“I encourage anyone on a night out to enjoy themselves, eat, drink and be merry, but look after your friends, be aware of your environments and stick together.Enough is enough when it comes to spiking and I’m proud to support any campaign which helps stamp out this horrific crime. I’d like to wish the MancBeth launch good luck for the evening.”
The Night Time Economy Adviser for Greater Manchester Sacha Lord said this last week.
Dawn Dines, the force behind the charity Stamp Out Spiking (SOS), was in Manchester at the weekend, to attend the production of Mancbeth and talk about the “evil, evil practice of spiking.”
Spiking, or poisoning to gain control and power over someone features in the text of Shakespeare’s Scottish play Macbeth.The script for Mancbeth uses the theme of the original play and mixes it with the club scene in Manchester in the nineties. It showcases original music and an early view is taking place at The Band On The Wall in the city next Saturday.
Dawn will be there to spread the word about the dangers of spiking.
She said: “Spiking is a real threat to safety. Horrible, cowardly people do it to gain control or power over the victim. Often with the intention of sexual assault or robbery. It’s just vile.”
Losing control after being spiked can lead to calamitous situations. Rape, torture, false imprisonment. A YouGov poll in December 2022 stated that 10% of women and 5% of men said they had been spiked. Police data shows that in the year to October 2022, in around 1 in 6 cases, sexual assault was committed, more often with drink spiking and more often when the victim was female.
The media is taking notice:
Figures for England and Wales from the National Police Chiefs Council suggest that between September 2021 and 2022 there were 4,924 reports of spiking-related incidents in one year, external.
However, the Ministry of Justice said that according to its latest figures for both countries, which date from November 2017 to November 2021, there were just 40 convictions.
“These are heinous crimes which leave the victim with long lasting hideous partial memories and physical scars. They need to be taken seriously by the police and courts. I am thankful that someone like Sacha Lord understands the horrible seriousness of the act and is warning the good people of Manchester to take care out there.”
