A Jewish MP has waived her right to anonymity to speak publicly for the first time about being raped while attending an event in her capacity as a Member of Parliament.
Charlotte Nichols, the Labour MP for Warrington North, made the disclosure in parliament yesterday, while giving a speech during a debate on government plans to abolish some jury trials.
Speaking in the House of Commons Nichols, who was first elected in 2019, accused the justice secretary David Lammy of using the victims of crime as a "cudgel" to push through his proposed reforms of the legal system.
Noting that it took three years for her case to reach court, Nichols argued the Courts and Tribunals Bill did not adequately address the long waiting times to which victims of crime are subjected, and pitted “survivors and defendants against each other”.
Nichols’ attacker was acquitted at crown court but then ordered to pay compensation after the MP won a civil case against him, she said.
“I waited 1,088 days to go to court,” Nichols told the Commons. “Every single one of those days was agony.”
Her public profile “meant that the mental health consequences of my trauma were played out in public”, she continued.
This led to her being sectioned for her own safety – an episode she said she continues to receive “regular social media abuse from strangers” about.
🚨 WATCH: Labour MP Charlotte Nichols reveals she was raped as an MP as she opposes the jury trial reforms
— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) March 10, 2026
"I waited 1,088 days to go to court. We've been told [by the Government] that if we have concerns about this Bill, it's because we've not been raped" pic.twitter.com/0mYy3T2Tk7
“In this debate, experiences like mine feel like they’ve been weaponised and are being used for rhetorical misdirection, for what this bill actually is,” Nichols said.
The MP who has been widely applauded for her speech continued: “The violence against women and girls sector [hasn’t] had the opportunity to come together to discuss it, and the government’s framing and narrative has been to pit survivors and defendants against each other in a way I think is deeply damaging.
“We have been told that if we have concerns about this bill, it is because we have not been raped or because we don’t care enough for rape victims.
"The opposite is true in my case; it is because I have been raped that I am as passionate as I am about what it means for a justice system to be truly victim-focused.
“It is because I have endured every indignity that our broken criminal justice system could mete out that I care what kind of reform will actually deliver justice for survivors and victims of crime more widely.”
Nichols added: “There is so much that we can be doing for rape victims that isn’t the lord chancellor using them as a cudgel to drive through reforms that aren’t directly relevant to them.
“As a starting point, Rape Crisis England and Wales have called for five key demands in their “Living in Limbo” report. Don’t say that this bill helps deliver justice for rape victims, until it actually, materially, does.”
The bill passed its first vote in Commons yesterday by 304 to 203. It will now proceed for further scrutiny by MPs. If passed, cases with a likely sentence of three years or less will be heard by a single crown court judge and no jury.
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