Community Champion: Poppy Murray

Thursday 28 December 2023

The work that Poppy Murray has done to improve safety for everyone on nights out reached a new pinnacle in the build-up to the Christmas season.

The ‘It’s only a touch’ campaign launched, intending to deter potential perpetrators from committing sexual assault offences.

Having co-ordinated the ‘Girls Night In’ campaign for Guernsey and the BE LADS awareness strategy following the high-profile murder of Sarah Everard in the UK, Poppy has now launched the SafetyNet charity.

Pictured: Prior to the festive season getting underway, Poppy Murray launched Safetynet. 

Research collated locally suggests that an estimated 22 sexual assaults were committed each week on average in Guernsey during 2022.

Poppy wants to use the ‘It’s only a touch’ campaign to highlight the penalties for such criminal offences. These include a minimum of five years on the sex offender register, a maximum prison sentence of up to 10 years, and a maximum fine up to £10,000. 

As Chair of SafetyNet, Poppy has repeatedly said it is essential that the public be educated on the laws surrounding sexual assault. 

“The prevalence of sexual assault offences in Guernsey should concern all of us, and the blame lies entirely with perpetrators,” she says. 

“We have been encouraged to see the recent strong stance taken by the courts in imposing prison sentences for sexual assault. It was important to us that our first campaign gives a clear message that the penalties for this crime are significant, and we hope it will make perpetrators think twice. 

“We are deliberately running this campaign through the Christmas party season, which is a very busy time for the night-time economy industry. We want awareness surrounding sexual assault to become as ingrained as awareness about drink driving offences. Everyone knows that if you drink drive, you are risking a driving ban, fine and/or a prison sentence. There is not currently the same awareness of the penalties for sexual assault, but there needs to be.”

Pictured: Poppy Murray (centre) and her colleagues on the board of SafetyNet.

In 2022, there were 174 incidents of sexual assault reported to Guernsey Police. Prior to Christmas, Poppy said she was expecting that number to be at risk of increasing as more people head to bars and clubs for a night out, drinking alcohol and meeting other people enjoying the festive season. 

She also said that as it’s widely suspected that many incidents of sexual assault go unreported, we don’t know how often it really occurs. 

“We know from the Guernsey Police night-time economy survey, that 85% of incidents go unreported. So, we can estimate that the real figure is much more likely to be in the realm of 1,160 last year, or an average of 22 per week,” she said. 

“This is unacceptable and the only way to tackle this is to change the behaviour of perpetrators.”

Poppy has worked closely with licensees across the Bailiwick as well as Guernsey Police, while also speaking at conferences organised by police forces across the UK, to share her campaign for improved safety on nights out. 

She said the information she needed to create her campaigns has not always been easy to verify. 

“Information regarding the law and penalties for these offences was not easy to find, or understand, as a member of the public,” she explains. 

“It was important to us as a charity to provide an accurate breakdown of the law in a digestible format. Thanks to the kind support of Guernsey Police and the Law Officers, we have been able to do exactly that. We also made sure that our website can be translated into multiple different languages, so there are no barriers for non-English speakers in accessing this important information.”  

Pictured: As well as working with Guernsey Police, Ms Murray has worked with UK forces too.

Guernsey Police have been very supportive of Poppy’s work since her first efforts to co-ordinate the ‘Girls Night In’ in 2021.

Deputy Chief Officer Ian Scholes reiterated that Guernsey Police take all allegations of sexual offences very seriously. 

“SafetyNet and its campaign wholly align with one of the key three pillars of our strategy to tackle Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) – creating safe spaces,” he said. 

“We should not have to create safe spaces, they should be a given, but it is everybody’s responsibility to behave in such a way that promotes this. 

“We want islanders to feel empowered to speak out against and report sexual assault, and we want people to know that an action they view as ‘just a touch’ can actually constitute sexual assault. No one should have to experience something sexual that they did not want to happen to them. We are very pleased to have been able to support SafetyNet and will be pushing our own messaging out over Christmas to support them.” 

Pictured: There are severe penalties for anyone committing a sexual offence. 

The ‘It’s only a touch’ campaign includes eye catching banners hung up at Guernsey’s two main shopping centres of the Bridge and in Town, along with posters in night-time economy venues and a social media campaign. 

Venues were given free posters at the charity’s launch event in early November, which was attended by many licensees from bars, restaurants and clubs.

This article first appeared in Connect which can be read online HERE. 

The next edition of Connect will be available online and at select locations across the island from 1 February.