Powerful predators are now being punished instead of a slap on the wrist

It’s almost a year since the New York Times and The New Yorker published stories claiming the movie producer Harvey Weinstein had sexually harassed, assaulted, and raped dozens of women.

The #MeToo movement, which had been coined by the American activist Tarana Burke as early as 2006, was re-popularised by the actress Alyssa Milano who urged people to share their experiences of sexual violence to “give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem”.

As woman after woman, and many men, spoke up and spoke out, it was as if we could feel the ground shifting beneath us. Powerful predators, people that seemed unassailable, were being punished rather than getting away with a simple slap on the wrist. Change was here, at last, it seemed.