First man convicted under new sex-based harassment law on train

David Stroud has become the first man convicted under England and Wales’ new sex-based harassment law after a disturbing incident on a Hastings-to-London train that prosecutors said crossed the line from unwelcome attention into criminal conduct. The 44-year-old, of Maidstone and Dartford in Kent, was sentenced at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court to a 12-month Community Order and 150 hours of unpaid work.

The case is the first major test of Section 4B of the Public Order Act 1986, a new offence inserted by the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023 and brought into force on 1 April 2026. The law was designed to criminalise intentional harassment, alarm or distress because of a person’s sex or presumed sex, with a maximum penalty of up to two years in prison. Ministers have said it is meant to cover the everyday spaces where women and girls have long altered routes, routines and behaviour to stay safe, including streets, parks, public transport, taxis and shops.

Court heard that on 3 April, just two days after the law took effect, Stroud repeatedly made inappropriate comments to a woman on the train, asked to kiss her, called her “magical” and said he loved her “iridescent hair” before grabbing her hair as the train approached London. The victim’s boyfriend reported the incident, and British Transport Police officers met the train at London Bridge station, where Stroud was arrested at 10.30pm. While under caution, he dismissed his conduct as “just banter.”

British Transport Police said the sentence made Stroud the first man sentenced under the new legislation in England and Wales, and said it had already made 26 arrests under the offence in the first two months after it came into force, all of them men. That early pattern is likely to be watched closely by police, prosecutors and lawmakers as they work out how consistently the statute is being used, and where courts draw the line between offensive behaviour and conduct serious enough to trigger a criminal charge.

The case also shows how the law moved from campaign demand to courtroom tool. It began as a Private Members’ Bill brought by Greg Clark and Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, after years of campaigning by groups including Plan International UK and Our Streets Now. Home Office minister Jess Phillips said the law shifts responsibility onto perpetrators rather than forcing women and girls to manage the problem themselves. British Transport Police Detective Superintendent Sam Painter said the force had pushed for the law to strengthen its response on the railway, while Crown Prosecution Service prosecutor Nathan Miebai said close collaboration across the criminal justice system could help secure more outcomes for victims and support safer public spaces.

The broader transport-safety push has not stopped there. The Angiolini Inquiry Part 2 also recommended that Project Vigilant be rolled out nationally across forces in England and Wales by April 2026, underscoring a wider effort to confront sexually motivated harassment before it becomes normalized on trains, platforms and other shared public spaces.