Former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies has slammed successive governments for "letting down" women and girls after a shocking report into crimes being committed in mixed-sex changing rooms was published.
Data obtained by the Women's Rights Network (WRN) through Freedom of Information requests shows at least 16 rapes, 80 sexual assaults and 65 voyeurism incidents were recorded at leisure facilities in 2023 alone.
The WRN report has characterised shared changing facilities as a "magnet for sexual predators" and is calling for single-sex provision to become standard.
Speaking on The Late Show Live, Ms Davies told GB News' Bev Turner that single-sex changing rooms for women are "basic common sense".
Ms Davies told GB News' Bev Turner that single-sex changing rooms for women are 'basic common sense'
|GB NEWS
Ms Davies, who is also the CEO of Women's Sports Union, said: "We know that the vast majority of sexual assaults are men on women.
"If you put women in a vulnerable position and a mixed-sex changing room, women are going to have more sexual abuse incidents.
"I also think what is terribly sad is if you look back at the number of sexual assaults over the last 20 years, it has gone from 60,000 to 210,000, so we are going so badly in the wrong direction.
"And yet here we are bringing down barriers to safeguarding every single day."
The former Olympic swimmer added that women's sport had been thrown "under the woke bus" with biological men allowed to compete.
Ms Davies said: "I do feel like women and girls have been let down by successive governments, but particularly by this one.
"The Supreme Court has now made it very clear so they have everything they need to turn around and put better safeguards back into place again."
Bev, a former swimmer herself, recounted that when she was competing, "it was very clear that the girls went in the girls changing rooms and the boys went to the boys changing rooms".
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The former Olympic swimmer added that women's sport had been thrown 'under the woke bus'
|GB NEWS
The GB News presenter asked when she believed that "change" happened and what "motivated" it, Ms Davies blamed it on the "money" saved by leisure centres only needing to build one set changing rooms.
She added: "It tends to be local authorities, less so if you go to a private club - it's often the councils who make the wrong decisions here.
"It's the ignoring the statistics which I find so heart-breaking.
"How much do we have to see and only this week, the number of young girls that have been raped - how much are we supposed to tolerate and how much are we supposed to see before we say enough is enough?
Bev said it used to be 'very clear' which gender went into which changing room
|GB NEWS
"Looking at the statistics that have come back from the WRN, what it shows is that women just remove themselves and young girls just stop going to the swimming pool."
Ms Davies continued: "We do not tend to shout about this, I do because I am very loudmouthed...but an awful lot of women just take themselves away.
"These policies are not inclusive, they are excluding women and girls."
The women's rights activist was nominated for peerage by Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch this week.
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