How One Woman Made Upskirting a Crime in 18 Months

In July 2017, at a music festival in Hyde Park, London, a man took a photograph up her skirt without her consent. She grabbed his phone, saw the image, and took it straight to the police. They told her, gently, that there was nothing they could do — it wasn’t a specific criminal offence. Within days, the case was closed.

She went home and decided that answer was not good enough. With no lawyer, no funding, and no political connections, she launched a campaign to make upskirting a crime. Eighteen months later, she had changed the law for all of England and Wales.

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Martin’s power did not come from expertise. She had no legal degree, no seat in Parliament, no wealthy backers. What she had was a refusal to accept a bad answer and the stamina to keep asking the question long after most people would have given up. The expertise — the lawyer, the MP, the drafting — arrived because she kept going, not before.