Jill Saward: British liberty is about living without fear

The Tories are not renowned for wasting public money. So it is something of a surprise that a leading Conservative Member of Parliament should resign his seat and force a by-election at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds, just so he can have a debate about an issue which the House of Commons has already debated and decided upon.

So David Davis's actions in causing a by-election in Haltemprice and Howden are unusual, to say the least. But they are also deeply, deeply disturbing. Because Mr Davis is not only concerned about the possibility that a small number of suspected terrorists may be detained for up to 42 days, with safeguards, while the police are allowed to investigate – he is also concerned about great swathes of other public protection measures.

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Anybody who has seen television programmes showing footage obtained by closed-circuit surveillance cameras will be concerned that what was introduced for public safety is being abused. Safeguards can and must be put into place to ensure that CCTV is used solely for what it was intended – crime prevention and detection.

But Mr Davis wants to abolish it. It is part of what he calls a "long list of repressive measures" introduced over the past decade. Another "erosion of British liberty" is the national DNA database. According to Mr Davis, neither this, nor the other security measures he now fights against, will make us safer.

He appears to be very concerned about "British liberty" but what does it mean? I want men and women – including children – to be at liberty to walk the streets of our towns and cities without fear of violence in general and sexual violence in particular, and to feel safe in their homes and workplaces. And part of "British liberty" is to expect law enforcement agencies to use every tool at their disposal to catch the people responsible for attacks.

The national DNA database has been one such tool. There have been numerous occasions when rapists have been convicted years after an attack. Surely this is a good thing? If anything, we should be expanding the DNA database so that everybody's DNA is on it.

And CCTV, while not perfect, is a valuable tool in the fight against crime. Just about every magistrates court and crown court in the country is now equipped to view CCTV footage. How many people have been convicted of all sorts of crimes thanks to the availability of CCTV?

Mr Davis claims his decision to force a by-election was driven by the "draconian infringement of the citizen's fundamental freedom not to be held in police detention for prolonged periods without being informed of the charges against him" – he calls this a "watershed in the erosion of British liberty". And yet at the same time, the issue of rape and sexual violence is something that affects the freedoms and liberties of thousands upon thousands of people – mainly women – each year. So you would assume that as Shadow Home Secretary, Mr Davis would have had something to say on the subject. You would be wrong! A search on the parliamentary website shows that Mr Davis's only contribution in the House on the subject of rape was to ask four written questions about statistics.

Now, here's a quandary. Mr Davis wants to debate "British liberties" on the basis of the 42-day pre-charge detention limit, the national DNA database and CCTV. But neither Labour nor the Liberal Democrats want to debate these issues through a phoney by-election. The Commons is the place MPs debate such issues. But why should Mr Davis be allowed to set the terms of the debate? We need a challenger to Mr Davis who will debate the issue of sexual crime. I am not usually supportive of single-issue candidates. But he wants a debate, so let him have one!

We need somebody to stand in the by-election who will champion the rights of women and men not to have their bodies violated. We need somebody who will force MPs and politicians of all parties to pay serious attention to this issue. And we need somebody to stand in this by-election who will say the national DNA database and CCTV are good things – for proof, just ask those victims who have seen their attacker jailed.

I am not a politician. But when a Shadow Home Secretary says nothing about such an important issue as sexual violence and then resigns over an issue of pre-charge detention which may not affect anybody at all, somebody has got their priorities wrong and somebody needs to get the issue of rape on to the agenda.

The writer, who was raped during the Ealing vicarage attack in 1986, is standing in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election