Worcestershire musician felt ignored by police after she was cyberflashed

BBC News

3 days ago

A musician said she was ignored by her local police force and made to feel "a nuisance" after she was sent pornographic images and videos by a man she had met once at work.Anna Downes, who waived her right to anonymity, said cyberflashing needed to be taken more seriously and she felt forced to investigate the crime herself.She reported it to West Mercia Police in September but it took nearly half a year for Ben Gunnery to be arrested, convicted and given a two-year community order.A spokesperson for the force said they have apologised to Ms Downes for the time it took to transfer her case to the Metropolitan Police.
The professional violinist and teacher, from Worcestershire, met Gunnery, a fellow musician, once in 2024 when they played at the same concert."I [then] started to get a bunch of messages that had been deleted. Ten of them at once, sent late at night," she said."Then the next morning he'd message saying 'oops, sorry, smashed'."
Then she received explicit and indecent photos and videos showing him naked."I was just stunned and felt horrified and violated," she said."I had quite a long period of time where I would struggle to get to sleep at night and every time I shut my eyes, I would be faced with these images again.Gunnery, 45, from Vauxhall, south west London, performed music for films, toured the world and, at the time of his offence, was teaching children and adults.Ms Downes immediately blocked him and reported what had happened to West Mercia Police.She sent the force the images and links to his social media, website and work address and also reported it to the Musicians' Union."I thought, from everything I'd read in the media, that it would be taken seriously and dealt with," she said.
Ms Downes' statement was taken and she was told the case would most likely be passed to the Metropolitan Police as the man lived in London.For several months there appeared to be no progress.From September to January, she got in touch with West Mercia Police more than 20 times.They told her the Met would not accept the case as they were not able to find the man's home address.That confused Ms Downes as West Mercia Police had told her they knew where he lived."It just made me more and more resentful and less hopeful that anything would come of it really," she said.
In January, she contacted the BBC.We then got in touch with both forces and, within two weeks, West Mercia Police had transferred the case to the Met.Within a week, Gunnery was arrested, charged and appeared in court.In a trial in May, he was found guilty of intentionally sending the images to cause alarm, distress and humiliation.The 45-year-old told the court he had struggled with a cocaine addiction for four years, he could not remember messaging her and he had meant to send the images to his partner.The court heard he had been previously convicted of a similar offence in 2023 when he had twice sent indecent and offensive images to a woman he had met through work.On Tuesday, Gunnery was given a two-year community order including 150 hours of unpaid work and Judge Nermine Abdel Sayed told him he would be sent to prison if he reoffended.The judge said he should have known the impact his actions would have and that his victim now feels "like she has to constantly look over her shoulder".
Cyberflashing, when offenders send unsolicited explicit images to people via an online platform, such as messaging applications and social media, became a crime in the UK in January 2023.A YouGov poll found four in 10 women, aged 18 to 34, had received an unsolicited sexual photo from someone who was not a romantic partner.Ms Downes said she chose to speak out to encourage others."It would be much easier for me to just become a statistic," she said."I've done nothing wrong. I was just doing my job. Ben Gunnery chose to send me pornographic images. I did nothing to encourage that behaviour."Most men are not like this and this behaviour needs to be called out. It's not something that I want my sons to think is normal."It's very easy to feel some element of shame and keep it to yourself. But right from the word go, I was determined I wasn't going to do that."Ms Downes said she was inspired to keep pushing the police to investigate her complaints by the experience of BBC correspondent Lucy Manning.Lucy received sexually explicit phone calls from a stranger but her case was dropped by the police and only reopened after a Victims' Right to Review was carried out.After hearing Lucy interviewed on BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine show, Ms Downes said she became more determined to get justice.
Ms Downes said her experience seemed at odds with the inquiry into Sarah Everard's killer Wayne Couzens, a police officer who abducted, raped and murdered her while off duty.The government accepted the inquiry's recommendations that there should be a fundamental review of how indecent exposure was treated.But Ms Downes said she felt her case was not a priority for West Mercia Police."I feel that they're fobbing me off really. I've reported this crime. It is the police's job to investigate it," she said."As the victim, I want to know that my crime is dealt with quickly and with results."I felt gaslit by West Mercia Police. I felt ignored and they made me feel like I was a nuisance."A spokesperson for the force said they understood her frustrations over the delay in their investigation, had apologised and given her a "full explanation".An internal review concluded West Mercia's service was "acceptable" and officers complied with policy while the crime was being transferred to another force.The Met's spokesperson told us they regret "any distress caused by this delay" and admitted there were delays in confirming the man's address.A Wandsworth Council spokesperson said Gunnery was suspended from his teaching role and would not be employed by the college again.
Follow BBC Hereford & Worcester on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.