He went on: “I agree with consequence tradition. It’s vital to undergo penalties due to your actions… If the consequence of what I did is that I lose my profession, I settle for that. My profession is superficial and it has a shelf life. Breaking the stigma of home abuse is not going to occur if it continues to be handled flippantly. But when something I’ve to say helps somebody earlier than they attain their breaking level, I believe that needs to be an excellent factor.”

No matter how he feels now, or who he has labored to grow to be, there needs to be penalties for his actions — even Meighan himself presupposed to agree with that. However apart from 200 hours of neighborhood service and a few dangerous press, Meighan has not precisely confronted penalties that match the seriousness of his crime. The truth is, he’s now, three years later, doubtlessly being celebrated in his trade.

Penalties aren’t solely about making certain that abusers are punished — it is also in regards to the message being despatched to different culprits and to their victims.

“Ought to these males win an award, the organisers ought to take into account how girls who’ve survived home abuse and rape will really feel watching somebody already convicted, in addition to an alleged rapist, being celebrated in such a public manner,” Girls’s Support head of media Teresa Parker mentioned. “At Girls’s Support we might urge organisers to think about how they method this, as for a lot of survivors of abuse, these males’s inclusion on the record will already be an indication that these crimes should not taken significantly – the music trade has to think about the influence on girls of who they have fun, and the way they have fun them.”

In different phrases, the BRITs’ resolution goes far past Meighan’s particular person story — no matter how sorry he’s now or he a lot works he has executed on himself, the choice to have fun him sends a chilling message to victims of home abuse in every single place.

And these messages have a real-world influence. Stories from Refuge have proven that 1 / 4 of girls will expertise home abuse all through their lives — nevertheless, fewer than 24% of home abuse crimes are reported to the police. In different phrases, home abuse is a widespread situation — and but we nonetheless have not created a tradition through which girls really feel they’ll obtain the assist they should truly report it. And celebrating a convicted abuser definitely is not going to assist.

In a world the place cancel tradition stays a sizzling subject, the BRITs’ resolution to longlist Meighan proves that so typically, an abuser’s life and profession can proceed on. In the meantime, girls within the UK nonetheless really feel unable to come back ahead about abuse for worry they will not be believed, or, that their abusers will not face penalties. And in some instances, these abusers are even publicly celebrated.

GLAMOUR reached out to the BRIT Awards for remark.