I can. I certainly don't think I can. And when men are able to murder a woman and then walk away having said it was just she consented to it, and they walk away with manslaughter. I don't know. Dr. Ingala Smith, who's the founder of the Counting Dead Women campaign, counters Mild Jackman's argument. And she says, quote,

they are eroticizing abuse it's abuse i'm not going to defend the kink culture my concern is the women whose lives are being taken i think we're separating sexual violence from violence but violence that happens during sex is still violence i think we're talking about one thing when what is happening is something else and we're all being duped if we accept this many of the women who were killed by men who used this defence successfully have had horrific injuries. That's not rough sex, that's violence.

And how do we know they've consented to that? We don't and I don't believe that they have and I agree with her there. If they're dead, they can't tell you. Exactly. I think this is the thing. If they are dead they cannot this person cannot prove consent but you cannot prove that this person consented to their own death because who would consent and legally they shouldn't be allowed to consent to their own death like that

like what the fuck i just i have a headache i have a headache and when they are injured i assume they're like i didn't consent to this. He abused me. Yeah, yeah, exactly. This horrific thing happened. Yeah, look at all of my horrible injuries. So why can't we listen to the woman when she's like, I didn't consent to this. I now have a horrible injury because of what this person did to me. So the phrase sex game gone wrong is I'm sure that it's something you've all heard a billion times before.

And the attention paid in the media to Grace's sexual past certainly reveals a lot of things about our society. The New York Post reported, quote, killed backpacker Grace Mullane was into choking BDSM, colon, court evidence. The Evening Standard here in London said the same thing. Grace Mullane was a member of BDSM dating sites and asked ex-partner to choke her during sex. The Daily Mail jumped on it too with, quote,

Grace Mullane's killer told police she asked him to choke her during sex because she was a fan of the Fifty Shades of Grey films. Now, of course, it's clickbait for sure, but it reeks of victim blaming. And it's also his narrative. Yeah. It's just coming from this person's point of view this man is accused of murdering a 21 year old girl who was hundreds of thousands of miles away from home and still the press are using his argument which is that she asked for it and when they're like oh she asked ex-partner to choke her during sex can you

please find me an ex-partner that she asked to murder her yeah because then we could be like oh maybe that's what she was into fine fuck off as we said all that time ago at the top of the show we have been working with we can't consent to this on this episode and hopefully we'll be doing a lot more with them in future and here is a few few things that they've come across. You can find this all on their website. They have found that since 1972, at least 60 women in the UK have been killed

in quote-unquote consensual sexual violence. At least 18 of those women died in the last five years. And in 45% of those killings where they sort of claim that it was all part of a sex game gone wrong, those cases, 45% of them ended in a lesser charge. So that's a charge lesser than murder, a lighter sentence, an acquittal, and in some cases, the death not being investigated at all. We can't ignore that. This is not a one-off. And to reiterate with Dr. Ingala Smith, women don't die from rough sex. Women die because men are violent to them.

And we are living in uncertain times. As you guys know, we plan our episode releases about a month ahead of time. So when we plan to do this episode, we did it as a part of Women's Month to coincide with the sentencing of Grace's killer. We didn't know when we planned to release this that the world was going to be on fire. So we were going to ask you to do something that we've never done before. We were going to ask all of you beautiful Britain-based spooky bitches to write to your MPs about the additions to the domestic violence bill and the eradication of the rough sex defence. But now, considering what's going on, it seems like your letters might fall on deaf ears,

which is why we're going to be coming back to stories like Grace's and the rough sex defense in coming months in the meantime you can get in touch with we can't consent to this and share your stories if you feel comfortable website is linked below and another thing you can do which might just I was going to say fun it's not going to be fun but it's an interesting thing you can do is go to your local newspapers website and type in rough sex into the search bar and see how many articles come up and that's wherever you are so that's not just british-based spooky bitches that is anyone anywhere in the world go to your local newspaper and find that out and let us and what do we want

them to do send them to us send them to them send them to them yeah send them to them and if you want to tweet about the domestic violence bill, please use the hashtag DABill. And together we could probably change the world. We'll start with England and Wales, but maybe we could change it all over. Exactly. Got nothing else to do for the next few months. Well, yeah, quite. So if you feel like doing some research, please go ahead.

But also we completely understand that this is an incredibly rough time to be asking things. Oh, shit. We should also say the event we were going to be doing in April has been postponed. So if you have bought tickets, don't worry. We're working to find a new date. We think possibly September, but we're not sure. Yeah, and they did say either it will be postponed to later this year, pending whatever happens, early next year, or you will be given a full refund if you would prefer that. So I think like

maybe we can redirect people to the website i think maybe that's how to get in touch with them but yeah just so you know it's it's not going ahead other than that an enormous thank you to we can't consent to this for working with us on this episode and hopefully we'll be doing a lot more with you guys in the future please go and check out their website and you can also check out our patreon uh which is patreon.com forward slash red handed where we're going to be doing even more content than we usually would because we're all shut-ins now and here are some people who have already done so i think these are probably from the second week of february because there are just so many of you so if you haven't heard your name yet please sit tight so we have

tracy camp claudia devise sean leonard or sean le Leonard, sorry, Kayla, Sarah Evans, Reshmi, Lindsay Knuckles, Regan McLaughlin, Sarah Mora, Elena Branch, Lauren Sokolovsky, Elizabeth Zapata, Hannah Hoskins, Les Webb, Anita Coyle, Samantha Humphrey, Heather Flaherty, Anna Havison, Joanne Tubby, Melody Draper, Zoe, Amber McLeely, I don't know Amber, I'm sorry. I'm very tired now. Amy Paulson, Andrea, Jonathan Arrigia, Britta Bliss, Alexandra Brown, Uncle Father, Alison Gairdner, I don't know. Andrea Pierce, Charlie Stagg, Jade Jones, Katie Allen, Kerry Denman, Cara R. Anderson, Nicola Curtis, Daryl Sharp, Jane Wisehart, Cassie Moe, Meows Moe. I don't know. I'm having a stroke. You have to go. Oh, my God. I think I will have one at that rate. Look at how many is left.

Right. Zia, Emma Louise Mason, Alicia Laub, Pauline Chung, Lisa McKay, Lizzie Eckhart, Claire Beck, Charlotte, Benjamin Watervold, glass for glass olivia craggs martina sandelin tamara balad kajia emma ross tiffany defratas uh katherine voss charlotte bacon britney bennett anna becky l emma saunders danielle monte stucco danelle chap clapman clapham uh thomas carr sana sana pori uh there's a little umlaut there i don't know what it does to the o nick simons jessica stewart lucy cheatham talia greco karen malmquist uh mallory smith dave kelly georgia grace hayes alexandra schrerer holly tracy candice lee tran Do you want me to go again? Yes, and then we can swap back. Okay, the relay. The relay of the names. Ailey Brown, Christy Gann, Caitlin Ziska, Jasmine Green, Maeve Roche,

Soren Arengot Traulissen. You Scandinavians, man, you're fucking killing me. Helen Schultz, Nora Aldolijan, Isabella Paulino, Laura Conway, Jenna Barnett, Bonnie Homan, Rebecca Bartosz, Mariana Doran, Victoria Johnson, Linda Baileyiley jocelyn cox jackim so i don't know oliver deluxe you're quite good at the polish ones jj wang holly kimball amelia miss soul robles rob robles what did we miss soul robles? Oh, sorry. Sol Robles. Never mind. You've heard your name several times now. There you go.

Marc Dubois. Sim Ranjit Singh. Emily Hill. Jessica Priest. Gemma Credlin. Tammy Caldera. Beth Hitchman. Nick.

Teresa Kupinski. Ophelia Karrushina. Danielle Jacobo. Nicole Duncan. Carl. Carl. For me? I feel like I should know. I feel like this is an Irish one or a Scottish one. Danielle Jacobo. Nicole Duncan. Cow. Cow. Cow. For me?

I feel like I should know. I feel like this is an Irish one or a Scottish one. It looks like it's an Irish name. Cow. I think it's a V sound. Cow. Cow V Mulhall. Sorry.

I've shamed my ancestors. Dishonour on you. Dishonour on you, cow. Liz Doherty. Doherty, probably. Amanda Johnson-Roosling. Emily OBR. Sarah Mice.

Arachi Rivera. Jessica Whitfield. Kate Fisher. Jessica Howeyus. Jackie McFarlane. Tessa. Jessica Terry. Lauren Heather.

Michael Sun. I'll jump back in. Annette Blackwell. Kat. Fran Haygarth. Claire Kelly. Frances Elric Dow. Josie Cannon, Becky Economo, Julia, Olivia, Ashley Rose Spencer, Meg Stein, Erin W, Megan Ramberger, Brittany Odman, oddman odom cassie lee page amy gillespie erica kelly laurel carson jarell rourke uh jessica

govi yeah yep tally gray hannah casor dawson franca joanna allen alish har, oh God, it's you again. How are we? Deca, Morgan McMennyman, Natalia Reynolds, Brendan Calder, Dana McManus and Brooke. Thank you guys so much. Thank you very much. And hop on over to Under the Duvet where I can't remember what we're talking about, but it's probably coronavirus.

Coronavirus. Mainly coronavirus. We'll see you then. Goodbye. Bye. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about.

Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom. But I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real.

From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is the rise and fall of Diddy. Listen to the rise and fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either. Until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life.

I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.