Jamie Griffiths, 19, was wrongly convicted of two charges of sexual assault for walking up to a girl and touching her shoulder. He must sign the Sex Offenders' Register for the next five years, along with having to do 200 hours of community service.

Jamie Griffiths was a student at Durham University who struggled to make friends and suffers from anxiety. He had encountered a former classmate twice, attempting to interact with her in order to make a friend.

In their first encounter, Griffiths touched the girl’s arm in hopes of getting her attention. He tried smiling in order to be friendly towards the girl. However, the girl perceived his behavior to be bizarre, for Griffiths suddenly walked up to her without saying anything. Thus, she chooses to ignore Griffiths and tried to avoid him by walking away.

The second encounter was apparently more traumatizing for the girl. According to her, she said that “He smirked at me, he didn’t stop, he just touched me and walked off”. She identified this starnge behavior as sexual assault. Thus, she and her mother filed a crime report based off both of her encounters with Griffiths, and got the court involved.

While Jamie Griffiths’ awkward touches were a wrong way of approaching strangers, it was not fair for Griffiths to be classified as a sex criminal soley because of his ineractions. He even apologized for his actions, stating that “"I tried to speak to her but I just couldn't, my anxiety kicks in and it makes it impossible to say anything. I would hate to make someone feel uncomfortable or scared". In short, Griffiths did not have any sort of malicious intent with the girl.

While the girl was responsible for the charges that Griffiths has to face, she was not completely at fault. The girl, and many other girls, are encouraged to view any strange interactions as a sort of suggestive behavior. In the case of this girl, she was encouraged to view these interactions as sexual assault. The fact that the authorities have allowed this case to go to court further encourages the idea that young women should be terrified of men.

Whie sexual assault is a real issue, we cannot blur the lines between awkward, uncomfortable and weird social interactions and criminal, sexually abusive behaviour. Our modern day society encourages women to see themselves as constantly vulnerable to male advances, and encourages them to alert authorities at the first sign of abnormality in interactions. Thus, men are encouraged to avoid any interactions with women in fears that these accusations will harm them in any shape or form.

The original intent of creating this petition was to help clear up Jamie Griffiths’ name, and help him resume his life as normal. However, after reflecting upon the situation, I wanted to raise awareness towards this atmosphere that our society has created, where we live in constant fear of each other rather than trying to be more communicative with other people. I also want to address the issue of the tone of feminism, as, in my personal belief, was partly responsible for this tone that we have created towards men and women in our society.

Thus, I am hoping to use this petition to spread awareness for these issues, along with helping an individual retain his reputation and his life back.