The proposed “Eleanor’s Law”: letter to Alex Davies-Jones MP, 13 November 2026

Text of a letter sent on 13 November 2026 to Alex Davies-Jones MP at the Ministry of Justice. The annex and enclosures referred to in square brackets are not reproduced here.

Alex Davies-Jones MP
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
(Minister for Victims, Violence Against Women and Girls and International Justice)
Ministry of Justice
102 Petty France
London SW1H 9AJ

Sent by E-mail

13th November 2026

Dear Minister,

The proposed “Eleanor’s Law”: private prosecutions for perverting the course of justice

I write about the proposal known as “Eleanor’s Law”, which Jess Brown-Fuller MP raised with you at Justice questions on 10 November 2026 and which you said you would look into.

As I understand it, the proposal would prevent a private prosecution for perverting the course of justice being brought against a person who has reported rape.

It follows the first general recommendation in the Views of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in Communication No. 184/2022, that such offences “may only be prosecuted by the public prosecuting authorities” (paragraph 10).

I am the person who brought the private prosecution of Eleanor de Freitas in August 2013, and I am referred to in the Views as “A.P.”. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) took the prosecution over in December 2013. I was not a party to the proceedings before the Committee.

Ms de Freitas’s death was a tragedy, and I share the aim that no one who has been raped should be deterred from reporting it. I write because the law also has to protect a second group, namely people who have been falsely accused, and because I believe the concerns that have been raised can be met by a much smaller change than a ban. I set that change out in section 5.

Numbers in round brackets, such as (9.5), are paragraphs of the Views. References in square brackets are to the documents sent with this letter: [Annex 1] is document 1 in the annex, [Order] is the order of Mr Justice Holroyde of 9 March 2016 refusing permission for judicial review, cited by the paragraphs of his reasons, and [Coroner] is the Coroner’s submissions to the High Court of July 2015, cited by paragraph.

1. My case is not an example of a malicious prosecution

The proposal is directed at a prosecution brought maliciously, as retaliation, by a man who has in fact committed rape. Mine was not such a case, and no court or review has found that it was.

The police took no further action on Ms de Freitas’s complaint against me in February 2013. I asked them to investigate my complaint that her allegation was false, and they refused. I then brought the prosecution through solicitors who specialise in private prosecutions. At the first hearing, on 11 September 2013, the magistrates heard and refused an application to stop the case as an abuse of process (8.8). Five days later my solicitors wrote to hers asking for medical evidence of her condition, so that it could be taken into account at the public interest stage [Annex 1].

The CPS then reviewed the case for itself. Its letters record that any decision had to be approved by a Chief Crown Prosecutor or Deputy and ratified by its Special Crime Division [Annex 2], that it considered the papers submitted by both sides, obtained material from the police and viewed Ms de Freitas’s recorded interview [Annex 3], and that it considered a psychiatric report [Annex 4]. On 5 December 2013 it wrote that the evidential and public interest stages of the Full Code Test were met, and that it would continue the prosecution [Annex 5].

That decision has since been examined three times. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) reviewed it (2.8, 6.5) and said, in her statement of 9 December 2014: “I am satisfied that the decision making in this case was correct and that it was made in accordance with our policies and guidance.” She described the evidence as “strong”, and as “including text messages and CCTV footage that directly contradicted the account Ms de Freitas gave to the police”. On mental health, she said that prosecutors had “a very detailed report by a consultant forensic psychiatrist instructed by Ms de Freitas’ legal team”, which found her fit to stand trial. The Coroner’s submissions are to the same effect: prosecutors had reviewed “a very full assessment of her fitness to stand trial”, and none of her treating clinicians had said that she was unfit to stand trial or at immediate risk of suicide [Coroner, paragraphs 23 and 44(b)].

The High Court refused Mr de Freitas permission for judicial review of the Coroner’s ruling on 9 March 2016. Mr Justice Holroyde said that the CPS “had medical evidence, including that which was relied on by those representing the deceased, which did not identify any real or immediate risk to her life” [Order, paragraph 5]. That refusal was upheld after an oral hearing on 24 May 2016 (2.9). In June 2018 the Attorney General declined to order an independent inquiry (6.8), saying: “I am satisfied that this case has already been subject to extensive scrutiny within the CPS”. None of them found that the prosecution was wrongly brought or continued, and that was the United Kingdom’s own position before the Committee (6.3, 6.4).

The Committee itself said that it was not called to determine the merits of the decision to prosecute (9.5), and it did not reassess the evidence (9.14). It found that the legal framework which allowed the prosecution to be brought, and the decision of the CPS to continue it, breached the Convention (9.10, 9.16). I do not ask you to reargue that here. My point is that this case does not show the mischief at which the proposal is aimed.

Nor has any court or inquest found that the prosecution caused Ms de Freitas’s death. The Coroner was satisfied that she took her own life, and declined to investigate the prosecution as a cause [Order, paragraph 1]. Mr de Freitas argued that the impending trial was a stressor which may have influenced her decision. The Coroner answered that it could not be right that, in any suicide case, “the coroner must investigate in detail any and all events which may have distressed the deceased person and influenced his/her decision”. He asked whether he would then have been obliged “to investigate in detail relationship issues within the de Freitas family”, which were recorded in her clinical notes as affecting her mental condition [Coroner, paragraph 39(d)]. The High Court held that it was not arguable that he had been wrong [Order, paragraph 1], and the Views make no finding on the cause of her death. If the reasons for her death are to be relied on as a ground for changing the law, all of the circumstances would have to be examined, and that has never been done.

2. Where the system failed: the police did not investigate

The failure in my case came at the very start. In the words of the DPP’s statement, “the police never undertook an investigation into the alleged perverting the course of justice”. When the CPS became involved, it asked them to think again. Its letter of 8 October 2013 says: “although the CPS cannot direct the police to undertake an investigation I have asked them to re-consider this position” [Annex 2]. Its letter of 13 November 2013 records that it had met the police in conference, and that they “confirm their original decision to take no action” [Annex 3].

That failure worked against both Ms de Freitas’s defence and the prosecution. An investigator must pursue all reasonable lines of inquiry, whether they point towards or away from the suspect (paragraph 3.5 of the Code of Practice issued under the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996). A police investigation would therefore have gathered any evidence that helped Ms de Freitas as well as the evidence against her, and she would have been interviewed under caution. The absence of an interview is one of the Committee’s criticisms (9.13). It was a decision for the police. A private prosecutor has no power to conduct an interview under caution. The Committee also notes that the police did not support the prosecution (9.13). The DPP’s answer was that, having never investigated or considered all the material, the police “were therefore not in a position to form a view on whether there was sufficient evidence to prosecute”.

An early investigation could also have resolved the matter quickly and at a much lower level, and perhaps without any prosecution at all. The lesser offence of wasting police time has to be prosecuted within six months of the complaint (CPS guidance). Ms de Freitas made her complaint on 4 January 2013. By the time I was left with no alternative but to prosecute, in August 2013, that period had passed and the only charge open was the far more serious one.

I believe that the police are under political pressure not to treat a complaint of rape as false, and so are reluctant to investigate an allegation of perverting the course of justice, and that this is what happened in my case. It would explain why they refused to investigate, and refused again when the CPS asked them to reconsider. It would also explain what happened over disclosure. After the CPS had taken the prosecution over, the police officer in the case did not comply with the disclosure obligations. Ms de Freitas’s own solicitor, Martin Lee of EBR Attridge LLP, recorded this in a letter to her dated 7 March 2014. He wrote that the CPS had confirmed that the officer “has not complied with any of the Prosecutor’s obligation in ensuring that their disclosure obligations are complied with”, and that the CPS had “appointed another Officer to undertake that task and in particular to address the issue of disclosure as matter of urgency” [Annex 6]. The CPS therefore put the matter right, so that the defence could be given the material to which it was entitled. That was a highly unusual step, and the DPP’s statement confirms that “a police disclosure officer was provided in March 2014”.

The Metropolitan Police have since dealt with my complaints about this. In February 2019 they agreed, by a consent order in the County Court, to pay me £10,000 in damages in settlement of a claim I had brought over their refusal to investigate [Annex 7]. In December 2019 they told me that two of my complaints against Detective Inspector Julian King, including his refusal to investigate, had been upheld, and that he had left the force before any action could be taken. A ban on private prosecution would leave a person who has been falsely accused entirely dependent on a police officer’s decision whether to investigate, and in my case the refusal to investigate was the subject of an upheld complaint.

3. What a ban would mean for a person who has been falsely accused

A person who is arrested on an allegation of rape and never charged has almost no means of clearing their name.

  • No public answer. The complainant has lifelong anonymity, and it is an offence to publish anything likely to identify her as the complainant (sections 1 and 5 of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992). The person accused has no such protection. Anything they say publicly in their own defence must avoid identifying her, which severely limits what they can say.
  • No right of review. The police Victims’ Right to Review scheme applies only where a suspect has been interviewed under caution. It gives no remedy where the police decline to investigate at all.

A private prosecution is then the only route to a criminal court. Parliament preserved it in section 6(1) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985, and the United Kingdom described it to the Committee as “a constitutional safeguard against inaction or partiality by public authorities” (6.10). The United Kingdom also told the Committee that its law pursues “a legitimate balance” between protecting victims of sexual violence and safeguarding people from the serious harm caused by false allegations (6.14).

If Parliament removes the private route in this class of case, that balance can be kept only if something is put in its place. At the least, the police would have to be placed under a duty to record and investigate every complaint that an allegation of rape was false, with a right to have any refusal reviewed. Without that, a person who has been falsely accused would be left with nothing.

4. There is no evidence that the right has been abused in this way

I am not aware of any recent case in which a private prosecution, against a complainant of rape or sexual violence, has been found to be malicious or vexatious. The Views identify none. Nor does the written evidence which the Centre for Women’s Justice gave to Parliament in July 2020, which makes no claim about the truth of the complaint in my case and does not describe my prosecution as vexatious. I should be grateful to know whether the Department holds any record of such a case.

Such a case is also inherently unlikely. A man who had in fact committed rape, and against whom the police had taken no further action, would by prosecuting his accuser be inviting a court, the CPS and the police to examine the evidence against him all over again.

The law already provides several points at which an improper prosecution can be stopped.

  • The defendant may apply for the summons to be set aside, or for the proceedings to be stayed as an abuse of process.
  • The CPS may take over any private prosecution and stop it (section 6(2) of the 1985 Act). Its published policy is that it should take over a private prosecution which alleges a false claim of rape or serious sexual assault, unless there are exceptional circumstances.

What remains is the period between the application for a summons and the point at which the court or the CPS first examines the case. That is where any reform should be aimed.

5. A smaller change which would meet the concern

I suggest one change. It would apply to every private prosecution, and so would raise standards generally and not only in the rare case of this kind. An application for a summons by a private prosecutor should have to be made by a solicitor regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), who certifies to the magistrates’ court that the Full Code Test has been applied as the CPS would apply it, including any CPS guidance on the offence in question.

This would have three advantages. First, a private prosecution would be subject to the same test as a public one from the outset. The solicitor would have to be satisfied that there was a realistic prospect of conviction and that a prosecution was in the public interest. In a case of this kind that would include the CPS guidance which requires the suspect’s mental health and other vulnerabilities to be assessed at both stages. That answers the concern that a summons can be obtained on a low threshold, without the Full Code Test.

Second, there would be accountability. A solicitor must not mislead the court, and may make only those assertions which are properly arguable (paragraphs 1.4 and 2.4 of the SRA Code of Conduct). A solicitor who gave a false certificate would answer for it to the court and to the regulator. An individual acting alone answers to no one in that way. I recognise that regulation alone is not a guarantee, as the Post Office prosecutions showed. The point of the certificate is that a named solicitor takes personal responsibility to the court for the decision to prosecute.

Third, the citizen’s right to bring a private prosecution would be preserved. A person whose complaint the police have declined to investigate could still put it before a criminal court, but only where a solicitor was prepared to certify that the Full Code Test was met. That matters all the more when the resources of the police and the CPS are under pressure.

On the other proposals which have been made, I can be brief. I have no objection to the CPS reviewing a case of this kind: its policy is already to take such cases over, and it did so in mine. An interview under caution is a matter for the police, and I would support their being required to offer one. Loss of anonymity is not a feature of private prosecution: section 1(4) of the 1992 Act permits reports of a complainant’s own trial whoever prosecutes (R v Beale [2017] EWCA Crim 1012, paragraph 13). Nor was it an issue in this case.

The Views record, as part of Mr de Freitas’s account, that I made representations about Ms de Freitas online (2.6). She was never named or identified, in the press or online, during her lifetime, and there has never been such a finding. She was first identified publicly after her death, in statements which her father made to the press, to which I then responded in order to defend myself against allegations he made. This is recorded in R v Economou for which I was acquitted on allegations of harassment. District Judge Tan Ikram recorded at paragraph 40 of that Judgement:

“Through his actions, he protested his innocence in the strongest terms and the legal and potential financial consequences if Mr de Freitas unlawfully repeated the false allegations. He was doing so because he was wrongly being accused and trying to deter repetition Through the internet, he felt he was telling the world the facts to counter what was being wrongly said of him.”

On the final point, I would not oppose a complainant keeping anonymity until conviction, provided the change applied to CPS prosecutions as well.

6. Conclusion

As it stands, the proposal would protect one group at the expense of another. For the reasons given in section 2, the police are under political pressure not to investigate a person who has reported rape or sexual violence for making a false complaint, and the resources of the CPS are under pressure. A safeguard is therefore needed for the case in which the police fail in their duty, as Detective Inspector King was found to have done when my complaint against him was upheld. If a person who has been falsely accused could not bring a private prosecution either, they would have no means of putting their case before a criminal court at all. A private prosecution brought responsibly, through solicitors who consider the public interest from the start, is that safeguard and not an abuse. My solicitors’ letter of 16 September 2013 shows that this was done in my case [Annex 1].

Nor should my case be the example on which the law is changed. It was not vexatious or malicious. The application to stop it as an abuse of process failed (8.8), and none of the other applications open to Ms de Freitas was issued (4.1, 4.2). The CPS took the prosecution over and continued it [Annex 5]. The DPP, the High Court and the Attorney General have each considered it since, and none has found that it was wrongly brought or continued.

My own position has always been that I was falsely accused, and that Ms de Freitas’s allegation was knowingly false. Viewed objectively, however, as you must view it, the position in law is this. Ms de Freitas made a complaint to the police, who took no further action on it, having concluded that there was no realistic chance of a conviction (2.3). I made a complaint, and the police refused to investigate it. The CPS, which examined the evidence on both sides, concluded that there was a realistic prospect of proving that her allegation was false, and the DPP confirmed that conclusion. No court has ruled on either complaint, and each of us is entitled to the presumption of innocence. It would therefore be wrong to change the law on the footing that Ms de Freitas was the victim of a crime, or that I committed one. That has never been established. Yet the case for change is presented as though it had been: the subject line of the Views describes her as “the victim of rape” and me as the “alleged perpetrator”.

I should be glad to meet you or your officials, and to provide any further documents. I enclose an annex of eight documents, the order of Mr Justice Holroyde and the Coroner’s submissions.

Yours sincerely,

Alexander Economou

Enclosures:

  • Annex of 8 documents, 13 pages;
  • Order of Mr Justice Holroyde dated 9 March 2016 refusing permission for judicial review;
  • Coroner’s submissions of July 2015.
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