How Harvey Weinstein’s conviction will help make world a better place – leader comment

Disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s conviction for rape and sexual assault is a landmark event for the MeToo movement.

Harvey Weinstein uses a walker as he leaves Manhattan Supreme Court on the third day of jury deliberations in his trial (Picture: Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)

When Harvey Weinstein was handcuffed and led from a New York courtroom to face up to 25 years in prison, it was a historic moment.

Once he was one of the most powerful people in Hollywood; now he is and always will be one of the most infamous sex offenders in history, the man whose crimes sparked the MeToo movement.

Weinstein was convicted of raping actress Jessica Mann in 2013 and sexually assaulting production assistant Mimi Haleyi in 2006 and still faces other charges of raping and sexually assaulting two women in 2013.

But the court heard evidence from a string of accusers who spoke of rapes, forced oral sex, groping, lewd propositions, and other examples of how Weinstein abused his power.

In total, more than 90 women, including household names like Salma Hayek and Uma Thurman, accused him of sexual misconduct of one kind or another.

The alarming thing is how many people knew or strongly suspected that ‘this sort of thing’ went on in Hollywood. For years, there were jokes about the ‘casting couch’ – with women all-too-often the victims of such cruel jibes – that belittled the appalling reality.

Weinstein’s crimes came to light after reports in the New York Times and the New Yorker in 2017. As the allegations snowballed, other people – mostly, but not all, women – began to speak out about their treatment by powerful men. This may not have always ended in criminal prosecution, but it ended careers of high-profile figures in the entertainment industry and politics.

The good thing to come out of all this is that society has fundamentally changed. Anyone in a position of power now knows – or should know – that they cannot abuse it because the risks of being caught are too high.

Gone are the days when this kind of behaviour was an open secret to be joked about in the style of Donald Trump and his infamous “locker room” talk about getting away with sexually assaulting women because he was famous. Trump knows he may face legal action when he eventually leaves the White House.

Once individual victims may have thought they were alone and that no one would believe them, but the extraordinary litany of offences exposed by the MeToo movement means the scales of justice are no longer weighted against them and they will now get a fair hearing.