In the year since forced marriage was criminalised in the UK, only one conviction has taken place. In June, a 34-year-old man was jailed for forcing a 25-year-old woman to marry him under duress. Merthyr Crown Court in Wales heard that the man – who was already married to someone else – repeatedly raped his victim over a period of months, threatened to publish footage of her having a shower and told her that her parents would be killed, unless she agreed to become his wife.
The defendant was put on the sex offenders’ register and sentenced to 16 years in custody, to be released under an extended licence for another five years afterwards. This is an important case, which will raise questions about whether these offences – which also included rape, voyeurism and bigamy, alongside forced marriage – could have been prosecuted under the existing criminal law.
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